Aysuh Prasad
On Gandhi Jayanti (2nd October) this year, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi launched the "Swatch Bharat" or "The Clean India" campaign that aims to clean all places of human habitation in India of filth and litter. Spanning over 5 years and at an estimated cost of ₹ 2 Lakh Crores or US $ 35 billion, the campaign also calls upon citizens to spend a hundred hours every year to spend on cleaning their surroundings.
The various Ministries in the Union Government of India began by cleaning their premises - throwing away broken furniture that had been piled up in offices for several years and wiping off dust settled over old files. Ministers indulged in tokenism by sweeping parking spaces of their offices complexes in front of television news cameras.
India is not new to such fancy sounding campaigns. In 1972, the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi launched the poverty eradication or "Gareebi Hatao" campaign. 42 years since, 22% of Indians are still below the poverty line by the most optimistic projections & India is home to most number of poor in the world.
Would this clean India campaign, being launched with such fanfare, be any different? Well, only time would tell.
The Electors
Prime Minister Modi has the largest ever democratic mandate in the history of mankind with almost 170 million people voting for his party, BJP. But, if one looks at the votes from different social constituencies, his party performed fairly poorly among Muslims and Hindus considered outside the Varna system (Dalits/Harijans). People in both these constituencies are amongst the poorest in the country and perform poorly on all development indicators such as educational attainment and healthcare. Together they constitute a third on India's 1.25 billion population and they are known to vote as a block.
The Congress Party, that has ruled India for 56 of 67 years since Independence, has traditionally enjoyed votes from these electoral blocks, except in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Chipping away even a part of this constituency can permanently damage the electoral fortunes of the Congress.
Understanding Cleanliness
Like most developing countries, India has poor standards of cleanliness and poor waste disposal systems. Littered streets are a common sight and waterborne diseases are the largest cause of unnatural deaths.
Hindu scriptures place a high premium on being physically clean and one has to go at lengths to ensure cleanliness. The entire Varna System is hierarchical on the basis of the perception of cleanliness of caste based professions.
But, the process of keeping places clean was always outsourced to the people who were outside the caste system. Though they took pains to clean, including the inhumane practice of manual scavenging, any contact with the cleaners was supposed to pollute a person. Hence, for generations, out-castes were banned from Temples and apartheid was practiced in much of India.
Though the caste system has lost relevance in much of India today, except in times of marriage and electoral politics; some casteist practices are still unwittingly in use. Most parents do not teach their children ways to clean their rooms. A middle class homemaker, who is opposed to hiring domestic help for cooking, would certainly have hired help got cleaning. Most people leave places of social gatherings, leaving the cleaning for someone else- a unknown hidden person.
History abounds with examples where these practices were challenged- first through religious movements between 12th to 16th Century, then through social movements in the 19th Century and through the political movement in the 20th Century.
Gandhi and Anti Untouchability
Gandhi is widely credited as the father of nation in India, but he spent 10 years from 1932-42 mostly fighting for the social upliftment of those Hindus who were outside the caste system. He coined a term called Harijan or "People of God". On 8th January 1933, Harijans were to be allowed entry into temples.
Dr. B R Ambedkar, a brilliant lawyer, championed the cause of "Depressed Classes" or Dalit, through affirmative action in India's Constitution. He converted his religion to Buddhism along with his followers to provide a new social identity to them in 1956.
Both Gandhi and Ambedkar could not effectively convert their Harijan and Dalit movements respectively, into political mobilisation of Hindus outside the caste system.
In the 1980s, Mayawati, a young woman journeyed India's politically largest state of Uttar Pradesh to mobilise Dalits. She became the Chief Minister of the state as well in 1995,2002 and 2007. Since then, political parties have tried to leverage the Dalit vote by symbolism- religiously garlanding Dr. Amedkar's statue twice a year and appointing Dalits to high offices. Sushil Kumar Shinde, a Dalit from the state of Maharashtra, was the leader of India's Lower House of Parliament, The Lok Sabha, before the last elections that got Prime Minister Modi to power.
Revival of Harijan Movement
Modi chose to launch the Swatch Bharat campaign by symbolically sweeping the streets of a locality called "Valmiki Basti" in New Delhi. This locality is one of the largest habitations of Harijans/Dalits in the city. Most people are employed by the one of the four Municipal Corporations in Delhi as cleaners. By cleaning the streets of the people who clean others streets, Modi sent a very strong message.
Most caste Hindus did not step into the locality when untouchability was practiced, a century ago. To break this practice, Gandhi stayed in the locality for over 200 days when he was working on his Harijan movement. By going back to the locality on Gandhi's birth anniversary, Modi has found a new way of paying his respects to the Mahatma.
Several old Harijans who had experienced untouchability were touched by Modi's gesture and even had tears in their eyes. The "Prime Minister of India" has swept the streets of a colony, whose residents have cleaned the streets of others. He has cleaned the streets where no caste Hindu would have stepped foot in, just a century ago, due to the fear of becoming unclean or polluted.
He has called for an apolitical movement; but workers of his party, the BJP, will ensure that the message is not lost on the Harijans. Some believe that the benefit of this symbolism will come in less than two weeks in the state elections of Haryana and Maharashtra.
When your great grandfathers's great grandfather was a little boy, women were burnt on the pyres of their husband and a Brahmin had the right to kill a Harijan/Dalit if the latter crossed his path- to maintain his cleanliness. The Indian society has come a long way and it is still continuously being transformed for the better.
The Swatch Bharat campaign will attack the core cause of the varna hierarchy - cleanliness. It may have implicit political connotations, but if successful, it will clean more than just that physical filth in India's streets and public spaces.