As India Aims to Clean Up, an Example Glides Underground
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Version 0 of 1. NEW DELHI — A few days ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleaned a street holding a long-handled broom, which is too benign an implement to clean India with. But Mr. Modi was only setting an example, and he had to maintain a dignified posture. He had just started what appeared to be India’s most serious attempt yet to clean itself. His government has indicated that it will spend billions of rupees over the next five years to clean up thousands of towns and villages and keep them clean. And to accomplish Mr. Modi’s campaign promise that within a few years every Indian will have access to a toilet. He is “pro-toilet,” as the British satirist John Oliver said earlier this year. The rich are now interested in their nation more than ever, and the poor know that they would be the first to die in an epidemic. So Mr. Modi’s drive has won immediate support across all layers of the society. Most of India is clean indoors, but in plain sight it is one of the filthiest nations on earth. Indians have been debating inside television studios and outside why that is so. Why is it that a nation of clean homes has dirty public spaces? There are many substantial theories. But a more useful question might be: Why is the Delhi Metro rail system so clean? When Indians lament their filth, there is usually talk of a “poor civic sense,” with the unspoken implication that the nation’s vast poor do not know how to maintain public hygiene. Even before the time of Mohandas Gandhi, India’s social reformers have tried to teach the poor the importance of cleanliness. Gandhi, unlike Mr. Modi, was a serious cleaner, who crouched on the roads and in public toilets and then cleaned them. But then Gandhi failed, probably because a genius disrupter cannot also be a preacher of order. Or perhaps because the superhero ascetic did so many weird things that he could never pass as a model citizen who could be aped. Even if it were true that the poor are the chief culprits, what explains the fact that millions of them become exemplary citizens when they take the Delhi Metro almost every day? They do not spit or discard their garbage or let their children urinate — not until they leave the metro system when they become, for some reason, free once again to do almost anything on the streets. The other theories that explain the state of the nation’s public spaces are: The rich feel the poor have taken over the roads, and the poor know they own nothing. As a result people feel no sense of ownership of the roads. Or, Indian society is too informal, and hence prone to transgress on minor rules. Or, the urban poor are mostly migrants who feel they are transient, and hence have no stake in the upkeep of their locality. But, then, who can be more transient than a commuter? It is not that these hypotheses have no substance. It is just that the Delhi Metro has shown that it is possible for India to survive Indians. When the metro service began, the poor were mildly intimidated. It was the first time that they had been allowed entry to a space that had escalators, trains with automatic doors and air-conditioning. I have heard laborers whisper in the trains instead of speak aloud. Now they are themselves when they travel, with much banter and laughter, but they still do not dirty the trains or the stations. As the Delhi Metro is excellent at most things it does, commuters take seriously its threat of slapping fines for spitting and throwing garbage. And the trains and the platforms are so well designed that commuters have very little need to violate its codes. Everybody also knows, except for some unfortunate lovers in the night trains, that the Metro is watching. Order is fragile in India, and there are moments when India triumphs over the Metro, but the system always pulls back. The Delhi Metro is clean because it impresses, it provides adequate facilities for whatever an average human might want to dispose of, it tutors, it threatens and implements the threats. India doesn’t. Follow Manu Joseph, the author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People,” on Facebook. |