A decade or so ago, I saw a beggar woman sitting on the floor of a busy market in Mexico City, eating an orange. On finishing, she got up, collected the peel, seeds and fibres and threw them in a bin. While the rest of the environment could have been in India, the last act was not.
We all know the India stories. The trash chucked out of a moving car, the airplane bathrooms that become filthy within an hour of flying out of an Indian airport, the notoriously weak bladders of Indian men…Cleanliness is more than a habit. It is a belief. And how can we change Indian beliefs? Is there a solution that design thinking can lead us to?
It is remarkable that we take umbrage when someone spits on, or desecrates in some manner, the Indian flag - which is a symbol of the nation; and yet have no problems spitting on the land, the real, actual land that is our nation.
Symbols are powerful. They are imbued with strong meaning. So what kind of symbols will make us behave differently?
The highly apt and evocative “ Dekho gadha peshab kar raha hai ” (Look, a donkey is urinating) plastered on the walls have not stopped the donkeys.
We don’t get shamed easily and have developed thick skins now. After all, we are like this only.
The God tiles embedded in the walls, however, have largely been successful. The multi-denominational manifestations of Indian, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and other Gods have worked in most cases.
Leveraging respect This leads us to surmise that leveraging ‘respect’ as a value is probably a stronger strategy to shift beliefs.
In Bangladesh, messages written in Arabic rather than Bangla have been more effective.
A multi-pronged strategy can change behaviours. There is a great deal of local identification – and thus local symbols of pride such as folk heroes or art could become deterrents for noxious behaviour. It is unlikely that anyone in Maharashtra would desecrate Shivaji or Warli paintings. In fact, wall art projects all over the country have seen good results.
It will take more than toilets to create Swachh Bharat. It will take design thinking.
Alpana Parida is the President of DY Works, a brand strategy and design firm that creates culture-based solutions for businesses.