Opinion Clean sweep

Stating the problem can be half the solution, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done well to use high-visibility national and international fora, from the Red Fort to Madison Square Garden, to speak bluntly of the cleanliness crisis in India. He has also harnessed social media, repurposed the ice bucket challenge and shot for viral scale by involving brand ambassadors like Sachin Tendulkar, Baba Ramdev, Anil Ambani, Priyanka Chopra and former UPA minister Shashi Tharoor — the last is a masterful political stroke, too. Always tactically prudent, he has sought to efface himself this time, for if “Clean India” is to succeed, it must become a people’s movement rather than yet another Modi project.

Of course, except in its scale and impetus, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not unprecedented. It follows on from the UPA’s Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, which was projected to be similarly inclusive but foundered nevertheless. In the late Nineties, Chandrababu Naidu had sold a “clean and green Andhra Pradesh” to help Hyderabad wrest IT investment from Bangalore. A generation before that, Gandhi had made cleanliness and sanitation central to the nationalist movement. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched on October 2 in a nod to the Mahatma’s first-mover advantage, but those who would be seen as his political inheritors ought to know that the devil is in the details. For instance, Modi’s movement seeks to be all-inclusive and caste-blind — apart from the launch in Delhi’s Valmiki Colony — which is politically sound. But it must negotiate caste on the ground, and will encounter complex, unpleasant truths about who cleans India and who will not.

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Besides, the broom can sweep away filth, but where to? Cleanliness and sanitation have a hidden architecture. For instance, while the PM’s campaign for toilets in village homes is laudable, it must follow on with rural sewerage, which is an expensive proposition. In February, there was a multi-party agitation against garbage dumping in Pune. In 2008, well-heeled residents of Gurgaon came out on the streets and approached the courts against illegal dumping. Indeed, it is inadvisable to think of cleanliness without planning for disposal and recycling, with special attention to hazardous waste and plastic. But Swachh Bharat is focused on the front end of what should be a chain of systems and industries. Lastly, for motivation, the programme depends exclusively on human goodwill and public responsibility. Countries which have cleaned up generally have litter laws and heavy fines. Legal deterrence is politically fraught, but may have to be considered if India is to remain clean after the hype has swept past.