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Government of India
Special Service and Features
Government of India
Special Service and Features
29-September-2016 12:12 IST
*S.M. Shah Nawaz
India is all set to lead the
comity of nations in the times to come with its economy poised to become one of
the largest in the world in foreseeable future. The nation is surging ahead
with great pace on the path of economic development. However, can we really
achieve our goals without meeting the social and environmental parameters? The
first and foremost amongst such parameters is cleanliness. We cannot afford to
put the filth under the carpet of development.
Gandhiji visualized cleanliness
in three ways – a clean mind, a clean body and clean surroundings. Holding that
‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, he once emphatically wrote, “We can no more
gain God’s blessing with an unclean body than with an unclean mind. A clean
body cannot reside in an unclean city. So long as you do not take
the broom and the bucket in your hands, you cannot make your towns and cities
clean”.
And on Gandhi Jayanti two
years ago, the Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi just did that - he took the
broom right in his hands and spurred the whole country into action. Shri. Modi
said “A clean India would be the best tribute
India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” as he
launched the Swachh Bharat Mission in New Delhi on 2nd October 2014. The
five-year long campaign was launched across the country as a national movement
with an aim to turn it into a ‘Jan Andolan’ and change the face of the
country by 2019. The countrymen responded very enthusiastically to the call and
people from all walks of life have come forward and joined this mass movement
of cleanliness.
However, keeping
the streets, lanes and by-lanes of the country is not the only objective. There
are many more goals to achieve.
According to an UN report, India accounts for a major portion of the over 1.1
billion people in the world who practice open defecation. Open defecation
refers to the practice whereby people go out in fields, bushes, forests, open
bodies of water, or other open spaces rather than using the toilet to defecate.
Society does not view the lack of a toilet as unacceptable. Building and owning
a toilet is not perceived as aspirational. Construction of toilets is still seen
as the government’s responsibility rather than a priority that individual
households should take responsibility for.
The
challenge is to motivate people to see a toilet as fundamental to their social
standing, status and well-being. The practice of open defecation is not limited
to rural India. It is found in urban areas too where the percentage of people
who defecate in the open is around 12 percent, while in rural settings it is
about 65 percent. Open defecation poses a serious health threat especially to
children. The practice is the main reason India reports a very high number of diarrhoeal
deaths among children under-five. Children weakened by frequent diarrhoea episodes are more vulnerable to malnutrition, stunting, and opportunistic
infections such as pneumonia. This is not at all surprising that percentage of
children in India suffering from some degree of malnutrition is very high. Diarrhoea and worm infection are two major health
conditions that affect school-age children impacting their learning abilities.
The
faecal-oral route is also an important polio transmission pathway. Open
defecation increases communities’ risk of polio infection.
Open defecation also puts at risk the dignity of women in India. Women feel
constrained to relieve themselves only under the cover of darkness for reasons
of privacy to protect their dignity.
The Union
Government wants to change the situation completely. It wants to completely eliminate
the practice of open defecation by 2019. The work is in full swing for the
construction of crores of toilets all across the nation - both in rural and
urban areas. With this, the Government is also streamlining and upgrading the
sewage system wherever required.
“Educating girls is also my
priority. I have noticed that girls drop out of schools by the time they reach
class 3rd or 4th just because schools don't have separate toilets for them.
They don't feel comfortable. There should be toilets for boys and girls in all
schools. We should concentrate on girl students not quitting schools” said the
Prime Minister on the Teachers Day two years ago on 5th September
2014, few days before he launched the mission. Therefore, Swachh Vidyalaya
concept also became an essential component of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
To
encourage people to take the Mission forward, Prime Minister Modi on his popular
radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’, has been constantly lauding the efforts of
organizations and individuals who have been contributing positively towards the
Swachh Bharat Mission. And this too is having
the desired effect.
The Government can provide the required infrastructure and
undertake various campaigns to spread awareness about the importance of
cleanliness and it is most earnestly trying to do so but it is the people of
India who need to adopt the concept of the mission wholeheartedly and make
necessary behavioral changes in their attitudes and approach to make this ‘Jan
Andolan’ a grand success. What we really need to do is to make cleanliness, a part of our primary
school curriculum, and we need to practice it throughout our lives.
*****
* Author is a senior journalist of long standing and is the
Editor of an Urdu fortnightly.
The views expressed in the Article are his own.
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