Swachcha Bharat Abhiyaan And Arthik Swachchata (economic cleanliness?)

Soon after he took over, our Hon PM announced “Swachcha Bharat Abhiyaan”, the Clean India Initiative. He took a broom, swept a street in Delhi and everybody else who matter, followed suit. We liked the slogan, we liked the action and we loved the image of a clean India. No more heaps of garbage at street corners, no more empty bottles, chips packets and plastic bags littering our streets and no more pan stains and urine smell on the compound walls. How nice! He designated cleanliness ambassadors - Navaratnas -  who were supposed to oversee the action and report to him. Sounded serious.

After two years I realize, sadly, that nothing has changed. None of the Navaratna’s are shining. My street corner garbage heap is as it was. In fact it has grown bigger and another one has started taking shape nearby. I don’t see any change in the attitude of my co citizens. Nobody carries a reusable bag to the market. The ban on plastic bags, imposed by local bodies is as effective as the ban on Ghutka.  Laughable at the most. I hear that lakhs of toilets have been constructed spending crores of rupees to eradicate open defecation, but continue to see the migrant labourers in my city heading towards the bushes in the semi darkness every morning, during my walk.

People who have faith in the initiative tell me to wait. It has just begun they say. “You will see the results at the end of five years”.

I have been a part of a social group working towards cleaning up our city. We have been working for the past four years. We started even before our PM announced Swachcha Bharat. I was very happy when he made the announcement but disillusionment is creeping in. I feel that our PM did not gauge the magnitude of the problem, announced his ‘Abhiyaan’ and started with a slogan and a broom. I am not an expert in the field but my common sense says that our country can not be made clean if our attitude is not changed and the quantum of trash generated is not reduced.

And as I know, no effort is being made in that direction. Nor, for that matter, any serious effort in anything.

In a function recently I heard one of the speakers say “after the ‘swachchata abhiyaan’ to clean up our country our PM has started ‘Aarthik swachchata’ (economic cleanup) and we will soon see that black money is eliminated from our country”.  

My pessimistic and cynical mind finds an uncanny resemblance between both the programmes. Looking at the way the situation following the demonetisation announcement is being handled, I feel here again we have a case of misjudgement. Misjudgement of the magnitude of the problem, magnitude of the effect of demonetisation, magnitude of the preparedness that was needed, magnitude of our ability to launder the cash and corner the new currency and so on and so forth.

Many economists say that we may end up reducing the black money by 5-10%. People who are generous in their thoughts say “So be it. It is something. Nobody else dared to do even that much.” I am not as generous. Our politicians have trained my mind to look at all their actions with suspicion.

In a recent online survey on demonetisation I had three choices. 1. Good idea - well executed 2. Good idea - badly executed 3. Bad idea - badly executed. I am not an expert in economics and can’t say with confidence if it is a good idea or a bad idea. But I can confidently say that it is badly executed. I sincerely hope that it does not turn out to be a bad idea too.