Comments on: Swacch Bharat: India Is Dirty!

By: Richard Matthews

Richard Matthews — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 05:48:22 +0000

Clean is heavenly
Trash, spitting, public defication is a sign of pitiful careless ugliness period.

By: Vinay Nagaraju

Vinay Nagaraju — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 06:33:00 +0000

In reply to Maniparna Sengupta Majumder.

True Maniparna. I have tried it with a few of my closest friends and relatives too. They have a completely different theory about it – not a responsible one – kinda callous one. They say that the entire country is never going to be clean and if I don’t dirty the place someone else will and they seem to be quite satisfied with that reasoning.

It is like voting – the country is so large that one vote of mine does not count. And if everyone thinks that way, then there is no way out at all. It is kind of a deadlock!

I agree Maniparna, it is in that basic mindset and I strongly feel that a few fines and punishments are in order for this. Everything will fall into place..

By: Vinay Nagaraju

Vinay Nagaraju — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 06:31:00 +0000

In reply to Kokila Gupta.

Happy new year Kokila. Wishing your dreams to come true this year :)..

Thank you! I think it is about time we start rewarding the people who do right and punishing the ones who do wrong – the old carrot and stick approach to governance. But alas that seems like a theoretical aspect these days, maybe too difficult to implement in a large country in India. But maybe communal governance can come into play here – civil governance where people take up the smaller responsibilities and we are able to imbue that to the commonest citizen. I am sure there is a way out but I am not sure who is or who is not motivated enough to make that happen!

By: Vinay Nagaraju

Vinay Nagaraju — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 06:29:00 +0000

In reply to Alok Vats.

I agree Alok. I think this too is a vicious circle – no infrastructure to follow the rules, no mechanisms to ensure that rules are followed and ergo no rules. Kinda self sustaining circle of incompetence. I too have wished so many times that there was a public dustbin or a washroom. And the ones that are out there are absolutely disgusting and makes you wonder why it was built in the first place.

Funny that you mention about CP. I had a similar experience when I was in Delhi. I used to go 3-4 blocks to find a dustbin and the only ones I could find were the ones near Metro. it seemed that it was the only different world where people seemed civil all of a sudden. My point is – that too is the same country and this too is the same one. Why such a huge difference between the two? The dynamics of governance sure are baffling..

By: Vinay Nagaraju

Vinay Nagaraju — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 06:24:00 +0000

In reply to Abhijit Ray. True Abhijit, I think no one alone can clean the country, it has to be a collective responsibility of us - the citizens to follow certain inititatives. I have lot of respect for Modi as a PM and he has rosen to the level of a leader. But at the same time, the citizens should meet him half way, show him that they are worthy of being led towards progress. It has to be a well oiled machine to make it all work and I think the true start starts from the citizens and then we can impose it on the bureaucrats as well. As we know bureaucracy takes a lot more time to move than the aam junta :)

By: Vinay Nagaraju

Vinay Nagaraju — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 06:22:00 +0000

In reply to yogi saraswat. Yes Yogi, unfortunately that can also be the image of the country in their minds. But I think it is easy for them to ignore responsibilities since there is no one to impose it on them. I agree that a western culture would train them not to spit on the roads. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are more civil than us. They are just trained that way and in the end it is people everywhere right, it sure can be implemented with a little motivation..

By: Sandeep

Sandeep — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:02:00 +0000

Here is what I have to say on this topic… another line of opinion… http://www.sandeeppatil.co.in/watermarks/swachh_bharat_abhiyan/

By: yogi saraswat

yogi saraswat — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:08:00 +0000

The same people when they are in US / UK do not spit on the roads, nor do they urinate in public places! Why? This becomes mentality that India is dustbin and you can throw spit as much u can.

By: Abhijit Ray

Abhijit Ray — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 08:58:00 +0000

Here are my two cents. First Modi alone cannot clean India. But he is the first prime minister in my conscious life who has raised the issue from the roof top. Prime minister should identify, other minister, bureaucrats should implement. Citizens can do their part by not unnecessarily dirtying the place by spitting, loitering etc. It is true the task is humongus. It needs infrastructure, education and implementation.

By: Alok Vats

Alok Vats — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 08:57:00 +0000

Nice post Vinay, I too believe that there is no such infrastructure over here, while the ideal way to run this yojana should be to first develop the infrastructure. You will be surprised to know that one day we were going through CP which is considered as the heart of Delhi NCR, and we were eating oranges. We kept all the garbage in the polythene bag, but found no place to dump the bag. In some areas we can found out some washrooms, but at many metro stations too you won’t get a washroom. Even some washrooms at some prestigious metro stations are closed at around 8 PM. Even you will be surprised to hear that once we had some issue at our place and we went out to search washrooms, and we found every washrooms are locked, and it is written there that it remains open from 6 AM to 10 PM only, do you think that washrooms should remain open in shifts?

So the success of such abhiyans depends on how well you can develop the infrastructure, though it is also true that many of the ministers and so called Neta’s are simply participating it in for clicking pictures for media only.

By: Kokila Gupta

Kokila Gupta — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 03:42:00 +0000

HNY Vinay ! Too busy to comment but I read all the posts:) … Well said. Yes the positive reinforcement is necessary in form of human involvement but it has to be self inspired…. By shame or force they’ll listen once but will do again due to habit… And to change a habit, punishment and lecture both have to go hand-in-hand ….if after much uproar moral policing IS going on… Then it will too .. Yes certain things need dictatorship.

By: Maniparna Sengupta Majumder

Maniparna Sengupta Majumder — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:19:00 +0000

Even raising our voice won’t work always. There are people who think that such activities like spitting on walls, urinating anywhere or littering around are their birthright ! I witnessed an incident a few months back. Someone painted the wall red with his spit ( was chewing gutkha)..another one protested and the perpetrator boldly began to argue…even used abusive language. Then we joined the protest…me and a few other people and he finally murmured ‘sorry’ . But I’m sure he would repeat the same thing again. Mind set need to be changed and severe fine should be imposed.