The 3000 years wait for Cleanness

What is the basic difference between Indus valley civilization & modern India? Harappa & Mohenjo Daro had functional sewage & sanitation system (flush toilets). But more than half a billion Indians still lack these systems. Still we consider our self as a super power or modern civilization. Even my small town Dalsingh Sarai (in Samastipur District of Bihar) still does not have sewage system & waste management system. My relatives still went to railway line (India’s favorite open defection place) & fields for defection till a few years ago.

We have waited enough for toilets and sewage system. This has been a long wait of around 3000 years. We may have formed the largest Economy, large empires, gone to moon, build nuclear weapons etc in these 3000 years, but we have failed to build toilets. Why ??? Its difficult to answer. Probably, negligence may be a real cause. We Indians followed Gandhi’s path of non-violence to achieve freedom, but we ignored his advice of cleanness. Independent India right set its focus on dams, industries etc but we still neglected toilets.

Finally we have a Leader whose first major task is to clean India, build toilets. We can slow down infra projects, reduce defense budget, but can’t wait to build toilets. Its our basic human right to live in a hygienic place. But Govt. alone cant do anything. India will be clean only 1.25 billion people will clean it. The Govt. can play its part of releasing funds, encouraging common Indian, punishing the guilty. But the real ownership of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan will be ours. We should clean our neighborhood not for our FB profile picture or Tweet but for us. Modi, Amitabh, Sachin, Salman etc all live in posh & clean areas. Their house streets will still be clean. We should clean our neighborhood & build toilets for our future. If whole Indians stop defecting in open today, our GDP growth may increase by more than 1%. We should encourage building toilets in villages. I have seen two storied building without toilets in my district.  Always, poverty is reason for not building toilets. It’s the mindset. We need to educate Indians about the benefit of cleanness. Let’s take a pledged to clean India.

We remember Ashoka & Sher Shah Suri for building roads, Shah Jahan for Taj Mahal, Nehru for Dams, Vajpayee for highways, Indira for Bangladesh and in future we can add one more name – Narendra Modi for Cleanness & toilets.