FOCUs

SWACHH BHARATH ABHIYAN: RAMAKRISHNA MISSION MANGALOORU ON MISSION MODE

“If I were to look over the whole world to find the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow– in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life and has found solutions to some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India.”

         Friedrich Max Muller, German-born British Indologist

“It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self destruction of the human race… At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way. Emperor Ashoka’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence and Sri Ramakrishna’s testimony to the harmony of religions. Here we have an attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family and, in the Atomic Age, this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves.”

                 Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian

The above are but two of the30 listed reverential comments on India by Wikipedia. These glorious tributes only make one wonder, why it took 70 years, for an Indian Prime Minister to call upon his countrymen for “SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN” (SBA) from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort. Here it is pertinent to reproduce what Nani A. Palkhivala, the Indian legal luminary, had stated in his book, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ while dedicating it: “TO MY COUNTRYMEN, who gave unto themselves the constitution but not the ability to keep it, who inherited a resplendent heritage, but not the wisdom to cherish it, who suffer and endure in patience without the perception of their potential.”

Having announced SBA on 15th August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the nationwide cleanliness campaign on 2nd October 2014, at Rajpath, New Delhi to coincide with Gandhi Jayanthi. Doing so, he said, “A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birthday on 2nd October 2019.” He earnestly requested our men and women to dedicate at least 2 hours per week – some 100 hours in a year– towards the campaign. An expectation that millions of government officials, besides students and general public would be inspired to take the broom, dashed like a flash in the pan, after an initial burst of action that ended only as photo-ops. Garbage was back on the street!

A former Japanese prime minister had responded to Nani Palkhivala, when he remarked that “we in India have a huge number of people and in Japan you have so less, but why is Japan more clean and tidy?” The answer was: “In Japan we have citizens, while in India you only have people.”Indeed, our education had failed to make Indians realize that cleanliness is clearly a part of character building.

SBA is the brainchild of PM Modi to provide sanitation facilities to every family, including toilets, solid and liquid waste disposal systems in cities and village cleanliness. He called upon Indians to achieve the nationwide target by October 2, 2019 as a befitting tribute to the Father of the Nation on his 150th birth anniversary.

Mahatma Gandhi, decades before he returned to India from South Africa, had this clarity of thought about the cleanliness in public spaces. He had said, “For me, sanitation is more important than independence”, clearly emphasizing how sanitation has far greater relevance in the nation building than just political freedom. While Indians, at least a majority of them, are clean personally, like taking bath, brushing teeth, washing hands before meals, etc., when it comes to cleanliness at public places most Indians do not come out with flying colours. Generally, most Indians do not bother about cleanliness in the public space.

Mohandas Gandhi, even as a boy, although docile by nature, was a rebel when it came to cleanliness and the well-being of those who keep the place clean, especially sweepers and scavengers. His stay in England and South Africa had clearly influenced his thoughts on cleanliness. In 1925, in his weekly publication ‘Navajivan’ he had written “I shall have to defend myself on one point, namely sanitary convenience. 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”. In his respect for dignity of labour he had said that, “between the one who dirties the place or creates garbage,and the one who cleans it, the one who cleans or clears it, is greater.” 

Gandhi was also pained to see the general level of uncleanliness in and around temples across India. While speaking at the inauguration of Banaras Hindu University on February 4, 1916, recollecting his visit to the local Vishwanath temple and expressing his deep disappointment at the dirty state of this house of God,he had remarked: “Is not this great temple a reflection of our character? I speak feelingly as a Hindu” and asked the audience “whether the temple could be clean once the British leave the country,with bag and baggage”.

Talking about the people’s responsibility towards cleanliness to protect the environment, he had said, “So long as you do not take the broom and the bucket in your hands, you cannot make your towns and cities clean.”While inspecting a model school, he had added: “You will make your institution ideal, if besides giving the student literary education, you have made cooks and sweepers of them,” targeting his remark to the teachers. To the students, his advice was: “If you become your own scavengers, you will make your surroundings clean. It needs no less courage to become an expert scavenger than to win a Victoria Cross!”

