By H H Mohrmen
It has become an annual feature that the October 3, edition of every newspaper will carry on its front page photographs of broom-wielding VIPs (very important people) symbolically sweeping a designated area in the town or village. And this is becoming more popular after the Prime Minister announced his much hyped Swachch Bharat campaign. Obviously, the subjects (s) in the photograph know they are holding the broom only for a photo op. Some even intentionally put a banner in the backdrop of the photograph to show to the world the name of the group that organised the cleaning drive. But the question is whether the event has any impact beyond the photo op?
Most of us have willy-nilly joined in similar cleaning drives although our photographs never made it to any page of the newspaper or we have not even been photographed for that matter. But if we really want our localities, our villages and towns clean, I think it is time that we look beyond mere tokenism. If the cleaning drive is to have any permanent impact on the society, we need to understand what needs to be done after the one day program is over.
I know a friend who had never ever taken any part in any of the cleaning drives organised by the community or agency and he refused to be bogged-down by such publicity stunts. I once had enough courage to ask him the reason why he never joins the community (not even once) in the cleaning drive it organises. My friend has a very convincing answer. He said, “What is the point of cleaning the street when just few hours after it is cleaned, the street is again littered? What is the point of cleaning the space for one day only while it remains dirty for 364 days?” He also said that there is no point of symbolically cleaning the streets because the same people who are involved in the cleaning are also the ones to litter the streets immediately after, or maybe later when they travel or walk that road again.
My wise friend finally concluded by saying that there is no point of organising those symbolic cleaning drives unless there is a proper system in place to maintain cleanliness. And when I asked him to elaborate what he meant, he first suggested that we need to install garbage bins at close distances so that after the streets are cleaned, people who wish to drop their garbage in a proper place can do so to keep the place clean. Otherwise if there is no waste bin nearby then it will be back to square one and people will start littering the roads immediately after the area was cleaned. He also added that just having the garbage bins around will not help; we also need to educate the residents of the area and inculcate in them the habit of disposing waste in a proper place and then only we can maintain cleanliness in the area.
I think he has a point and Jowai my hometown is a classic case because the town centre is one place which remains clean only for few hours in a year. The people of Jowai normally clean Iawmusiang the downtown of the Jowai at least three times a year; that is before the Christmas and New Year, before the Behdieñkhlam festival in the month of July and on Gandhi jayanti, yet the streets are littered the very next day after it was cleaned. The reason is because of the absent of proper bin to collect the waste and the lack of civic sense amongst the citizens of the town.
One hopes that this will change because the office of the Deputy Commissioner West Jaintia hills has installed proper garbage bins in almost every nook and corner of the town and having the bins is one step toward achieving the goal of having a clean town. Now the challenge for the people of the town is to make the best use of the facility provided and maintain cleanliness in the town. When the D.C. Jowai posted on his office’s facebook page that in order to increase tourist flow to the district; the district administration plan to have a Hollywood or Pattaya type of signage to welcome visitor to the town, some rightly questioned the wisdom of having such fancy sign to welcome people to the town which is literarily covered with filth. It is true Jowai is not at its best and the town still have a long way to go to achieve the glory of the cities from which it copied the idea, but is there any harm in raising the bar and trying to improve on one’s image.
It is also true that having the bins in place and making the public use the bin is another. In other words merely having the bin in place is not the answer to making our town clean; but is that an impossible task to achieve? The government has recently been able to tackle the hawkers’ problem in the town without any hassle and nobody raised any hue and cry. We can replicate the same idea that was used by the district administration to clear the hawkers from footpaths in the market area. The technique the district administration used is a novel idea that can be used to inculcate the habit of making use of garbage bins in the town. The district administration in collaboration with Jowai Traffic Police embarked on a unique idea to help the pedestrians particularly the students to reclaim the footpath by making them use the footpath on a regular basis and also by insisting that the kids walk on it to prevent any accidents from happening. The idea worked wonders and the footpaths in Jowai town are now free for pedestrians while the vendors were provided with space to continue doing their business. The outcome of this effort was that at the end of the day it was a win-win situation for everybody.
But having clean streets and clean towns and cities is just the beginning. We need to move one step further and start segregation of waste at source which is again only a step towards proper waste management. Recently a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis was conducted at Shnongpdeng an upcoming tourist spot which attracts a lot of visitors, to study the tourism prospects of area. After due deliberations the community saw waste as major threat to the future of the village. The observation made by the community members who took part in the exercise is that certain wastes like bottles (both plastics and glass) are being collected and can be exchanged for money, but the problem is with plastics and chips or biscuit bags made of silver foils which finds no takers. Now to make the village clean the community has no other option but to burn the waste in the open which again is not environment friendly and causes air pollution. Besides burning of garbage is a violation of Supreme Court orders.
To ensure that cleaning drive does not remain a symbolic gesture, the public need (to as much as possible) minimise the use of plastics. We can start by using pla-ïew or munajun (in Pnar). Meat or fish sellers should start reusing banana or sla- lamet leaves to pack pork, beef, mutton or fish. If people selling putharo, pumaloi, jashullia, japnah are still using plant leaves to pack their products why can’t the meat and fish traders do the same? Besides, if we encourage the traders to start reusing plant leaves which are biodegradable farmers will start planting banana or sla-lamet leaves again and that will become another livelihood activity. Surely, plant leaves will not be able to replace plastics, but at least they will minimise the use of plastics. Using leaves for packing is not a new practice; it is something that has been used by the community earlier.
Therefore when we plan any cleaning drive again it is time that we look beyond mere tokenism. It is time that we become pragmatic and look at practicable and viable alternatives to keep our localities clean in order to maintain cleanliness in the area for good. Cleanliness is not a one day affair it is lifelong activity; let us therefore go beyond tokenism and sustain the effort to make our villages and towns clean.
