Gandhi and Clean India
Dr. Faiza Abbasi
Aligarh 4 October
2015
One of the demographic dividends
of the generation of Indians contributing to nation building is that Mahatma
Gandhi is imprinted on our psyche. As the familiar hand drawn picture of the
simple yet strong Father of the Nation was seen everywhere from currency notes
to the school corridor his ideals too were imprinted through didactic tales.
Like we don’t remember when we first learnt our parents names and faces, we
also don’t remember when we first learnt of the truth and non-violence theory of
Bapu. He was just there. Everywhere. Loved and revered. Also he shared this
cult status with no other icon of modern India pre-globalisation. Pandit Nehru
was the closest but probably as the first PM he himself practiced caution not
to be projected more than his beloved Gandhi ji.
From the simple school boy
stories that we learnt about Bapu, we also perceive him as a man with
integrity, honesty and austerity that translated in to his model of nationalism
crystallising in a movement against the British rule until independence was won
in 1947. However, down the line development and politics succumbed to their compulsions.
A passive submission to these began in the early years and till date we see
honest officers being humiliated by corrupt politicians and leaders with
integrity turning a Nelsons’ Eye to corruption below them. Even Prime Ministers
are not an exception to this tendency of letting the guilty go un-punished if they
bring in political benefits.
Gandhi’s vehement refusal to all
offers of luxury and a conscious abandonment of even self earned opportunities
of cushy life, nevertheless, were meant to be a part of his exceptional integrity.
He felt responsible to the masses, to their natural modes of subsistence and to
the indigenous life supported at the grassroots. That is why he never shunned
prudence of resources. He could go to the Round Table Conference in London in
his two pieces of cloth wrapped around him and his cold feet in chappals. He
was a living miracle to the British in layers of woollens and snow boots. It
was unfathomable, where he got his steely resolve from to walk on a snow
covered London Street without a coat, overcoat, hat and shoes and socks and
mufflers and mittens. Feeling one with the poor and downtrodden of India and
keeping himself sensitive to their deprivations and pains gave him this drive.
Unfortunately, after him successive
governments were overtaken by the development fever imported from the west.
This caused a two pronged socio-ecological degradation like never before. On
the one hand the masses were marginalised and deprived from benefitting from
the fruits of development. Mass production usurped the idea of production by
the masses as in Bapu’s dreams and cottage industries were wiped by MNCs. On
the other hand ill conceived and reckless development policies took our natural
resources for granted and caused huge vandalism in our serene country
landscapes, rendered the cities into brown islands of heat and gave birth to
the growing monster of solid waste with serious disposal issues.
Being the environmentalist that I
am who gets great strength from the Gandhian philosophy that ‘There is room for
every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed’, it was a proud moment for me
to take the Pledge on Swachhta this Gandhi Jayanti. Since 2014 all educational
institutions have been mandated to administer the oath for keeping their surroundings
clean. Rightly, in the oath the subjects are made to repeat that they will put 2
hours a week of shramdan, cleaning their neighbourhood, homes and places
of work. Such attention to cleanliness by every government official, school
teacher and all students, most certainly is an enabler of cleanliness. Albeit,
any research would opine that a social change as massive and collective as the
Swachh Bharat Mission can never be achieved by pressing and focusing on one
enabler alone. A model for the accomplishment of this success should be replete
with at least two or three more social enablers. In this essay I will enumerate
three, as at it is the best that comes to my mind at this point of time. More
are welcome on this space.