This is where Prime Minister Modi took the bull by the horn. It is indeed peoples participation that will propel the nation into a clean India. Picking up the broom, PM Modi himself initiated the cleanliness drive at New Delhi’s Mandir Marg Police Station. By setting an example of himself, he goaded Indians across the nation to do likewise. Thus Swachh Bharat Abhiyan became a national movement – never seen before. It is true, because of our lethargy and other attitudinal issues, the movement has not been a run-a-way success. However, for the first time in post Independent India, after the initiative by PM Modi, cleanliness naturally came to the national consciousness. Many corporate houses and NGOs became active to do their bit.

However, unlike other organizations, the Ramakrishna Math of Ramakrishna Mission in Mangalooru, remained committed to the cause of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Led by its convenor for SBA, Swami Ekagamyananda, Ramakrishna Mission foraged week after week on the streets and lanes of Mangalooru with a commitment that can only be called mind boggling. Starting their on-road campaign on 30th January 2015 to keep the city of Mangalooru clean in all respects, they began the programme of making the city litter free with 2000 students participating as volunteers. Since then, they have not looked back. The campaign culminated on 29th September 2019 at the Central Market, Mangalooru. “Befitting the movement, it was organized as a massive shramadaan (voluntary labour) in which more than 100 NGOs and groups of individuals joined hands with us to clean 23 black spots in the market”, informs Swami Ekagamyananda. Commenting on the Swaccha Mangalooru Abhiyan, Vice President of Ramakrishna Order Belur, said “Mangalooru experience is worth replicating across India.” That was indeed a kind of certificate to Swami Ekagamyananda, who was the chief moving spirit behind the whole movement in Mangalooru. 

For almost 5 years, the team led by the indomitable Swami Ekagamyananda conducted some 2500 programmes with some 250 groups consisting of some 10,000 dedicated volunteers and 13000 students, also called as Swachhata Senanis, in 130 schools. 

Reportedly, the union government had contacted Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, Art of Living Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Ramakrishna Mission and the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetha, and had planned to rope in Catholic Bishops Conference of India and Muslim clerics. But only Ramakrishna Mission in Mangalooru is the only one who started the campaign with passion and sustained its commitment for all the 5 years.

In this context, one may recall that on September 11, 1906, 3000 people had gathered in the Imperial Theatre of Johannesburg in South Africa to protest against the discriminatory law against Indians in South Africa. According to Gandhi, the proposed Asiatic Registration ordinance would spell absolute ruin for the Indians living in South Africa. Nowhere in the world, he believed, had free men been subjected to such humiliating restrictive legislation. Not knowing how to proceed, Gandhi invoked God. “Notwithstanding the differences of nomenclature in Hinduism and Islam”, Gandhi declared, “we all believe in one and the same God. To pledge ourselves in the name of God, we shall resolve that we shall not comply with the registration provision of the law and the assembly shall vote and adopt this resolution with God as our witness. And anyone who breaks it becomes a man of straw and fits himself for punishment here as much as hereafter. I can declare with certainty, that so long as there is even a handful of men true to their pledge there can be only one end, that is victory. As for me, there is only one course open to me”, Gandhi asserted “to die, but not submit to the law. If you have not the will or the ability to stand firm even when you are perfectly isolated, you may as well not take the pledge. Everyone must be true to his pledge even unto death, no matter what others do”. Gandhi sat down, supremely confident, that he could stand alone, come what may. That was in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi fighting the British authorities against an impending segregative legislation against Indians. He had decided to fight alone until death, if none joined him in his fight against the discriminative ordinance, which became an enactment – the Asiatic Registration Act 1908of General Smuts, after the amendments sought by Gandhi were incorporated.

