Modi made a start in 2014. I don't know why the momentum stopped. Some of the videos coming out of there (e.g. the recent video of the railway employee throwing a huge amount of used disposable plastic food trays off a moving train) are shocking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
https://innovateindia.mygov.in/toilet-campaign/
https://siwi.org/latest/the-clean-india-mission-worlds-large...
I was watching videos of some of the slums.
There were literal hills of rotting organic garbage inside the slums. With children living next to them.
I had visions of Paul Ehrlich freaking out at the sight of people defecating and bathing on the roadside in Delhi.
I saw photos of some of the "mohalla clinics" (free basic healthcare clinics) that the previous Delhi government had (admittedly admirably) set up. Some of them looked so dirty and structurally unsound that they wouldn't be allowed to function as holding pens for farm animals in the US.
In the US, we have companies like Waste Management handle our waste. Surprises me that India doesn't have a dozen Waste Managements by now. Billion dollar unicorns/startups/whatever, innovating in turning "waste to wealth" (as Nitin Gadkari calls it). Put capitalism to use where there's a failure of non-capitalism to solve the problem. But there might be deep cultural issues. I suspect the caste system plays a part. The forward castes believe that trash management is beneath them.
A video I watched of a brand spanking new metro station in Mumbai. Marble floors and all. And a commenter pointed out a timestamp where you can see paan/chewing tobacco spit in a corner of the floor.
Here's what baffles me. It is well established that Indians chew paan/chewing tobacco. It is well established that they then spit these out. Why don't they have spitoons installed inside the state assembly or metro stations? Treat it as a cultural opportunity: create beautiful spitoons with culturally relevant designs on them. The type kings used to have in their courts. And have them sponsored by businesses (i.e. let them post digital banner ads on them). Enlightened capitalism!
racism
/ˈreɪsɪz(ə)m/
noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.Singapore is very clean. Malaysia is fairly clean. Cambodia sort of. India and Philippines very much not.
And Zoroastrians are absolutely meticulous about cleanliness, be they poor or rich.
India is extremely poor per-capita.
Job options are non existent. Farming and some local trade is all you have. There is also total absence of health care infrastructure. Most people have to travel to metros for healthcare. Last time I visited a small town in my weekend motorcycle rides to see my former manager, the biggest political issue in the town was wanting a kidney speciality hospital built. It turns out taking a day off(loss of earnings), traveling to Bangalore, spending money and time for dialysis was bankrupting entire family trees. Similar situations exist for bypass surgeries, and getting stent installed in heart. You will hear these stories for all kinds of major ailments.
Options for schooling and cram schools are absent. Your kids don't get a competitive peer group, or decent enough tuition/coaching to compete with students from metros, and once you lose your chance to study engineering/medicine its just one more generation of poverty your bloodline has to endure.
In the metros, if you have the money you get good hospital and schools. But owning a home is nearly impossible these days. By and large if you don't make it to FAANG in a few years, you just leave and move abroad.
Nearly every young person I know doesn't even try and default goal is either Gulf or Jobs in western countries.
In short, its a brutal Zero sum game, everybody grabs whatever they can, by any means they can, even if they have to burn down the whole thing in the process.
If people create many waste management companies and people tried to invest in them then some people would just create fake companies and simply steal the money. There’s no trust.
Or at least that’s the way it used to be decades prior. Your suggestion nowadays might actually work because the Indian government has now identification measures for every Indian citizen. And other new technologies and enforcement which make this type of corruption more easier to eliminate.
But the deep seated cultural perceptions of dishonesty and endemic corruption from the past will continue for many years unfortunately.
Hopefully one day India can become the kind of place you are suggesting.
Blame every thing on "Corruption". This is such cope.
All you have to do is ensure you do your part in keeping things around you clean. You can ghost walk streets in the poorest places in Mexico and they look affluent compared to even posh neighbourhoods in India.
Lets call it as it is, We Indians need to seriously address our cultural tendencies. Im not just talking about some immediate sense of urgency. But how we go about living our every day life. Unless you address this at a core level, and create a proactive sense of awareness about hygiene in people this isn't going to change.
Honestly, they should really make it a priority. The awareness of what India is like has severely hurt their international reputation.
But…I think what you said doesn’t really contradict what I said. I actually agree with what you are saying about cultural tendencies.
The "Swacch Bharat" campaign that was launched more than a decade ago only gave some short-lived upgrades to public places.
Anecdote alert: I travel to India at least once in a year and I have to take the train each time (sleeper class) and I can definitely attest that things have significantly improved since I was a kid. I have been taking these same trains for over 25 years now. For starters the toilets actually don't dump directly between the tracks. The railway employees seem to be quite happy and take pride in their job (they used to always have depressing faces when I was growing up).
Another anecdote : If 20 years ago you took a flight that goes to India, you would be frustrated with the condition of the toilets. It was so bad I used to avoid Indian carriers just because of that and intentionally take a layover in Europe so at least part of the flying experience would be cleaner. These days I don't feel that way, I find flights to India pretty much the same as any other flights.
That said, there is still a LOT to be done, but I think overall people do seem to care about hygiene more than they used to years ago. Also, assuming there is always a certain percentage of population that will never care about this (in any country) it is bound to look a bit worse in India due to the higher population density.
That's still there :)
You don't cross(on a two wheeler) below a bridge on which a train is passing for the obvious reasons(Golden shower).
There was no momentum. People never started, it was more of a marketing campaign.
Almost everyday I see people throw garbage around street corners, if you ask them not to, they gang up and go after you like its their birth right to be dirty and you are being evil by keeping clean.
You need to tear down the whole shebang and rebuild it from scratch, much of this also about income levels of the ordinary Indian, and being so poor, keeping clean isn't any where in the list of priorities.
Considering the lower wages it shouldn't be that expensive for an Indian city to hire some garbage collectors?
And women harassment. Maybe that should be the top1 priority.
The video in question seems to be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci-QQaP2fSM
It is pretty shocking, but at least not as shocking as garbage trucks dumping trash into the river (of which there are many online)