#MissionPrabhughat: Varanasi sees the true spirit of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Temsutula Imsong and Darshika Shah's drive to clean Varanasi' Prabhu Ghat is admirable and inspiring. Prabhu Ghat is now clean - as clean as it should be all the time. The two women were on a boat ride when they passed a filthy Prabhu Ghat and were appalled. They approached the Varanasi Development Authority but were not satisfied. They decided to take action themselves: Over the next few weeks, they raised funds, advertised "#MissionPrabhughat" on social media, found others to work with them and bought materials like buckets and phenyl. Their team then cleaned up the ghat. "Offenders" - for example, men who urinated on the ghat - were made to clean up after themselves.

The story of Temsutula and Darshika's campaign to clean Prabhu Ghat is important because it is such efforts that can begin to instill in the community - the participants of the project and its witnesses - an "ethics of cleanliness", or an active valuing and practice of hygiene. The idea of an ethics of cleanliness is something I wrote about in an earlier article on this website. From start to finish, Temsutula and Darshika's project demonstrated such an ethics of cleanliness. The two women actively observed their environment; what they saw challenged their personal values; they felt disturbed enough to take action, and they saw through their effort to the end. In other words, they demonstrated an active awareness of their own selves, their bodies and minds, as connected with others. That sense of interdependence and responsibility is what is missing from the everyday lives of urban Indians not just in Varanasi but also all over India.

Their project contrasts sharply with another phenomenon: ever since the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched, various institutions in Varanasi have rushed to "adopt" various ghats and parts of the city. On Assi Ghat, for instance, benches and garbage bins have been installed. But more than resulting in cleanliness, however, this move to "adopt" seems mostly to have resulted in big signboards that in fact spoil the beauty of the ghat, which advertise individual institutions' names and supposed long commitment to their city. Temsutula and Darshika's campaign to clean Prabhu Ghat lacked any of this arrogant self-congratulation and seeking of attention. Their aims were simple, and driven only by straightforward ethics. That is why their campaign was a true and refreshing reaction to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Thus, I say the story of their campaign is important because it is not just the act of cleaning Prabhu Ghat and the fact of a clean Prabhu Ghat, but also the thoughts, feelings, and actions that led up to the project and that followed that are important. These Temsutula has recorded through her tweets and photos, and an earlier article on this very website, demonstrating the importance and the power of storytelling and images in a campaign such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

That said, while it is true that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan provides a kind of direction to an impulse and capacity within every individual, of wanting to live healthily and caring for one's environment, we should acknowledge that as a campaign, it is not doing enough. It could be doing so much more through stories and images, through smaller campaigns, indeed like Temsutula's, in the way of inspiring people and instilling an ethics of cleanliness.

Nor is the government doing its actual work of cleaning up. Varanasi is basically as dirty as it ever was, and nobody knows of any plans of the systems being enforced or improved. Varanasi' lack of sanitation is, of course, not due only to individuals littering, spitting and urinating. It is caused and sustained by government systems not working. Another way of instilling an ethics of cleanliness in people is simply to have the systems and rules that encourage them to start behaving and thus gradually thinking in new ways. That is how countries all over the world that are clean today did it - through the enforcement of systems and rules. In Varanasi, we need our systems of sewerage and garbage disposal to work. They do not right now, and they never have. It is the people of Varanasi who must make it clear that they have had enough.