Bihar has witnessed unprecedented congregation at East
Champaran yesterday. 20, 000 Swachhgrahis coming from various states of India
and Bihar worked across villages in Bihar for a week during 2-9th and then
reached Motihari for the commemoration ceremony. Experts working in sanitation
for many decades lauded the efforts of the govt. to bring swachhgrahis out of
MIS and registers on the ground.
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The sector anecdotes are replete with stories of non
existent swachhgrahis terming them Swachhta Boot (Swachhta Ghost) like many
other voluteering efforts across many walks of life in India. Under SBM,
Swachhta Doot was loosely rechristened as Swachhgrahis and listed.
Everyone talked about them being utilized for sanitation
campaingn, but few ever got them going on the ground. The general template for
implantation was enrolling, training and getting motivators from among the
community with promised incentives, which was tied with toile construction. Interesting
contrast- while swachhagarhis were ideally enrolled for changing behaviour
their services were utilizsed for accelerating constructions and once
construction completed project imagination ends.
“Satyagrah se Swachhgrah” for the first time compelled
the system to make those faceless, coded names in website and registers
resurrect and walk on the earth with flesh and blood in action. It took a lot
of efforts from all state governments to actually see them visiting government
offices and rebooting them before they were ready to march to Bihar and in case
of Bihar on the ground.
And that also brought the biggest fear which establishment
always had have with enrolling any front line workers. Would the worker eventually
protest and demand for contractual services or be made permanent? They
raised slogans for making their services permanent. If not all, a large section
did and their voices could be heard loud from the front row.
PM did not buzz or stop addressing the group despite
the demand growing louder and louder. His speech was as inspirational as
possible, but left many questions unanswered. Could sanitation would have front
line workers as entrenched as we have for ICDS and Health? Could government doesn’t
fear the protests of these workers as they have not been for many protests in
this country?
Disclaimer: Views expressed in blogs are personal and no way represents views of the organizations that I work with or worked with in the past.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in blogs are personal and no way represents views of the organizations that I work with or worked with in the past.
Good one (Y)
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping us updated. Good questions at the end.
ReplyDeleteYes, your questions are very apt, and I too felt a sense of it during visiting blocks, when some Motivators didnot have clarity what would they do post ODF declaration. Though Ms Bharti indicated about the ODF Plus...Seems governments may keep them engaged for longer...
ReplyDeleteMillion of question to protests of swachhagrahi as FLWs. Whereas if really we want to Achieve SBM goal on time or to achieve SDGs Govt. Need to thank or act soon for Swachhageahi as a game changer of this programme.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue is what is the actual solution? Some months back I was conducting a session with activists of Safai Karamchari Andolan. The issue which we were working on as a group is 'Availability and Accessibility to appropriate choice to jobs/career = life with dignity' and what needs to be the 'my preparation w.r.t skills and attitude and knowledge' for the same. And the need for this kind of a discussion was primarily what Rajeev has asked.
ReplyDeleteThe fear of demands from Swachhagrahis for regularization should not deter the system from moving ahead on making sanitation a public movement.
ReplyDeletePublic movement should be such that people get together for making their spaces ODF, sustain it n disperse.
Have we ever heard voices of regularisation from volunteers of Puja Pandals, Dusshera Mandalis, Istima Anjuman or kar sevak at Gurudwara?
For making government programs more impactful, we need to make them more 'असरकारी'by having less of 'सरकार' n adding more of 'समुदाय'.
Constant dialogue n community engagement is the only way. Keep going.
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