Special garbage, brooms for VIPs: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or publicity stunt?

On Sunday, volunteers arranged garbage for Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam during a cleanliness drive in New Delhi.

Bengaluru, Sep 18: In a busy lane in Bengaluru's Marathahalli, Varalakshmi, a pourakarmika (sweeper) who works for the civic body, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), fights massive traffic and unprecedented dust without any safety gear as a part of her job on a daily basis.

This is not just Varalakshmi's every day ritual. Like the BBMP's employee in her 50s, hundreds of her male and female colleagues negotiate several problems, including untimely salaries, to keep the city's streets spick and span.

On Sunday, when reports came in that volunteers had to arrange "garbage" for Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam so that he can clean the otherwise well-maintained area of India Gate in the national capital as a part of the fortnight-long Swachhta Hi Sewa (Cleanliness is Service) campaign, Varalakshmi could not stop her "laughter".

"What do I say? I am a poor woman and my job is to sweep and keep Bengaluru's roads clean. I have worked for more than 10 years as a pourakarmika, I have never seen any area of the city clean before I and my friends start our daily work early in the morning.

He is a minister, a VIP, this is not a job for him. But these days, we see big people like politicians, film actors and sportsmen taking up a broom and cleaning public spaces on special occasions. We appreciate their gesture to encourage others to keep their surroundings neat and clean. However, it seems most often they end up cleaning an already clean place," Varalakshmi told OneIndia.

Varalakshmi's colleague Rajamma minced no words when she said that VIPs should stop using cleanliness drive as a publicity stunt because most often their real intention comes out in the open as powerful people are always followed by their entourage with designer brooms and bins in their enthusiasm to make India clean.

Since the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his pet project--Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission)--in 2014, VIPs and celebrities seemed to be in a race to pose in front of shutterbugs holding a broom and half-heartedly cleaning an already "sparkling" road.

"The entire Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been diluted because it has become more of a publicity tool. The intention behind the PM's mission was good, but look at the way it has been misused for photo ops by 'famous people'," said an activist, who works closely with manual scavengers in Bengaluru.

Requesting anonymity, the activist said, "We don't need VIPs to clean roads and toilets. Sweepers and manual scavengers need better facilities and hike in salaries. Citizens too need to do their bid by keeping their surroundings clean."

Even on many occasions, when Modi took up a broom in the last three years, he was seen cleaning partially cleaned spaces with a bevy of people accompanying the PM.

During the initial days of the highly publicised Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014, when VIPs were more excited to be seen as a part of the drive, a set of pictures shot outside the India Islamic Centre in New Delhi showed municipality staffers littering a pavement with garbage, only to be cleaned by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Satish Upadhayay and Shazia Ilmi.

So, what does all these say about cleanliness mission when India continues to be one of the dirtiest countries in spite of three years since the PM launched his pet project?

Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana and Uttarakhand--are the only five states in the country which are open defecation free as per a report by the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, released this year.

In rest of the states mostly in rural areas, majority of the people still don't have toilets and they relieve themselves in the open causing several life-threatening diseases including encephalitis and diarrhea, to name a few.

Moreover, India has more people in rural areas--63.4 million--living without access to clean water than any other country, according to Wild Water, State of the World's Water 2017, the latest report by WaterAid, a global advocacy group on water and sanitation.

These figures clearly indicate that India has a long way to go before becoming truly swachh (clean) in terms of availability of toilets, safe drinking water and clean surroundings.

Till then, all the television and newspaper advertisements featuring popular stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Kangana Ranaut look more like gimmicks detached from the reality where a few clean and glamorous persons are seen giving lectures to millions of poor and dirty people.

OneIndia News