No country or region in the world is entirely homogeneous anymore. Diversity prevails almost every where. As diversity goes, India is one of the most diverse countries in the world. Divisions of all kinds exist here. Ethnic, linguistic, religious and regional divisions are well defined. Caste of course is an unavoidable subject in any such discussion. Economic disparities and the rural-urban distinctions are also very stark in this country.
Diversity can be an asset to a country. It can teach people to be tolerant and to co-exist with others. However, diversity also has its disadvantages to a society. In extreme cases it leads to deep divisions and rivalry and when economic opportunities are scarce, to intense competition between groups. Often this rivalry results in mutual hatred and may end in communal violence. We are well aware of the dangers of inter-communal hatred in India; violent examples of which are all too common.
Do social divisions impact cleanliness of public spaces? Perhaps they do. When we explore reasons that are barriers to cleaner public spaces in India, we need to look at traits in our population that set us apart from other populations. One such trait is our tendency to discriminate. We are likely one of the most bigoted nations in the world. All societies are guilty of discriminating against subgroups within their populations. In India, it is a fine art. It is ingrained in our collective psyche.
It is also evident that places in the world that are more egalitarian are cleaner. Even in our own country regions that practice less systemic discrimination tend to have much cleaner public spaces.
So how does this discrimination affect public cleanliness. Well, there are several possibilities. The right answer is very complex, as pretty much everything is when explaining anything Indian.
1. One issue is blame. Every Indian is acutely aware of the state of our public spaces and the civic sense of our population, or the lack of it. When asked most people will admit that the streets are dirty. But it is the other people who litter the streets. The "upper" castes will blame the "lower" castes for dirtying the streets. The South Indian thinks the North Indian is dirty and the North Indian thinks the South Indian is dirty. People from different regions think people belonging to other regions are the ones to blame. Slum dwellers, and pavement hawkers get the blame. The illiterate get blamed because they are stupid and cannot be educated about benefits of a clean environment. In the end, it is everyone but ourselves. We abrogate our responsibility completely. But careful observation will reveal that each one us is responsible for the mess around us.
2. Belonging and ownership are definitely issues. We do not have a sense of belonging or take ownership of public spaces because they do not belong to "us" exclusively. It is the space we are forced to share with "others" with whom we do not identify at all. So how could we care about such spaces? We keep our homes, residential complexes, enclaves and places of worship clean, but we do not care how the street we step into looks like. To the upper and middle classes, the state of our street does not reflect them; it represents the "other", the inferior sections of of society that they look down upon. For the underprivileged, ownership is never an issue because they own so little and ownership of the public space is the last thing on their minds.
3. The most important issue is respect. Civic sense is a sign of respect for others who inhabit the common space. Lack of it reflects utter and profound disrespect for your fellow being. When the young and upwardly mobile upper middle class man with a fat salary from a multinational company rolls down the window of his air-conditioned luxury automobile and casually tosses out the banana skin, he is oblivious to the fact that he disrespects the fellow being of lesser means who is walking on the street. He is too "intelligent" and privileged to realize that he disrespects the country that he lives in. The country that he cheers for in the current cricket match that he watches on his state of the art television set in the evening. Respect in India is very hierarchical and deep rooted. Respect is often a birthright. The concept of mutual respect is foreign to our culture. When we see higher powers we will crawl on our knees and prostate ourselves without any sense of self-respect. We will profess false respect, while we hide our inner disdain as we did to our colonial masters for centuries. When get a chance to be safely disrespectful to those we deem inferior to us, we do so with gusto. We will make them clean our toilets and carry our excrement on their shoulders. This concept is somewhat strange, as every philosophical school of thought in India (both indigenous and imported) has emphasized respect for the soul that resides in other humans as one of their central tenets.
4. Fear of "contamination" is also an issue. We traditionally have been afraid of the public space as it is an arena where are forced to interact with "others". Sense of purity and cleanliness are somewhat different in the Indian mind. The upper classes have always felt that lingering in the public space, might lead to socialization with other groups. Situations might arise where you might have to eat in a home of a person "inferior" to you or be forced to invite the same "inferior" person into the sanctity of your home. These were taboo in traditional Indian societies. Worse still, such liaisons may lead to romance and marriage, which can be disastrous in the minds of a vast number of conservative Indian families. It could undermine the Indian social apartheid. What better way to insulate against this possible "contamination" than to keep the common space a dirty no-man's land? But this certainly is an outmoded fear. In modern India, people of all different creeds learn and work together, both in the public and private sector. The need to keep people apart is no longer there and virtually impossible. This is not medieval, feudal India.
To make India a nation without sub divisions is neither necessary nor possible. We have to celebrate our diversity and differences. Even caste and communal differences aren't going to go away. What we need is a nation of equal human beings and equal social groups. We already have laws and policies that deter discrimination in the public space. What we need is to foster a culture of mutual respect in the public sphere. We need the letter of the law and the spirit of humanism. We can hide our pride and prejudices in the privacy of our dirty hearts and cruel minds, but learn to act civilly to others in public.We have to learn to share the public space and respect its sanctity. It will do a world of good to our country and keep our land clean.
Jai Hind