Similar was the case in Mangalooru, with Swami Ekagamyananda, facing the possibility of going solo with SBA. Probably, he remembered the poet “When people answer not your call, walk alone, walk alone… ”

Confronted with the onerous task of Swatchh Mangaluru, Swami Ekagamyananda says “The major task was to present to Mangaloreans the concept of clean India. The first step we decided would be to clean the city and remove the garbage heaped in almost every street corner. For this we needed a workforce of dedicated volunteers. We contacted devotees, schools and colleges and the general public of Mangalooru. Wherever I went, I was welcomed with the words, “No Swamiji, it will not work. It is an impossible task!’ They said such a campaign would never succeed in Mangalooru because most of the people here work in schools, colleges and offices. And who would volunteer to pick stinking garbage from the roadside! ‘Nobody will come for Shramadaan at 7am on Sunday mornings’ they discouraged me. But I didn’t lose hope, come what may, we will take up the project at least for a year as an experiment, if nobody comes I will sweep alone, was my thought”. He took a considered stand in the face of monumental negatives.

There is clear similarity in the approach of Gandhi in South Africa and Swami Ekagamyananda in Mangalooru. No wonder, both travelled further to leave their foot prints on the shifting sands of time. Gandhi won the struggle to get the ordinance amended. And Swami saw to it that Mangalooru did change for better towards cleaner Mangalooru.

Reacting to the instruction from Belur head quarters of Ramakrishna Mission to take up Swachchata Abhiyan in Mangalooru, the reaction of Swami Ekagamyananda was mixed and he was not enthused with the idea. With a huge fan following of PM Narendra Modi, Swami Ekagamyananda, all of 36, felt there may not be any need for Ramakrishna Mission to take up the broom and handle garbage. Indeed there were enough and more men and women, who are fans of our Prime Minister, but mostly ‘fair weather’ types. They were a part of the Indian indisciplined brigade with hardly any commitment and dedication. Swami Ekagamyananda rightly felt, “By the end of the month everything was back to square one. At many places Abhiyan was limited to exhibition of banners only. A few people took brooms in their hands and posed for photographs and publicity and people continued dumping garbage on roadsides!”

In the face of general lack of interest among different sections of the Mangalooru crowd, Swami wanted to give an honest shot and make the Mangaluru Swachcha Abhiyan work. On Martyr’s Day, 30th January 2015, Swami Ekagamyananda hit the roads of Mangalooru, with the thought that he would work for a year or so and see how it progressed.

He charted out his work plan into five phases, of 40 weeks in each phase, covering one year, excluding the period of monsoon. In all, Swami Ekagamyananda and his team worked for 204 weeks on Sundays during 2015-19 period of close to 5 years.

Of course, as he pleasantly recollects, looking back over the uncertainties of managing helping hands of volunteers, how some started with all enthusiasm and slowly dropped off. But focused persistence paid off in getting dedicated volunteers. However, what distinguished the effort of Ramakrishna Mission, as compared to mere cleaning campaign, was that they repaired footpaths and roads in need of some works. They renovated old bus shelters and even built new ones, on the request of locals, constructed auto shelters, provided barricades for the better flow of traffic, cleaned public toilets, cleared roadside garbage dumping places and replaced it with a modicum of parks. This completely changed the look of the place, Swami tells, “In the beginning after every clean up, the next day it will be unclean with new dumps again. But the dedicated persistence in identifying the culprit and explaining them about the efforts of our volunteers, if they fail shaming them. At the end somehow it worked to a great extent. In the very beginning of the Abhiyan we identified more than 900 black spots –or roadside dumps, in the city. People were used to these spots for a longtime, since the garbage truck would come and clear it, on some irregular basis. It had gone on. The plan to clear the place and then place flower pots with plants and decoration worked in all places where such beautification was tried. Of course, dedication of some of the volunteers was incredible. They would watch over the place, at time for the whole night, to see that cleaned spots are not dirtied again. As of now, people are co-operating and it has worked. Result is, of the 900 black spots, there are only 40, with 860 having disappeared. Extending the concept of clean Mangalooru further, ‘Swachch Manas Abhiyan’ or campaign for clean mind, was organized for school children. Swachch Gram Abhiyan or Clean Village Abhiyan was organized for 100 villages of Dakshina Kannada & 100 villages of Udupi districts. Campaign for clean thoughts for college students was another initiative. 200 awareness programmes were conducted by volunteers on a daily basis in residential layouts of the city. Introduction of Pot-Composting, although in vogue in some of the households, the Swachch Mangalooru campaign took it further. According to some estimates, there are over 1000 homes in Mangalooru already making use of these pots for making manure and more than 4000 homes have placed order for these compost-pots. This appeared to be an ultimate solution for the disposal of wet garbage, which otherwise was getting gargantuan, with local dumping area becoming slowly and steadily unmanageable. In fact, the recent excessive rain in coastal Karnataka has proved how unmanageable the problem of garbage management and disposal has become. Thus this Pot-Compost revolution can bring about drastic reduction in the land, water and air pollution which is the ultimate goal of all cleaning campaigns.

