*Dr.Shashi Tharoor, two time MP , and the Chairman of the Parliamentary
Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State
for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN
Under-Secretary-General. He has written 14 books, including, most recently,
Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.)*
Rarely can so much media fuss have been made about something so minor as
the chorus that has greeted my cleaning up, on Saturday, of a beach at
Vizhinjam in my constituency, Thiruvananthapuram.
Amid all the noise I've been hearing, a few simple clarifications seem to
be in order.
As I've repeatedly pointed out, I don't see this as a political exercise by
the BJP, but as a national mission - first prioritized by Mahatma Gandhi,
instituted by Jawaharlal Nehru and pursued, under different names, by every
government since - which has been given new impetus and visibility by the
Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.
When he invited me, without prior warning, to support his effort, I felt it
obvious that I should accept. While the media has described this as my
climbing aboard the Modi bandwagon, I see it as the action of a patriotic
Indian citizen responding to the call and doing his duty to the nation.
I am bit dismayed to see my actions portrayed as those of a political naif
who has been "duped" by a "publicity stunt". Various distinguished Indians,
including a Rajya Sabha member and national icon nominated by my party, and
a Congress Chief Minister as well as others, have done their bit of
cleaning. Are they all merely complicit in a canny politician's publicity
stunt, or do they see themselves as providing a useful service and setting
an example to their fellow Indians?
Strikingly, I was joined in my cleaning by the local Congress councillor,
the political leadership of the Congress Party from the area (including the
"Mandalam President" and the "Block President"), and a large number of
local residents and youth, as well the President and Secretary of the local
Jama'ath (the area is predominantly Muslim). These are the last people to
play along with a purely BJP-driven political exercise. As local residents
who have to wake up to the dirt and waste around them, they have a stake in
the cleanliness of their area, not in a publicity stunt.
*Vizhinjam is a beautiful area on the Arabian Sea, blessed by nature. As
the poet wrote, "every prospect pleases, and only man [or man's waste] is
vile." I have worked with the Central Government in the UPA days to bring
various development projects to Vizhinjam: a lighthouse beautification
scheme (for 2 crores), tourist infrastructure development of Samudra Beach
and Lighthouse Beach (Rs. 9 cores), and slum removal and rebuilding of 300
dwelling units under the Rajiv Awas Yojana (Rs. 77crores). In addition, the
impending construction of a major port is likely to give a major economic
boost to the area. But tourists are hardly going to want to come to a dirty
beach full of garbage. Cleaning up the Vizhinjam beach will help both the
locals and the tourists.*
Even more important, I have stressed from the very beginning that I don't
believe in photo-ops, and that I am not interested in an exercise that
involves a few prominent VIPs wielding a broom for five minutes and never
touching one again till the next Gandhi Jayanti. So while doing a thorough
cleaning of a filthy beach - which entailed my personally clearing plastic,
paper waste, assorted debris and even a dead rat - I also announced the
donation of a bio-gas plant to Vizhinjam ward, which would process a tonne
of waste a day and give the local residents another place to bring their
garbage, rather than to throw it on the beach. Long-term waste management
plans are vital to take the idea of a Clean India beyond photo ops.
*Nor did I discover the environment only through Mr Modi's aegis. I have
been writing and speaking about it since my United Nations days. In fact,
one of my essays, first published in 2005, about the lack of civic
responsibility for public cleanliness in our culture ("The Bond That
Threatens"), has been included in Kerala's high school English textbooks
since 2008. No one is going to argue convincingly that participating in a
cleanliness drive is inconsistent in any way with my long held and
publicly-expressed beliefs. Swachh, to me, doesn't involve any Switch.*
At the same time, in uploading a video of the drive and its results, I
called upon the Prime Minister to take his idea of "Swachh Bharat" beyond
broom-wielding to the large-scale, challenging and expensive projects that
require Central Government resources to execute. In my constituency flowed
the Parvathy Puthenaar Canal, once the lifeblood of the city; boats used to
ply on it, people drank its water, kids swam in it. Today it is an open
sewer, choked with garbage and muck, as the sewage from houses on both
sides flows into the canal and locals toss their waste into it.
A serious project for its revival will require not merely the huge task of
cleaning out the filth, but the construction of alternative underground
sewage systems for the residents on either side of the canal, and the
injection of fresh water to flush out the canal and restore it to being a
living water body.
This would cost hundreds of crores, but it would be an extraordinary
transformation that makes the idea of Swachh Bharat a reality for lakhs of
people in Thiruvananthapuram.
Having called upon the local MP to do his bit, I think it's fair to ask: is
the Prime Minister now prepared to do his?
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