Swachh Bharat Mission – Initiatives from Department of Physics, University of Kerala

I am happy to share with you the initiatives taken from our department towards the Swachh Bharat mission which is the need of the hour. As I had already posted on my previous blog that I have been rigorously involved in many movements related to environment protection and preservation of ozone layer the last few weeks, this program was really a moral boost since our department has taken steps showing our commitment towards the cleanliness of our home and surroundings. I would like to start the sharing with a small inspirational story.

This is a story of a woman in India who was upset about her son who was eating too much sugar. No matter how much she scolded him, he continued to satisfy his sweet tooth. Totally frustrated, she decided to take her son to see his great hero Mahatma Gandhi.

She approached the great leader respectfully and said,

Sir, my son eats too much sugar. It is not good for his health. Would you please advise him to stop eating it?”

Gandhi listened to the woman carefully, turned and spoke to her son,

“Go home and come back in two weeks.”

The woman looked perplexed and wondered why he had not asked the boy to stop eating sugar. She took the boy by the hand and went home.

Two weeks later she returned, boy in hand. Gandhi motioned for them to come forward. He looked directly at the boy and said,

“Boy, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.”

The boy nodded and promised he would not continue this habit any longer.

The boy’s mother turned to Gandhi and asked,

“Why didn’t you tell him that two weeks ago when I brought him here to see you?”

Gandhi smiled,

“Mother, two weeks ago I was still eating sugar myself.”

Gandhi lived in such integrity that he would not allow himself to give advice unless he was living by it himself.

You may thing why this story? The real reason is that I myself was totally unaware of the environment and its need to be protected till the few months. While preparing for theses campaigns, I could calculate the maths and science about the need to protecting our environment. One I was conscious about the situation that we are facing, I think we should have taken this step much earlier.

You may all have seen the above movie. Historically as a culture we have always invested a lot in both personal and public areas cleanliness. It is true that when we excavated Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, very heavy investment was made in cleanliness of public and personal hygiene systems. Today also, most people in our society are do the practice of cleanliness in our day to day life. But taking care of public place sanitation has taken a thrashing. As my friends who teach history points out that the reason for neglectance of public cleanliness is many fold. Colonisation, excessive taxation etc… may be the reason for no concern for public hygiene during our early independent days. Even today if you go to visit any home in our society, our home may be clean inside but the roads and streets are very messy. So the next step for a better India is definitely to invest in creating public cleanliness. All citizen should be made aware of this alarming situation first before making a law or a policy from the side of the Government. So The first step is certainly a campaign that should be happen from our side. We, department of Physics, university of Kerala has taken the first step in this campaign by organizing an awareness week commemorating October 2nd Gandhi Jayanti as Swachh Bharat Mission day. The programs that we committed ourselves are as follows.

1.   Pledge to dedicate 100 hrs towards public cleanliness in our society that is 2 hours per week in public service

2.   Facebook, WhatsApp profile picture sharing of photos with Plug cards with respect to cleanliness in and around and surrounding.

3.   Rally with the students around the campus to inspire the all students and faculties in our university. In this campus, things will happen only when it acts as an emotional movement.  I see the emotional cord shown by the students towards the initiative will definitely reap fruits at right time.

4.   Take up one plant and attending its need for coming two years to revive the green of our campus. If all of us are determined for the next 24 months, this campaign is going continue in many fold ways and we are determined to show expected results.

We support this cause with all our heart towards the success of this idea and congratulate our government to consider this making a policy/law sooner or later.

Cheers to all my blog reader for their continuous support and congrats to all students, researchers, non-teaching staffs and faculty members for their whole hearted support to this program.

Sibi