Having witnessed the positive changes happening in and around Mangalooru, the Swachh Mangalooru Abhiyaan, embarked on the 5th and the last phase of its monumental efforts. Reproduced here are the words of Swami Ekagamyananda:

“At this phase, Swami Jitakamananda, head of the Mangalooru center wanted to involve school children in the Swachhata Abhiyan. To create awareness of cleanliness among school children, over 500 'Swachh Manas' programmes were organized in 130 city schools. 100 students from each school, totalling 13000 students were trained in cleanliness and recognized as Swachhata Senanis or Soldiers of Cleanliness. Innovative projects like Swachhata Chintan (Clean Thoughts), Swachhata Diwas(Clean Day), Swachhata Darshan(Clean Perception), Swachhata Manthan (Clean Debate) were organized in these schools, with some 70 resource persons roped in for the purpose.”

“To get, the college students involved, symposiums were organized in about 50 colleges of both Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. Lectures, demonstrations, workshops and debates followed, with district and State level seminars for both college and University students. More than 2000 cleanliness drive programmes were organized in 100 villages ofthe Dakshina Kannada district and 100 villages of Udupi district under Swachh Gram Abhiyan or Clean Village Campaign. 100 volunteers-from every village were nominated as members of the Abhiyan. Over 8000 members took up shramadan projects on one Sunday of every month in their respective villages.”

“Swachhata Jana Samparka Abhiyan events were organized every day at different residential layouts of the city. During each event, our volunteers organized awareness programmes with the slogan ‘Our Garbage, Our Responsibility'. They conducted demonstrations to educate people on how to prepare organic manure at home using earthen compost pots. 'Swachh Bharat' pamphlets were distributed to create awareness. 220 such events were conducted throughout the year. Volunteers and experts explained to people the concept of decentralized waste management through proper ways of disposal.

Magic shows for cleanliness was another innovative way of teaching people about cleanliness. We organized 240 magic shows by Sri Kudroli Ganesh, at various schools and other venues in the city.

The Concluding Programme of the Swachh Mangalooru Abhiyan was held on 29 September2019 at the Central Market of Mangalooru. Befitting the movement, it was organized as a massive shramadan in which more than 100 NGOs and groups of individuals joined hands with us.”

In his valedictory address Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order Gautamanandaji praised the whole team of monks, volunteers, and citizens of Mangalooru for making the Swachhata Mission a phenomenal success. He said if Swami Vivekananda was physically present, he would have proudly praised all those involved declaring, ‘Shabhash! You have all become men of substance.’ Revered Gauthamanandaji said the Swachh Mangalooru Abhiyan was a successful model that could be replicated across India. This has been a fairy tale transformation in the landscape of Mangalooru city, and more importantly in the mindset of Mangalorians. Our goal is to convert all the wet waste in our city into compost manure, and recycle all the dry waste. Our Swachh Mangalooru volunteers have set a goal before themselves to convert Mangalooru's Pacchanadi (the 100 acre dumping yard) into Swachhanaadu (Clean Region)!”

Let us all hope and pray Swami Ekagamyananda’s noble mission and vision becomes a grand reality someday!