It is a great tragedy that a leader of a major, grand old party of India has declared ‘clean India’ campaign as mere photo opportunity. India might have sent machines to Mars and the Moon; may be having highly skilled human resources in the IT field. But still at least 35% of its populace defecates in the open and almost all its male population urinates in open is not a guarded secret. The train passengers of early mornings are greeted by squatting men and women with discarded Pepsi/Coke bottles filled with water on the rail lines’ sides is a common sight across India.
The entire populace uses the entire area beyond their homes as garbage dump yard is a norm here. Simply there is a stiff competition going on among men and women; among various professions; among businesses; among institutions and among states in ‘Who pollutes more?’
Instead of ‘Shining India’ it is Sinking and Stinking India. Our public toilets are the ‘hells on earth’. If we manage to identify a toilet and gain entry into it we may have to wait in a queue and can witness anxious or strained friends knocking at the rickety doors in urgency. As a rule most of the toilets would have no padlocks. The people who are already inside must be normally smoking – an indication that the toilet is occupied - would have to have one of their hands on the door lest the person standing outside may push his way. Persistent coughing or any noise has to be produced to alert the persons outside. The strained persons would lose patience and would start knocking at the doors violently to ferret out the person enjoying inside in smoke, leaky tin boxes or chained tubs. As the water gets collected an equal quantity would be passing out through the holes and it would require an Archimedes’ intelligence to measure how forceful the taps are to be kept opened to retain some water in the tub to wash off the sins. Normally these noble souls have to carry their belongings too inside as there would be no facility to keep them outside safe and would be pools of water and cigarette buds everywhere. At times people would be losing their wrist watches or mobiles or cash too as they bend their body and the shirt pockets playing truancy. At times the lowest part of the toilet doors would have big holes or damages exposing the things that are supposed to cover. Even in our airports this is the condition. How to use the modern toilets? Many of us do not know. Hence lot of confusion and commotion in toilets of our airports. I found one of the toilets in our airports in similar conditions on 07/11/14. In such a scenario if the leader of a nation declares this area as his priority, a senior former minister considers this as ‘platform issue’ and his leader ‘photo opportunity’. Long live INDIA!
As all the people associated with the Clean India campaign have released their photos as cleaning public places, there is a perception that these are mere photo opps. In fact all these VIP’s must have and must be spreading the ways and means to avoid littering. 24 hrs a day or 365 days a year non-stop campaigns to create awareness among the public and punishments or penalties for violators only can help improve the situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment