I was
interacting with one of my friend sometime back and was ruing the fact that we don’t
have a super long weekend, as it is India due to Gandhi Jayanti & Dussera
on consecutive days. But I was taken aback by her reaction, she said if I was
to vote today, I will vote this Modi guy out of power. I asked her the reason
for her anguish and was bemused by her reply, she said it’s a pain now to be a
government employee, we don’t even have a holiday on the
October 2nd ! All for Mr Modi’s visionary agenda of ensuring all the Indians, including
the government employees take a pledge for a Clean India on Bapu’s birthdayJ.
So what’s
new about Mr PM’s new initiative. To keep it short, it’s simple but a brilliant
initiative, a much needed one that should have been in effect much earlier. No
wonder its garnering support and involvement from all corners of the society,
surprisingly from the opposition parties as well. And that pretty much sums up
what Mr Modi said about this initiative, it’s not a political one but is rather
borne out of his patriotism and love for India.
Cynics however
fear this to be another photo op moment for the netas and bureaucrats which
will eventually fade away like so many other initiatives. And this fear is
quite genuine as well, today you see CMs, District Collectors, MPs, MLAs and
every other individual posing in front of the camera with a broom in their hand.
To make matters worse, in most of these places a bevy of sweepers and cleaning
guys work for hours to make that specific area suitably clean for these
so-called dignitaries to come and pose for a photograph. Can’t they for god’s
sake not understand that it is all symbolic, you don’t have to hold a broom and
get clicked to prove that you have taken the cleanliness oath, instead one has
to inculcate that sense of ownership and cleanliness in the very way he/she
leads his/her civic life.
Mr PM
envisions a clean India by 2019, which will also mark the 150th
anniversary of our beloved father of the nation, and per him this will be our
token of love for Bapu. But for this to happen people from all walks of life will
have to understand the importance of such a simple yet essential thing. And it
needn’t just be the people from the lesser privileged sections of the society,
whom we normally accuse for all the filth and nuisance around us. The more privileged
ones like us are also equally responsible, in fact a bit more since we don’t have
the excuse of illiteracy and lack of right to education to shield us. And
personally I feel we are the ones who contribute to this mess a lot more. How
often have you seen one of your friend in the many tapris
outside our offices, throwing off the empty chai cups, cigarette buds and mint
wrappers blatantly on the road? Are we not educated enough to throw them in the
bins instead. Forget about the other bigger forms of mess we create day in day
out.
To be honest
neither there is anything new about this initiative nor the expectation from
all of us is too demanding. Only if we can just mind ourselves and ensure that ‘I
won’t create any mess in my surroundings and would try my best to keep my
nation clean’, it will suffice. So all we need to do is to just mind ourselves!
And even if half of us can manage to do so, Bapu’s dream of a clean India would
certainly come true.
Though, brooms alone might not be sufficient to
clean up the age old filth and mess of this vast country but more than the mode,
intent of every Indian towards this noble cause would be the key determinant.
--kin…
