Importance of Gandhian thoughts about Cleanliness

  
Importance of Gandhian thoughts about Cleanliness

                                                                   Dr. Shubhangi Dinesh Rathi

                                                                                          Associate Professor & H.O.D. Poliical Science,

                                                                                  Smt. P.K. Kotecha Mahila Mahavidhalaya,

                                                                Bhusawal.(Maharashtra- India)

                                                                                              Chairman, Board of Studies of Political Science &  Member of Women Study Center,

                                                                            North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon

 Everyone must be his own scavenger- M K Gandhi

Introduction:

  On 2^nd Oct.2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched nationwide cleanliness campaign on the occasion Mahatma Gandhi birth anniversary. The concept of Swachh Bharat is to pave access for every person to sanitation facilities including toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems, village cleanliness and safe and adequate drinking water supply. We have to achieve this by 2019 as a befitting tribute to Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary. He said that Swacha Bharat Mission is beyond politics. It is inspired by patriotism and not politics. He also pledged to people saying 'na main gandagi karoonga,na main gandagi karne doonga' (I would not litter and won't allow anyone to do so). He further flagged off a walkathon as part of the Swachh Bharat Campaign. Swachh Bharat Campaign is not just a logo. It is our responsibility. In this sense, so many aware people want to Gandhian thought about cleanliness. What is need of it? Which way Gandhiji influence and communicate this idea for developing nation? For answering these questions it’s necessary to know the Mahatma Gandhi’s view about cleanliness for healthy & wealthy nation.

 Importance of Cleanliness:

       Indian has gained freedom under leadership of Gandhiji, but his dream of clean India is still unfulfilled. Mahatma Gandhi Said "Sanitation is more important than independence". He made cleanliness and sanitation an integral Part of the Gandhian way of living. His dream was total sanitation for all. Cleanliness is one of the most important practices for a clean and healthy environment. It may be related to public hygiene or personal hygiene. It is essential for everyone to learn about cleanliness, hygiene, sanitation and the various diseases that are caused due to poor maintenance of hygienic conditions.  The habits which are learnt or followed at a young age get embedded into one's personality. One should start to follow certain habits like washing hands before meals, regular brushing of teeth, and bathing from the young age. But we are not aware about cleanliness of public places. Mahatma Gandhi said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” 

Gandhiji offered detailed comments on cleanliness and good habits and indicated its close relationship with good health:  " No one should spit or clean his nose on the streets. In some cases the sputum is so harmful that the germs are carried from it and they infect others with tuberculosis. In some places spitting on the road is a criminal offence. Those who spit after chewing betel leaves and tobacco have no consideration for the feelings of others. Spittle, mucus from the nose, etc, should also be covered with earth. ( Navajivan dated 2-11-1919)

Influence of family & West:

         The Gandhi family was well known in Rajkot. His father and grandfather served long as dewans in Rajkot and other neighboring states. the Prime Minister's barrister so needed guts to go round the home town and make a house to house inspection of the drains. A Gandhi seldom filed to show moral courage in the hour of need.

 In his town mehtar called Uka did the scavenging. If Gandhi ever touched Uka, Putlibai asked him to take a bath. Gandhi, otherwise a docile, obedient son, did not like it. The 12 years old son would argue with his mother; "Uka serves us by cleaning dirt and filth, how can his touch pollute me? I shall not disobey you, but the ramayana says that Rama embraced Guhaka a chandal. The Ramayana cannot mislead us." Putlibai could find no answer for this argument.
He criticized many western customs but repeatedly admitted that he learnt sanitation from the west. He wanted to introduce that type of cleanliness in India.

