By Piya Chakraborty
Edited by Namrata Caleb
We all know about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched on 2 nd October 2014, which is a national level campaign organised by BJP government. The program covers 4041 statutory towns with the motive to encourage citizens to keep the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country clean. Narendra Modi himself cleaned the road along with 3million employees and students. Notable people like Anil Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Baba Ramdev, Kamal Hassan, Mridula Sinha and Shashi Thakur have been selected to propagate the campaign.
Now the question that arises is that how far this abhiyan will be successful in India. Being positive and considering the fact that the PM himself started the campaign along with nine notable public figures it definitely cannot be ignored by his followers. Moreover Narendra Modi was instrumental in rebuilding Gujarat after it had been destroyed by several natural calamities.
On the other side, just the launch would not be enough. Regular follow ups are necessary to turn the abhiyan into a reality. Celebrities coming in for one or two days for promotion and then getting busy with their own schedules would not take this far. a hype can easily be created on social media by youngsters by sharing blogs and posting pictures but no one would actually take broom and clean the streets. In a scenario where people are busy searching for jobs and tackling inflation who has the time to encourage such campaigns? Moreover not a campaign but peoples attitude is important. People may get influenced but as long as they do not apply it themselves nothing is going to change. If we are talking about cleaning India but do not pay attention to the wrappers and trash accumulating in our own neighbourhood then there is no point. People do not usually take things seriously unless a stricter law is implied. To keep India clean we do not really need to clean roads but only make sure that we ourselves do not make it dirty. Just small things like putting the chips packet in the dustbin or not throwing anything on the road will do the trick. It is the irresponsible behaviour of certain people which makes it so difficult. So definitely it depends on the people whether the campaign would actually be successful or not.
To make this more powerful government might start education about cleanliness in schools which might encourage and instil a sense of responsibility from a young age. Moreover if fines be taken from people who are caught throwing things on the road or making them dirty then people might become a little more cautious. Indian are nurtured on a stubborn platform so its difficult to get them on track without a legal or monetary check. Our PM has initiated the change and shown us the direction now its our responsibility to make it successful.
Thus a change should come from within, its not the PMs but the publics responsibility. It depends on us whether we make Swachh Bharat Abhiyan a success or a failure in the long run.