Prof. Ravinder Chadha
Aryan, probably the first civilization in the world, laid down so much emphasis on swachchata, as is evident in Vedas. Our five thousand years old scriptures reveal that how particular our saints and acharyas were as regards to swachchata, preaching it as prime requirement for any civilised person. They described it as an emotional aspect emanating from within and ultimately reflects in our behaviour. This is not formal and outward, as is being exhibited. The much emphasized and stressed upon by our gurus the cleaniness unfortunately dropped to the back seat, may be because of centuries long slavery, diluting the original cultural flavour and its sheen to feel proud. Other factors that contributed to this cultural ignorance down fall are increase in population, illiteracy and poverty.
Cleanliness is the natural instinct directly linked to the mindset of the person. Now-a-days mindset of formal outlook than real cleanliness has developed. Dressing in perfumed modern clothes takes preference over having bath. Front of the house is cleaned but garbage is dumped at the backside of the house. Long pictures of deities are fixed in large members in the houses but hardly a few get time to worship them from the core of the heart. We suggest others to plant more and more trees but ourselves occupy and erect structures on forest land. Remove these dusty layers of mind and get it refined to take the cleanliness drive forward as a mission in every nook and corner of the country.
For the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched it at the Government level by establishing special ministry and allocating huge funds for its success. Toilets are being constructed in the rural areas, educational institutions to discourage defecation in the open. Advertisements about bringing awareness among people are being displayed. But this does not seem to be enough to pamper our backs because desirable results are still far from our sight.
Unnecessary and undesirable political stunts are also being carried out to their advantage by political parties. Cleanliness drives at the corridors of already cleaned offices and roads appear not more than photo sessions of our politicians and bureaucrats for media coverage. In fact, this makes the mockery of the abhiyan. One can easily judge the behaviour of these political parties, the ruling party in Delhi having election symbol broom, exhibiting big hoardings of Swachchta Abhiyan but it is not easy to live there disease free under the impact of poisonous gases in air and garbage spread in every nook and corner of the city. The ban on polythene bags is imposed by almost all the states but its implementation action is so poor that most of the drainage problem is caused by polythene. So, there needs to be pure and perfect intentions of the State Govt to make it positive result oriented.
In fact, Swachchta comes through self imposed discipline regulated by instincts, habits and attitude to keep our surroundings clean. The point that is to borne in mind is that God has created fantastic beautiful world and we have no right to pollute it on his name by immersing self created idols and karam kand material in the rivers.
In urban areas new trend of egoistic culture is emerging. People do not love to do self service even at home. They are becoming more and more dependent on servants, abandoning the habit of self service even while they have sufficient time for watching T.V, chatting and playing games on mobiles. While in rural areas, people love to do domestic work but they are already overburdened in their daily chores and labour work for making their both ends meet.
The job of the Govt is to chalk out proper planning and its implementation at the lowest level of the society throughout the Country. Govt should focus on providing technically perfect sewage and garbage dumping system in every city, town and villages, which these are miserably lacking. Toilets with two gutters, indigenously designed by Rohtak designers are needed to be constructed to derive benefits in the form of fertilizers. Similarly, dumpers with these separate containers for composite disposable and non degradable wastes are required to be installed in every mohalla, bazar and important sites of the cities, so that the people get rid of their habit of taking bananas, oranges or other fruits in the bazaar and throwing peelings on the road side. Documentaries highlighting the virtues of Swachchata such as saving from spread of many diseases and development of positive health and mind are needed to be displayed throughout the country in order to bring complete awareness. Workshops of volunteers at state and district level are supposed to be organised imparting systematic training depicting advantages of Swachchta. The N.S.S and N.C.C volunteers can extend their services for bringing awareness and motivating rural population for this sacred cause.
Our spiritual gurus can play very vital role by hammering the nerves of Indian to feel proud of our civilisation and its scientific proven norms laid down by our ancestors. They can motivate and educate people that dream of Indian becoming spiritual guru cannot be achieved without Swachchta which is pre requisite requirement for the same
(The author is former HOD (Dept of Chemistry) GCW Parade)
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