No sooner does Gandhi Jayanti get over than newspapers are flooded with photographs of various notables and celebrities posing with or holding a broom, sweeping away non-existent dust and looking very pleased with themselves. When the PM roped in celebrity ambassadors for the Swachh Bharat mission, he hoped they would serve as role models and inspire the masses to keep their surroundings clean. Many have trivialised the exercise by brushing aside a few carefully chosen leaves strategically sprinkled for their benefit by underlings at appropriately sanitised locations. A couple of pictures clicked and the PM tagged on to them, and their job was done.

People see through the farce and know the celebrities are participating in a ritual. Memes such as ‘spot the dirt and win a prize’ have quickly done the rounds on social media. Therefore, it is time to try a slight change in approach.

Let the PM pick a few of the dirtiest spots in the country for each of these ambassadors — with a suitably stiff target to clean up the place. Whether it is Bandra station in Mumbai, or the Cooum river in Chennai, or thousands of similar locations across the country, let due publicity be given to those spots so that everyone can see how bad things are. And then let the ambassadors get their gloved hands and booted feet really dirty. Let them do a couple of hours of physical labour every week for a year — and volunteers will come along to help. Even the civic administration will wake up and join in. That much is evident from the example of lawyer Afroz Shah who cleaned up Versova beach in Mumbai and removed over 7 million kg of waste over the last 100 weeks. That exercise is still going on. It is a chance for other ambassadors to sincerely lead the way. India will be much cleaner a year from now.

NS Vageesh Associate Editor

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