Equal Participation
While apparently the entire
purpose behind the exercise of administering the pledge on Gandhi Jayanti, is
to make the common man feel responsible for cleanliness and hygiene and not
just wait for the government, a mere reading of the pledge indicates that it
reeks of discrimination and dogma. When the United Nations clubbed all its
philanthropic programmes for women under Unifem, one of the ethics to be promoted the world
over was the use of a gender neutral language. I took this pledge in Hindi
repeating a male head of institution but cringed every time I had to read .....saaf
karunga, from the text. I upheld my pride in being a woman by speaking out aloud
....saaf karungi! Secondly, for all my love and allegiance to the nation
I cannot concede to call it Maan Bharati or Bhaarat Mata. Now
some ruling party politician may ask me to go to Pakistan if I don’t. While I
will not cut my umbilical ties from India in the most Utopian of dreams, I am
alienated to this pledge at least. To the loss of those whose brain child it
is, the preached supporter of the campaign in me is feeling this way because of
representing the second grade sex and the minority community. Though, keeping
the cause dearer, I still have the Swachh Bharat Mission logo with Bapu in his
simple Ainak on my letter head.
Un-glamorization
So there are many who are
sporting the logo, spending on advertisements and buying new Jhadoos on
Gandhi Jayanti but for real cleanliness they have to endure with dirt under
nails and sweat with the Jhadoo and mop and duster and scrubber long
after the cameras are gone. This noble mission has to look beyond the symbolism
and photo-op for government officials. There are other existing institutional
spaces where it can be effectively delivered, but they are all very un-glamorous.
Those committed to the mission need to be ready for hard dogged work in the
heat and dust of India. Campaign and advocacy for the goal is one thing - and I
must congratulate the government on its success in the same, but the means that
require grappling with filth burdened gullies, nallahs, and mohallas
need to be promoted too. At this many would conveniently take the high road in
AC cars. Alas, the higher road was taken by Gandhi ji, when he cleaned his own
environs in the Sabarmati Ashram.
Socio-ecological systems
Motivated people will take the
mission only half its way. Filth has to be taken to the end of the cycle, not
just shifted from micro-environment. Stake holders should be educated enough to
sort their garbage and not put it in front of other’s houses. The complete over
hauling of the municipal systems, equipping the lack lustre municipal staff
with modern gadgets and building capacity in them to administer a
scientifically proven waste disposal mechanism is what we need before we ask
people to pick up the Jhadoos. The green-yellow-blue florescent bins of
poly vinyl chloride look very promising on TV in the back drop of the PM. What
is further required is their access to the nooks and corners of the country.
Correct measures of use like convincing the safaiwalas that the days of
the old asbestos drum colored with cheap paint are over and the new PVC bins
need to be emptied regularly. As those days are over, so should be the practice
of setting fire to the trash inside the bin to save the hard work in cleaning
them.
Sadly, India is yet to have a
mature and sound recycling system which doesn’t let a blade of plastic escape
on the streets. And the campaign ideals seem to be taking little notice of this
fact while being over-hyped in reaching to the electorate with the hollow message.
As we inspire the people to throw away their garbage sensibly, we also need to
inspire our industrialists to take the classified degradable and non degradable
waste as raw material for production and energy generation. Specially, plastic
and polythene, because it not only causes pollution, degrades soil quality and
is detrimental to a feral animal’s life
when part of its dietary spectrum. If left to perish on its own in millions of
years plastic waste is a wastage of otherwise energy rich organic mass which
can lead to sustainable development.
Before summing up, I feel
compelled to quote - with slight alteration, the famous couplet of Bollywood
lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, with special reference to my last point regarding
the holy cows ingesting polythene and dying of starvation as it clogs their
innards:
Yeh jashn Mubarak, par yeh bhi
sadaqat hai
Hum log haqeeqat ke ehsas se
aari hain
Gandhi ho ke Gaaye ho
Hum donon ke qatil hain donon
ke pujari hain
یہ جشن مبارک پر یہ بھی صداقت ہے
ہم لوگ حقیقت کے احساس سے عاری ہیں
گا ندھی ہو کہ گایے ہو
ہم دونوں کے قاتل ہیں دونوں کے پجاری ہیں
(Enjoy the festivities but it is
fact, that we are negligent to truth, be it Gandhi or the cow,
we are murderers of both, we are worshipers of both)