Pointing out our unhygienic habits Gandhiji strongly emphasized observing cleanliness in lavatories, and wrote "I shall have to defend myself on one point, namely, sanitary conveniences. I learnt 35 years ago that a lavatory must be as clean as a drawing-room. I learnt this in the West. I believe that many rules about cleanliness in lavatories are observed more scrupulously in the West than in the East. There are some defects in their rules in this matter, which can be easily remedied. The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere. I, therefore, believe in the absolute necessity of a clean place for answering the call of nature and clean articles for use at the time, have accustomed myself to them and wish that all others should do the same. The habit has become so firm in me that even if I wished to change it I would not be able to do so. Nor do I wish to change it" ( Navajivan on 24-5-1925)

Scavenger started from South Africa:

Gandhi learnt scavenging in South Africa. His friends there lovingly called him the great scavenger Mahatma Gandhi said, “Everyone must be his own scavenger.”( The mind of Mahatma Gandhi  200)

After three year's stay South Africa, he came to India to take his wife and sons to there. At that time plague had broken out in the Bombay Presidency. There was a chance of its spreading to Rajkot. Gandhi immediately offered his service for improving the sanitation of Rajkot. He inspected every home and stressed the need of keeping the latrines clean. The dark, filthy, stinking pits infested with vermin horrified him. In some houses belonging to the upper class, gutters were used as a privy and stench was unbearable. The residents were apathetic. Poor untouchables lived in cleaner homes and responded to Gandhi's pleadings. Gandhi suggested the use of two separate buckets for urine and night-soil and that improved the sanitation.

Training of Cleanliness for Equality:

Gandhiji’s second trip to India from South Africa, he attended the Congress session in Calcutta. He came to plead because of the ill-treated Indians in South Africa the sanitary condition of the Congress camp was horrible. Some delegates used the verandah in front of their room as latrines, others did not object to it. Gandhi reacted immediately. When he spoke to the volunteers, they said; “This is not our job, this is a sweeper's job." Gandhi asked the broom and cleaned the filth. He was then dressed in western style. the volunteers were astonished but none came forward to assist him. Years later, when Gandhi became the guiding star of the Indian National Congress, volunteers formed a bhangi squad in the Congress camps. Once the brahmins only worked as bhangis. Two thousand teachers and students were specially trained for doing scavenging at the Haripura Congress. Gandhi could not think of having a set of people labeled as untouchables for cleaning filth and dirt. He wanted to abolish untouchability from India.

Whenever Gandhi got an opportunity of doing a little bit of cleaning work, he felt happy. To him the test of a people's knowledge of cleanliness was the condition of their latrines. he described himself as a bhangi and said he would be content if he could die as a sweeper. He even asked orthodox Hindus to make him suffer social boycott along with the untouchables.
Use of Media to communicates Cleanliness Ideas:

In South Africa the whites despised the Indians for their slovenly habits. Gandhi inspected their quarters and asked them to keep their homes and surroundings clean. He spoke about it in public meetings and wrote in newspapers. Gandhi's house in Durban was built in western fashion. The bathroom had no outlet for water. Commodes and chamber-pot used by his clerks residing with him. He compelled his wife Kasturba to do the same. He also taught his young sons this work. Kasturba once made a wry face while carrying the chamber-pot used by allow caste clerk. Gandhi rebuked her and told her to leave the house if she wanted to observe caste bias. He was once socially boycotted by his own sympathizers for admitting an untouchable couple in the Sabarmati Ashram.
Mass Contact Programme:        

·        Gandhi’s group launched a mass contact programme with the villagers. “At the end of the morning’s march,” writes Tendulkar, “a batch of men and women from his party visited the Harijan quarters of the village near the camp, taking with them brooms and spades.” They talked about the “necessity of sanitation, about keeping their yards clean, of burying rubbish, instead of leaving it to blow here and there. When engaged in the talks, Gandhi’s party began cleaning up the basti themselves. They highlighted the need to prevent excrement lying in the open, as it attracted flies and spread disease.

·        Diseases could be traced to errors, such as overeating or eating wrong foods, and therefore calls for self-restraint on the part of the ‘sufferer’, he said. He did not fail to emphasise the need to educate villagers on hygiene and sanitation. The true function of the Ashram, he said, was to show people how they could avoid disease.

