Launch of Swachh Bharat is welcome, but it must sweep beyond the photo-op

Gandhi famously argued that sanitation is more important than independence. By invoking Gandhi, PM Narendra Modi is not only seeking to enlarge his politics but also to use the Mahatma’s path-breaking emphasis on sanitation to kick-start a new Indian social contract with government, to cleanse our streets. The imagery of a PM wielding a broom in the capital’s Valmiki Basti makes for a powerful political photo-op precisely because it’s also a call for action in a society which for too long has practised fastidious cleanliness inside the homestead while being notoriously careless about rubbish and garbage disposal in public spaces.

Public cleanliness has for too long been someone else’s problem and by putting the onus back on the citizen and voluntarism – as he did during his Independence Day speech — Modi is not only signalling the limitations of state capacity but also calling for a new kind of relationship between the old mai-baap sarkar and the new empowered citizen. Catch is that while ministers and babus can be mobilised for pretty photo-ops, this kind of event management can only be the start of a long journey, not a substitute for the real hard work needed for upgrading to a truly Swachh Bharat.

Modi has rightly asked that if India can reach Mars, why can’t it have clean streets? The challenge will be to go beyond the symbolism. When Modi argued during his election campaign that toilets should come before temples, it was pointed out that Congress’s Jairam Ramesh had made the same argument earlier. The core point is that despite a UPA push on this issue and despite compelling evidence that contamination from open defecation is markedly responsible for India’s high infant and child mortality rates, little progress could be made.

History tells us that while sanitation and sewers have been ingredients of urbanised modernity for nearly 200 years, neither in Europe nor North America did they come easily or evenly. Technology, local government and popular knowledge had to unite in distinctive cultural chemistries to make sanitation a citizens’ demand rather than a burden imposed on them. As India rapidly urbanises, it’s no accident that the cleanliness question finds itself at the top of political and policy agendas. Modi is right to turn it into a touchstone of his prime ministership. But this will need a new mindset of accountability in the state machinery which has so far delivered too little.