THIS country has never seen a prime minister holding a broom to sweep a public place. On October 2 last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept the Valmiki Basti a colony in Delhi which is the habitat of sanitary workers. Across the country three million government employees and schools and college students of India participated in this much needed campaign. If cleanliness indeed is godliness then India should rank as the least godly nation. Yet the irony is that people are religious and profess their religions with great fanfare. Festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, Christmas, Eid and others are celebrated publicly. Every such festival generates mounds of garbage. How that is disposed off is anybody’s guess. Then there are places of pilgrimage, some in the once pristine hills of Kedernath and Badrinath which are now thronging with pilgrims and tourists but with no sense of cleanliness. The garbage left behind by pilgrims such as plastic water bottles, plastic bags are carelessly left behind to find their way into water bodies. The impact of such reckless garbage disposal on the environment is phenomenal. If India does not get its act together there is a danger that we will all be overwhelmed by garbage.
Hence Prime Minister Modi’s call for a Clean India is not only timely but an imperative as well. As a country we have not paid attention to systematic garbage disposal. Every street, lane and open space becomes a garbage dump. This has got to stop. In Meghalaya the Swachh Bharat Campaign was launched on October 1. There has been much talk of cleaning up one of our well known river the Wah Umkhrah but efforts have remained futile. The River has become a cesspit and all this is the result of bad governance at all levels. It is ironic that the same tribals who were once house proud and put a premium on cleanliness now feel nothing about living with garbage and also emptying their septic tanks directly into the Umkhrah River. That the existing laws have failed to deal with this urban menace is evident from the fact that the judiciary itself has been lenient on encroachers into this River. The width of the Umkhrah has reduced and the silt and garbage has reduced its depth thereby leading to seasonal floods. The Government of Meghalaya would do well to make this campaign successful by partnering with the Dorbar Shnong, schools, colleges, business establishments and every citizen of this state. Cleanliness should be everybody’s business and not just of any single entity and certainly not that of the Government alone. This partnership for a good cause is a great opportunity for Meghalaya. Let us hope citizens unite on this common issue. The pledge taken on October 1 should remain an article of faith imprinted in each one’s mind and heart.
