We are rubbish. Literally.

By : Vandana Vasudevan

This article appeared in : the blogs of Vandana Vasudevan in The Economic Times
on Wednesday July 03, 2013

I have only one question : Why are we like this, only?

A British youngster calling herself “Garbage Girl” galvanises people around her in disaster struck Uttrakhand to clean up the place. In another part of the same unfortunate state, a German lady and her nine year old son quietly pick up plastic wrappers and cartons in an overcrowded relief camp.

Two Caucasians clearing up the mess Indians caused.

The Uttarakhand relief camp inmates would have been tired, ravaged, hungry and maybe we shouldn’t expect model public behaviour from them if well fed, prosperous families in hill stations don’t think twice about chucking a soda can into a verdant valley in the Himalayas. Last year, at the Formula one race in Greater Noida, where ticket prices start at Rs.3000, two couples littered chips packets on the grassy stands and looked at me like I was the freak when I pointed it out to them. Sure enough, a uniformed attendant whose job it was to clean up, appeared and picked up all the trash.

Perhaps that’s the problem, say some sociologists. Cleaning in Indian society has always been the job of a poorer low caste person and Indians therefore assume some such person will emerge and do it for us. That’s why we just don’t get the idea of keeping public spaces clean. Even in the villages of UP that are on the border of Delhi, it is the job of members of certain castes to sweep the village roads everyday. No other person belonging to other castes will do the job. This behaviour is so deeply entrenched that it stays on even if you’ve left the village, prospered in the city and bought yourself a bungalow in Defence Colony. 

Another theory as to why Indians stubbornly refuse to practice public hygiene is even more interesting. Sudipta Kaviraj, scholar of south Asian politics teaching at the University of Columbia has argued in a remarkable paper that studies filth in public spaces in Kolkatta, that this behaviour harks back to our colonial history. In the city, the municipal authority run by the British, was intent on shaping public conduct and making people subscribe to certain regulations. It installed blue metal boards with white lettering (still the preferred design for government boards) telling people how to behave. Boards which ordered “No spitting” or “No urinating” or “Commit no nuisance.” They were written in English, at that time an alien language. (Maybe even that possibly apocryphal, but horribly offensive notice “Dogs and Indians not allowed” was one such board.) So, such instructions evoke the spirit of that time- they convey the subjugation by a higher, resented power over the poor and the powerless. Defying is a sort of rebellion; a thumbing of their noses at someone telling them how to behave in what they see as their own space.

Or perhaps it is race? Are we just genetically hard coded to throw trash about irresponsibly? Like the two Uttrakhand girls who led by example, are Caucasians somehow hard wired to keep their surroundings clean while Indians are the opposite? I would be tempted to root for this theory, looking at how naturally public hygiene comes to even a two year old in the west. What stops me is that it is not just the western world but even the Japanese are intrinsically clean. Recently, Japanese children in a school grouped together to clean the school’s toilets. (Can you imagine the outrage a similar initiative in India will cause among Indian parents?) People who have worked in African countries like Tanzania and Nigeria say no one defiles public spaces there. So, it would be a bit of a stretch to imagine that evolution bestowed only Indians with the filthy gene. Most tellingly, Indians in other countries will meekly find a bin to throw their garbage in and even separate recyclable and biodegradable garbage wherever they are asked to by the law of that land. If we were “congenital litterbugs” as a British MP labelled us in 2008, then we wouldn’t be able to abide by cleanliness rules in other countries. Therefore, we don’t seem to be racially disadvantaged with respect to civic cleanliness.

So, what may be the problem?

I have a personal theory on what makes India a large trash can and this is consistently borne out by my observations of daily life whenever I am in the west. It is that in all the countries where public space is clean, people’s patriotism is not notional, it is real and practical. They think of their country as though it was one large home. This is not as simplistic as it may sound when you first read it. The next time you get a chance to travel to a “developed country” watch the common as they negotiate public spaces. The poorest mother living on social security dole instructs her child to throw the soda can into the bin, just like she would do in her own home. Even the homeless tramp with a big Alsatian holding a “end of the world is here” placard doesn’t mess up the corner he occupied. The patriotism in these citizens is active, meaningful and visible in everyday acts. Our so called patriotism is hollow. It only emerges during a cricket match. Whether this is a quality that can be taught or is ingrained is of course another debate. But I think there lies the answer as to why Indian cities are literally rubbish.

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