Over
600 million Indians defecate in the open. Lakhs of tonnes of garbage are
generated each day in Indian cities, which are dumped into ever-shrinking landfills. River Ganga is revered as
‘Mother’, yet remains the most polluted river of India. Lakhs die due to toxic
air and smoky chulhas each year out of respiratory ailments and suffocation. Over
forty percent of Indian children under five are stunted.
So,
what connects all the above gruesome facts? That Indian people as a whole, care
little about the filth and degraded sanitary conditions outside of their homes.
As long as the garbage is outside their homes, they do not bother. Sadly, they
do not realise that all that filth will ultimately enter their own well-maintained,
clean homes in the form of disease-causing germs, vectors, poor quality water
and air, cutting many productive years of their own and their children’s lives.
‘Charity begins
at home’.
So should sanitation and hygiene habits be ingrained since childhood at home,
and homes be kept clean. Yet there is a need to consider the locality, city,
state, country and indeed the planet as our home. “Vasudheiva Kutumbakam”– the whole world is a family. By extension,
as this family lives on Planet Earth and this is our only home, it is every human
being’s responsibility to keep our living spaces clean and hygienic. Once this
feeling and responsibility is heartily felt and acted upon by people, then Earth will indeed
be Heaven – what with all the beneficial spill-over effects like a spiritual
mind, unpolluted food and air, generation of pure thoughts and living in Harmony
with Nature !
This
post will first clearly demarcate reasons why sanitation and hygiene are so
important for India : what are the real spin-offs in fields like health, education,
productivity, innovation due to good hygiene and what are the consequences of
poor hygiene. Next, it will
