At
seven o'clock in the morning, as I opened the door of my house, I noticed a
well to do man, clad in branded tee-shirt, half pant and sports
shoes, coming towards my house with his two
dogs. Suddenly one of his dogs forced him to stop as
it had to relieve at its favourite point, the corner of our house.
I had noticed him previously too and advised him in polite manner to take
his dogs straight to a nearby secluded place full of plants and shrubs and
refrain from easing his dogs near our house. This time knowing that my direct
talk with him would lead to unnecessary arguments, I tried to avoid him. In the meantime my wife also noticed
him. She reminded him of our earlier
advice. But the man returned the argument more violently asking my wife
to mind her own business. I could not refrain myself and jousted towards
that man from within the boundary wall of my house with a strong warning that
either he should leave the place immediately or be ready to face the
consequences. After few hot arguments, the man retreated
indignantly. It was 15th August today and as my son switched
on the TV at 7.30 or so, I heard Prime Minister Modi making a strong appeal to
the people India to take a pledge to make the country clean by 2019 to mark the
150 birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It forced me to write my views on this issue.
In
our country, littering around is considered as dharma, a pious job for the
welfare of scavengers. Once I had to stay in a Government Guest
house on an official tour along with some other colleagues including one upper
caste senior class I officer, a hardened paan addict. In his office, the
dustbin always used to rot with paan. The guest house, being a new one,
was very spic and span. Even an insane man would dither from
smearing the costly wash basins with beautiful designer steel wares.
But how could anyone stop our that senior man from spitting into the wash
basins and in nooks and corners of the guest house. One of us
summoned some courage to advise him that he should at least run the tap after
spitting paan in basin. But to our great dismay, he retorted back, “yaar,
if I have to do all this, then what that b****** sweeper will do”. I
could not believe that an educated person like him could behave in this manner.
The
sweepers have the responsibility of keeping the country clean but have a
very low respectability in society. But it is not society’s
fault either. It is difficult for the
mundane people to be respectful to the people who always live in dirt. But still the society is at fault. At
many places, they are still being forced to do manual scavenging and later
victim of hatred for the same. Some 3 - 4 years back when the activists of
a Dalit Sangharsh Samithi in Karnataka, working for the rights of manual
scavengers, tried to meet the Chief Minister for their demands, they were turned
away with a tag of 'Useless People doomed to be so'. So the
question is that can such a big mission of making India clean by
the year 2019 be achieved while keeping the warriors of such mission in
docks. Can this mission be achieved with just sloganeering? My simple answer is that it cannot be
achieved without their active involvement.
But then the next question is that are they sufficient in numbers to
take on such a big task. Sincerely speaking, I doubt this. How can they fight a huge population pissing against
the walls and spitting paan and gutka everywhere. And how one sweeper,
employed at a meagre salary by the contractor or municipality, be expected
maintain cleanliness round the clock when those free to litter around are always
there to do so anytime as per their convenience.
I
would like draw parallels between cleanliness of our cities with what I saw
abroad. About a decade ago,
I visited Moscow, St. Petersburg and two other cities of Russia in
connection with the organising of the "Days of Indian Culture in
Russia". It was past mid night when we were overseeing the
transportation of equipment to the historic Bolshoi Theatre in
Moscow. Soon after, we saw that automatic road cleaning machines were washing
the roads with water and big brush. I asked few questions about city's sanitation
and sweeping system from a compatriot working in our embassy in
Moscow, who was accompanying me for the same liaison duty I was on. As I
had seen the sweepers moving on the roads all through the day with their
modern brooms and other equipment, I asked the friend from our embassy
that how much do they get for doing this duty continuously for whole day.
He said that their duties are in two hourly shifts and they are paid according
to the number of such hourly shifts. As per his statement, in rupee
terms, a sweeper in Moscow was earning more than what a gazetted
officer earns in his initial ranks in our country.
My
aim is not to compare the wages but the working models and the attention being
paid by the administration on cleanliness of cities. Easing in open
or against walls is a strictly punishable offence. And all these
cleanliness rules are mostly enforced by the sweepers and other staff of the
sanitation Department. As an example of strict enforcement of sanitation
rules, I recall one incident when moving around in the St. Petersburg city
for a considerable time and sipping several cups of hot tea at many places
in the chilly weather, we felt the pressure in our bladders. We asked
Ivan, our interpreter, whether we could ease ourselves near some garbage
dumpers which were seen parked at one place. He was completely frightened
to hear our idea and advised us to restrain ourselves till we reach the
place where facilities are available. He told us that such a venture can
lead us in deep trouble. At the St.
Petersburg railway station, when we came to board a train for Tver, an
ancient city in Russia, we were surprised to see the automatic neat and
clean public toilets. Unlike our
public toilets where a collection of 2 rupee coins is made by the poor sweepers
at the mercy of the visitor, the toilets at St. Petersburg railway station were
manned by smart men and women, professionally clad in black suits and ties and
their job was to vend toilet coupons to the visitors on computers. Such a
system cannot be set up and run by people alone. In Russia, as we were told, most of the urban
infrastructure came up under strict rule of Stalin.
Once
I asked my son, when he was in a primary school, to write a note on ‘India’ in
his own words. I was so surprised and
pained to see that in the very first paragraph, after beginning by claiming all
the greatness about his country, he had drawn attention towards the dirt seen
everywhere on the streets. The Clean India dreams have been cherished by
several great souls of our country since centuries and such dreams are still
being cherished by every right thinking Indian. But the dreams always
remain dreams if not juxtaposed with an action plan. The Netas can always
showcase something for their own chest thumping but the reality has always been
and is likely to be grim.
The
Clean India dream can only be realised when the Government comes up with a concrete
plan of investment, employment and enforcement. There is great need for investment
in technology and building the infrastructure.
Our sweepers in the cities still have to take a dip in the drains to
clear them. Some innovation also needs
to be experimented with their brooms. There is massive need of funds for
automatic public toilets. Employment of
sufficient work force for maintaining cleanliness and enforcing cleanliness
laws is another area where Government intervention is required. There should be strict monitoring of
sanitation Department in cooperation with the people. Public grievance redressal
system related to sanitation also needs to be over-hauled. Strict norms for
civil construction works by public or private contractors need to be put in
place. Normally, it is seen that after
digging a public place for some underground or over ground work, the contractor
and his labour vanishe away without removing the debris. The public is clueless but forced to eat dust
spread by such contractors for months together. Even the sanitation department
is clueless. Such unwanted un-removed
debris left by unscrupulous contractors in connivance with officials, goes down
the drain in the very first rain and chokes the sewage system. The choked sewage leads to accumulation dirty
water on the road causing not only path holes but also leading to several diseases. The civil contractors should be allowed to wind
up from a work site only after ensuring complete restoration of place.
The
population of poor and homeless people living on streets is also responsible
for generating dirt on the streets. The Government should evolve a genuine rehabilitation
policy for them. They can be employed as
part time sweepers so that they may live a meaningful life and lend a helping
hand in the cleanliness drive. Shop keepers in traditional markets should be
advised not throw their waste on the middle of roads. For more public awareness, message boards on
cleanliness and penal action for defying the cleanliness norms should be put up
on roads and streets. During Commonwealth Games, 2010, most parts of the Delhi
were completely disinfected. All the
senior officers of the MCD, NDMC were out on the roads to personally supervise
the cleanliness drive. But soon after
the Commonwealth Games, the enforcement agencies and police lowered their guard
and things quickly came back to square one.
Let
us hope that the drive for clean India achieves the desired goal under the
dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and we all usher into a
new India, a Clean India, a healthy and developed India.
