Saturday, January 11, 2025
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Light miles away from Swacch Bharat

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Editor,

Recently I had the misfortune to travel by train from Bangalore to Guwahati, and the added punishment to be allotted seat number 4 in the reservation list. From the time I entered the bogey I felt as if I was entering a poorly maintained toilet. My seat is adjacent to the toilets. My miseries, along with all my fellow passengers in the first compartment of the bogey were compounded as the journey progressed. Since the toilet was filthy the passengers were clogging up not only the toilet seat but everything else all over the toilet floor. I need not go into specifics since you can easily picture the scene. A complaint to the TTE when he came around after an hour or so got us an answer that it would be taken care of at the next major station. Hours later the ‘major station’ never seemed to come and repeated and vociferous complaints to the TTE got us another answer that it would be seen to in Chennai. We simply could not rest or even breathe freely, let alone take any refreshments or food. Happily it WAS addressed in Chennai and we could travel in comparative comfort albeit feeling thoroughly sick. I write to you apropos the Swach Bharat euphoria that has been gripping all the politicians and state governments who aspire to be in the good books of Prime Minister Modi. We hear of fancy acronyms as ODF and ODF zones etc. and the priorities by government to have a clean environment which, without a doubt, are good and welcome, but isn’t the Indian Railways encouraging open defecation? The toilets, we all know, simply spew the excreta onto the tracts. Discouraging villagers from open defecation is all very well and should continue but how much are villagers contaminating the atmosphere as compared to the Indian Railways who are ensuring that the entire nation becomes one big ‘Open Defecation Full’ nation. Meghalaya now also proudly boasts of being connected to the ‘excreta trail,‘ if I may say so. Passengers are actually standing not more than 2 feet away from filth when they are on the platforms and sipping their tea or eating their refreshments. Can you imagine the level of microbial contamination that we are forced to breathe and even ingest with our food when we travel by train?

I’m sure the Government/Indian Railways is not so naive not to see this appalling primitiveness and I hope plans are afoot to address this issue, but revamping the disposal of waste system in the IR would be no small task and it will take time and a lot of money to do so. What I would like to highlight is the pressing need to address the immediate present i.e. the management of the toilets in the railways , now and until such time as the government brings in the permanent changes. Perhaps the maintenance and management of toilets in trains needs to be outsourced/contracted to the private sector who should be tasked to provide, clean hygienic toilet facilities and also not allow dumping of human excreta on the tracts. The Sulabh group, for example, are doing exemplary service in providing clean, paid toilet facilities to the public. I’m sure there are others who would be very willing to join the chorus of Swach Bharat through their enterprise. I do not wish anyone to face the ordeal I had to face recently.

Yours etc.,

Clive Nonkynrih,

Via email

Travelling back into a hoary past: A rejoinder

Editor,

In the article, “Travelling back into a hoary past” (ST December 12, 2014), Patricia Mukhim has touched sensitive nerves of many a reader one of whom took the trouble to refer me to a letter under the caption “Redefining syiemship” published in The Shillong Times of January 3, 2011 which referred to an article under the caption “Shocking report” (ST. DEC. 28, 2010) by Toki Blah, President, ICARE. Avid and concerned readers would not have missed these issues.

It is high time the Khasi intellectuals come together to debunk the fallacies touted by vested interests to misinterpret the meaning and purport of our myths and folklores. In this case there is no myth or folklore to support the practice of syiemship as a hereditary right. It is purely a creation of fertile minds to perpetrate a system which was abhorrent to our ethical ancestors but hugely lucrative to today’s vested interests. Scholars should go back in history to find that, even in England, it was William the Conqueror who put to practice his theory that the King was the undisputed owner of all lands within the realm. He went about cementing/concretizing that idea by ordering the publishing of the Domes-day Book in 1085-1086 AD. We should go to first principles to understand the need for myths and folklores but should not obfuscate the issue by borrowing unethical ideas from abroad as in the case of our syiemship. Ms Mukhim’s tirade against the perpetrator of the system is right, just and overdue: kudos to her for her effort. Every statement in the article bears testimony to her concern for the inarticulate members of our society, and, to her dedication to duty as a journalist to inform and guide readers in their quest for truth.

Yours etc.,

Morning Star Sumer,

Shillong – 2

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