·        There is something to be learnt in this regard from Mahatma Gandhi. On February 4, 1916, almost a century ago, he spoke at the inauguration of the Banaras Hindu University, at the invitation of Madan Mohan Malaviya. At one point, Gandhi said he wanted to 'think audibly' and proceeded to recall his visit to the Vishwanath temple during that visit. Apparently disappointed at the dirty state of this house of God, Gandhi said, "Is not this great temple a reflection of our own character?" The houses around had been built without regard to any norms, the lanes were tortuous and narrow and of course, dirty. "I speak feelingly, as a Hindu," he added to emphasise his pain, asking whether the temples would be clean once the British had left the country, bag and baggage. (The speech has been reproduced in The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Speeches, 1877 to the Present, edited by Rakesh Batabyal).

·        During his khadi tour, the sweepers once were not permitted to attend a public meeting where Gandhi was to speak. When Gandhi came to know of it, he told the organisers: " You may keep back your purse and your addresses. I am going to have a meeting with the untouchables only. Let all others who want , come there."

·        Two years before his death, Gandhi stayed some days in the sweepers' colony in Bombay and Delhi. He wished to share the same lodging and partake of their food but then he was too old for the experiment. Moreover some special privileges were forced on the Mahatma.
Gandhi once went to Simla to have an important meeting with the Viceroy. He sent one leading co-worker to see the bhangi quarters there. When he was told that they have reduced the bhangis to the level of beasts. They earn a few coppers but only at the expense of their human dignity. Look at a bhangi as he eats his surrounded by filth. It is enough to break one's heart."

       The answer is there for all to see. Neither temples nor other public spaces are free from filth. Neither leaders nor citizens are particularly engaged with the problem - of cleaning up our cities and towns with genuine measures. Reducing needless consumption, reducing waste, confining dirt to its designated place, cleaning up our rivers and lakes and treating our environment with greater respect.

·        In D.G. Tendulkar’s “Mahatma”, Volume Three, there is a reference to Gandhi leaving Patna in 1934, as part of his Harijan tour, for Orissa. At Champapurhat, he found that there was a dispensary on the grounds of the Gandhi Seva Ashram, and used that occasion to give a lecture on the need to rely not on medicines for a cure, but to prevent disease.

Need of Cleanliness Everywhere:

·        After twenty years stay in that alien land, Gandhi at 46 finally returned to India with his party. During his visit to Kumbh Mela at Hardwar that year, he with his Phoenix boys served as bhangis in the mela.

·        The same year Gandhi visited the Servants of India Society's quarters at Poona. The members of the small colony one morning saw him cleaning the latrines. They did not like it. But Gandhi believed that work of this kind qualified one for Swaraj.

·        More than once he toured all over India. Whenever he went, he found insanitation in some form or other. The filth and stench of public urinal and latrines in railway stations and in dharmashalas were awful.

·        The roads used by the poor villagers and their bullocks were always ill-kept. He saw people taking a dip in a sacred pond without caring to know how dirty that bathing place or the water was. They themselves dirtied the river-banks. He was hurt to see the marbel floor of Kashi Viswanath Temple set with stary silver coins that collected dirt and wondered why most entrances to abodes of God were through narrow slippery lanes.

·        . Gandhi deplored the passengers' habit of dirtying the railway compartments and said that though few could afford to sue shoes, it was unthinkable to walk barefoot in India. How even in a city like Bombay, people walked about the streets under the fear of being spat upon by the occupants of houses around.

·          In reply to municipal addressed, Gandhi often said; “I congratulate you on your spacious roads, your splendid lighting and your beautiful parks. But a municipality does not deserve to exist which does not possess model closets and where streets and lanes are not kept clean all the hours of the day and night . The greatest problem many municipalities have to tackle is insanitation. Have you ever thought of the conditions in which the sweepers live?"

