My two cents to Modiji on the clean India Mission

Dear Modiji

My compliments to you on your aspirations for India of the future. You master the act of capturing imagination of the nation and your conviction is contagious. Though you do border on boastful deceit at times; I have started admiring your self-belief. It is indeed the sheer power of your undivided focus and self-belief that you cut the ranks in your own party to be the Prime ministerial candidate. No matter what kind of money you spent in your campaign and what all quid pro quo you allegedly did with corporates and the media houses; the thumping victory that you had in such a divided electoral is no mean feat.

Many people are writing about your Japan and US trip. I would dare not tread that path. I am not qualified. Likes of Shashi Tharoor do a superior job.

I feel urged to write about something closer to my heart. I would like to applaud your clean India mission. However, I must admit, your ministers like Ravishankar Prasad, Ramvilas Paswan look very comical with the brooms in their hands. They are holding the stick precariously and give an impression that they have never done the cleaning job; save the photo ops. You definitely know how to make a buzz. So much so that the original broom bearer also came out of his slumber and swept your backyard.

I must admit, on this occasion you did not measure up to my expectations. For your elections; you had state of art audio visual gadgetry; in US you address the Indian diaspora like a rock star with all the fanfare. Do you really intend to clean India of its filth with the humble broom?

It may be my cynicism; a conspiracy theory pops to my mind. I suspect that you have timed your clean India Mission with Delhi Elections in sight. This idea would have been pushed into your agenda by the PR agencies and the psephologists you have hired. It is no secret that symbolism plays a big role in swaying the mood of the voters. During BJP regime under Atal Bihari Vajpayee; BJP floated the buzz word “India shining”. To counter that in 2004; Congress think tanks came up with a question “Aam admi to kya mila?”  (What did the common man get?) This caption really rubbed the shine off “India shining” captions. Come 2012; Arvind Kejriwal announces formation of a new political party to clean the menace of all the old political parties like yours and Congress. The naming of the party took lots of time. After much deliberation and posturing; the name was made public; “Aam admi party”. Call it Political plagiarism. The name of the party struck the right cords of the masses. People forgot that Congress was the first to flirt with the Aam admi concept.

                Now is your turn. Did you pose with the broom to steal the symbol from Kejriwal? If the Delhi elections are announced; what will the AAP members do? They will come out on street with their brooms. With your master stroke; this act would look pale and repetitive. Your band of ministers have already posed with the brooms and people would get bored of seeing politicians with broom in their hands.

Forgive my dysfunctional mind Modiji. Too many conspiracy theories keep rumbling in my head.
Coming to clean India mission at its face value. It is a laudable effort. However; please bring the same modernism to the cleaning act that you bring to your election campaigns. I lived in Delhi for many years. Every morning, I would watch thousands of safai karmchari in utter disbelief. They come out on the streets and just push the dry leaves and dirt from one side to the other. Wind would again blow the heaps of dust and Delhi would always remain full of suspended pollutions.

Introduce mobile vacuum cleaners; water sprinklers to Delhi streets. Make lots of artificial water bodies on barren grounds. Let there be no exposed land. Either it should be covered with green patch or cemented or with water bodies. Introduce effective waste segregation, recycle and processing plants. If needed; introduce seeding and artificial rain during the dry summer months. Learn from countries like Israel how to create a clean and green ecosystem in desert. These things can be done with fraction of your rock concert addresses. If a country of 8 million can achieve it; definitely 1.25 billion can make that happen.

Measure the success of your clean India mission with the drop in suspended ppm in the air of big cities.

Kind Regards
Mukul