Hello! Who is going to clean this filth?

It sometimes appears to me, and most will agree, that the ongoing and much hyped “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” launched by government with the good intent to educate the masses about cleanliness is becoming a farce because of those who want to come to the lime light to meet their ulterior motives than social service. This curt statement does not in any way belittle the government’s priority programme or the work of those who are selflessly working for this cause without any reward or recognition or for that matter the school children who through their bit towards Socially Useful Productive Work religiously follow Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

While I practice and spread the word for the need of cleanliness by one and all, it hurts if some act as spoil sport.

“Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” is a campaign by the Government of India to keep the streets; roads and infrastructure of the country in urban and rural areas clean as also spread the education for the need of sanitation.

I feel its time every one should shun the fellows who are misusing this very pious mission towards cleanliness and sanitation. Needless to say they be sternly questioned by the people at large if not prosecuted by the law for their double standards of posing to work for the cause of cleanliness and on the other hand being the first to deface the surrounding. It is because of this ongoing double standards and a question being posed to me the other day by a young child on why the city looks so shabby with dangling political party posters, cut-outs and flags that he sees for many days now while going and coming from the school, I was rendered speechless. While I did not lie about the situation, I also did not painting a dismal picture of the hard realty to discourage him. Unable to digest what the little child had asked, I felt like penning this piece.

A visit by any big political leaders of a political outfit and the city is horribly splashed with worthless posters, hoardings, cloth banners, cut-outs, welcome gates, political party flags and what not put up all over the place not in few hundreds, but countless in number.

Coupled with this, the most annoying are the choking of all major roads by political party supporters and their vehicles flouting every civic and traffic management rules and systems creating hell for every one, yet going scot-free.

With their party flag (clumsy tin plates) jutted out of the bonnets, every owner of such vehicle considers himself authorized to flout rules and regulations. How ridiculous! I am sure this is far away from the ideology of any party which does not encourage this.

It has been around a week since a renowned political party leader had visited the Doon Valley for taking stock of his party functionaries. A visit of this nature should have been at the party office or at a convention centre where he could have addressed his party workers if the numbers were too large. Certainly such gatherings should not have been in the heart of the city, as the public has nothing to do with this. But what a disgrace, in the name of welcoming the dignitary the entire city faced absolute chaos for two days the leader was here and even before his arrival, everything appeared topsy-turvy.

Traffic advisories in the newspapers about not leaving the house unless absolutely necessary because of traffic and blocking/re-routing of major roads within the city were deplorable.  Why should one restrict going out because of some unworthy cause? Also, if the crowd was going to get big because of a particular dignitary’s visit it should not have been hosted in the heart of the city in the first place.

Worst is the aftermath of the visit. Days after the visit, the city still looks defaced from all corners. Till today the countless numbers of posters, hoardings, cloth banners, cut-outs, welcome gates, political party flags placed to welcome the dignitary are still dangling all over the place, be it the leading roads of the city, public and residential buildings, street light poles, signage, etc, providing the most ugly look one can imagine. One such cloth welcome gate or a banner with its broken strings came flying on my wind screen while I was driving on the busy Rajpur Road. That was really very annoying and put me off. This could have led to an accident also! 

This reflects how well Uttarakhand is actually after the Prime Minister’s dream project “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” or readying itself for a “Smart City”.

The question is who is going to clean this filth? Is it not the duty of the volunteers of the political party who defaced the city to have come forward willingly to clean it?

Some of the known faces and local political leaders seen on the dangling posters on the roads and other places should have taken this task on priority, as a moral duty and as law-abiding legislators. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not just sweeping the roads to appear in newspapers and media as guardians of cleanliness. Clean up of filth like this is also a part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. It is time the lesson of true cleanliness and its real meaning be taught to the political party workers first before percolating it down to the masses.

Dehradun cannot be a good “Smart City” if this is the kind of attitude of its leaders. It is time to wake up, least the Prime Minister whose dream project and mission is the “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” spots those who breach the mission’s objectives.