·        Gandhiji emphasized that servants' quarters should be as clean as ministers' bungalows:

           "There is no gainsaying that we have not learnt the art of external sanitation to the degree that the English have. What is so distressing is that the living quarters of the menials and sweepers employed in the Viceroy's House are extremely dirty. This is a state of affairs the ministers of our new Government will not tolerate. Although they will occupy the same well-kept bungalows, they will see to it that the lodgings of their servants are kept as clean as their own. They will also have to pay attention to the cleanliness of the wives and children of the staff Jawaharlal and Sardar have no objection to cleaning their own lavatories. How can they have any in having the living quarters of their attendants cleaned? A one-time Harijan servant of Jawaharlal is now a member of the V.P. Assembly. I shall be satisfied only when the lodgings of the ministers' staff are as neat and tidy as their own." (Speech at a prayer meeting on 3-9-1946 in New Delhi)

Responsibility of People about Cleanliness to protect Environment:

·        Gandhiji said to people: “So long as you do not take the broom and the bucket in your hands, you cannot make your towns and cities clean."

·        When he inspected a model school, he told the teachers: “You will make your institution ideal, if besides giving the students literary education, you have made finished cooks and sweepers of them."

·        To the students his advice was: " If you become your own scavengers, you will make your surroundings clean. It needs no les courage to become an expert scavenger than to win a Victoria Cross." 

·        The villagers near his ashram refused to cover excreta with earth. They said: " Surely this is bhangi's work. It is sinful to look at faces, more so to throw earth on them"  Gandhi personally supervised the scavenging work in villages. To set an example to them, he for some months, himself used to go to the villages with bucket and broom. Friends and guests went with him. They brought bucketfuls of dirt and stool and buried them in pits.

·        All scavenging work in his ashram was done by the inmates. Gandhi guided them. People of different races, religions and colors lived there.

·        No dirt could be found anywhere on the ashram ground. All rubbish was buried in pits Peelings of vegetables and leaving s of food were dumped in a separate manure pit. The night soil too was buried and later used as good rich manure. Waste water was used for gardening. The farm was free from flies and stink though there was no pucka drainage system.

·        Gandhi and his co-workers managed sweeper's work by turn. He introduced bucket-latrines and bicameral trench latrines. To all visitors Gandhi showed this new innovation with pride. Rich and poor, leaders and workers, Indians and foreigners all had to use these latrines. This experiment slowly removed aversion for scavenging from the minds of orthodox co-workers and women inmates of the ashram.

·        The sight of a bhangi carrying the night-soil basket on his head made him sick. He explained how with the use of proper instruments, cleaning could be done neatly. Scavenging was a fine art and he did it without becoming filthy himself.

·        He wrote, "Village tanks are promiscuously used for bathing, washing clothes and drinking and cooking purposes. Many village tanks are also used by cattle. Buffaloes are often to be seen wallowing in them. The wonder is that, inspite of this sinful misuse of village tanks, villages have not been destroyed by epidemics. It is the universal medical evidence that this neglect to ensure purity of the water supply of villages is responsible for many of the diseases suffered by the villagers." (Hanjan- 8-2-1935)

Conclusion:

Ø  Lastly we can conclude that cleanliness is important in our life as well as in nation. On the question of clean-ups, it is well known that the Mahatma Gandhi personally took the effort to achieve the change that he wanted to see.

Ø  It is of course too much to expect that our leaders of the present day will go around the cities with their rising number of slums, and initiate a genuine clean-up.

Ø   Teachers & students role are very important to communicate the ideas of cleanliness.

Ø  Now a days role of social media is important to aware the people for cleanliness for healthy & wealthy life & develop nationality among them.

Ø  It is even more remote that they will pull themselves away from their market-focused pursuits and ineffectual, exclusive pursuit of GDP growth, to focus on the task of nation-building.

Ø  Cleanliness is not only the responsibility of the 'safaai kaamgar' or local government. It is the responsibility of all Indians. 

Ø  Need of GO’s, NGOs and local community work for centers to make India completely clean. It’s a need of present scenario all peoples should actively participate to clean India for fulfill the dream of Mahatma Gandhi for protection of environment for our safety & healthy future.

References:

·         http://www.mkgandhi.org/bahurupi/chap06.htm

·         http://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/gandhiphilosophy/philosophy_environment_sanitation.htm

·         http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/blogs/blog-urban-prospects/article5192535.ece

·         http://www.niticentral.com/2014/02/27/modi-launches-mahatma-gandhi-swachchata-abhiyan-194080.html