A businessman, a cricketer, 3 actors, 1 yoga guru, 1 governor and one M.P. what to these people have in common? You must be wondering the same, they are the nine nominees for SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN. On 2nd Oct-2014 the current Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi launched a program to clean India. Now it must be same with every other program launched by nothing of much importance right.

But no this programme caught the attention of youth , media and almost every other person. Why so ?

May be a budget of 62,000 Crore just to clean or a population of 30 lakh government employees on road a factor or may be its something else. This campaign is though supported by Indian Army , BSF , IAF and so on , so basically its all about patriotism right . But why we have to be taught about patriotism now , and is cleaning our premises comes under patriotism . Oh ! we have never thought it like that. We go to abroad and we don’t spit on road , may be we feel ashamed there , may be there is a law about litter , but the law prevails in India too , then why we are free to do the same in India but not in foreign countries.

Once Mark Twain commented by saying that every corner is a Pee corner in India , we all laughed and the joke passes on. Now the urinator feels proud in doing there business in open , y so ? Does this enters in our mind so deeply that we cannot enter the washroom, or we need someone like our Prime Minister to tell us not to do it in public. Does this is what we have learned in our primary schools , or does it come in our manners , or does this precious knowledge is pass on to us by our ancestors ? Now what I think is we have become so adaptive to our slave system that we always need someone to tell us what to do and what not to do . Now at first we do not do it , because its out of our comfort zone , then we try a little bit , but then all of a sudden a whip came and we all start doing it. The programme for cleanliness is decades old. But who have time , who have energy, but what changed now , how all of a sudden we became so enthusiastic. The spitter community now looks around and tries to find a garbage bag. People think twice to throw something on railway platform. Does this mean that the whip works for Indians or the education is after all doing some good ?

We Indians worship cricketers and celebrities. If India is playing you can ask anybody on road “bhaisaab” score Kya Hua Hai ? And he will not only tell you score but 3-4 advices on how India can play better. See how fond of cricket we are, after all it’s our national game, RIGHT. And when it comes to movie stars, oh man, they are like the living Gods on earth. So Mr. Prime Minister has to get involved these people to make us work. But do we really need someone else to tell us what is right and what is wrong? Can’t we do that on our own?

So many ads on T.V., people giving speeches, but no , the dustbin is right there man, right there , but no we like to litter . What pleasure can it bring? Simply we are slave to our own habits. We cannot change them. If we try to change them, others will say , “tu bada deshbhakt ban rha h”, does it count as patriotism or common sense.

But again whom am I to judge.

Snehil Srivastava
MBA-IT
IIIT Allahabad