Why Swacch Bharat Type Schemes Will Fail in India

File photo of Oshiwara river, Mumbai. Source: Wikipedia

There has been a lot of talk lately by the Union and Delhi governments about cleanliness and pollution in India, and schemes have been initiated to deal with the problem. In Paris the Prime Minister has expressed his government’s commitment to checking pollution.

I do not want to sound overly pessimistic, but in my opinion these schemes and statements will only remain claims on paper, and will not be implemented on the ground. Let me explain.

Governments may announce any number of schemes in this connection, but implementation of the schemes has to be done by the bureaucracy and police, which have unfortunately become largely corrupt. So the money poured into these schemes will largely end up in the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats and police.

I remember once hearing a case in the Supreme Court about cleaning of the Jamuna at Delhi. During the hearing it was revealed that Rs.1400 crores had already been spent on cleaning the river, but it was as dirty as ever.

Some years ago I had been to Varanasi, and met the late Virbhadra Mishra, the bade mahant of the famous Sankat Mochan temple (he had been a Professor of engineering in BHU, and his son, also a Professor in BHU is now the bade mahant ). He told me that 30 sewage canals discharge into the river where people from all over India come to bathe. I again went to Varanasi recently, but found the situation unchanged. Varanasi is as dirty as ever, despite being the Prime Minister’s constituency.

My friends who had been in the I.A.S. (they are all retired now) told me that when they joined the service in the 60s and 70s, the IAS officers were by far and large honest, and one could pinpoint the odd corrupt officer. Today, they said, the position is the reverse. Schemes like MNREGA have become a sham due to massive corruption.  Laws like the Environment Protection Act, Air Pollution Act, Water Pollution Act, etc have become a farce due to corruption. It is much cheaper to bribe the pollution Inspector than fix an effluent treatment plant. I submit that this will also will be the fate of the cleanliness drives initiated lately.

In Western societies, too, there is some corruption, but it is only at a very high level, and it ordinarily does not affect the common man. Corruption there takes such forms as multinational corporations giving bribes to top politicians, generals or bureaucrats of underdeveloped countries to get contracts, etc. But in North America you cannot offer a bribe to a policeman if he catches you violating some traffic rule. If you attempt to do that it will be a second, more serious, offence. Similarly, you cannot bribe an income tax official or other officials there. But in India corruption exists at every level, for example, in registering a sale deed, getting mutation in revenue records, getting an FIR registered, getting permission from a municipality to build a house, tax matters, etc.

There are very strict environment protection laws in America, England, France, Germany, Japan, etc and these are strictly observed. But that is because these countries are already fully industrialised. Cleanliness must be maintained at very high levels in industrialised societies, otherwise they cannot function. In these countries children are taught by their parents from childhood to put the garbage in garbage bins, and not just throw it on the road. In these countries rivers and the atmosphere are largely clean. One can drink water from any tap, and it is as pure as mineral water.  Air and water pollution is very strictly controlled.

On the other hand, a country like India is only partially industrialised, and hence the feudal backward mindsets in people still persist. Almost everything is polluted, from the air ( as in Delhi ) to water to foodstuffs. Without water filters, boiling etc, it is not possible to drink water anywhere; it could make you sick.

In a feudal society one keeps one house clean, but throws garbage and litter outside the house. That is why heaps of garbage lie in many places on the streets of India everywhere. Also, in recent decades there has been mass migration of people from the rural to urban areas looking for jobs. These people coming from rural areas still have the feudal mindset. They throw litter anywhere, and often ease themselves in open spaces, as they do in the villages. How can this mentality be changed instantly ? It will take several decades.

I submit the following: first, corruption is the normal feature of the transitional period when a society (such as India’s) is passing from a feudal, agricultural stage to a modern, industrial stage. Second, it is only when the transition is over and India becomes a fully industrial society, like that in North America or Europe, that the environment laws will be strictly enforced, and corruption considerably reduced. This, in my opinion, will take about 15 to 20 years more in India.

This needs to be explained.

A feudal, agricultural society has relatively stable social and ethical values. In contrast, when the process of industrialisation begins, things become topsy-turvy. In this transitional period, before the process of industrialisation is complete, two things happen. First, old (feudal) moral values disintegrate, but a new moral code does not immediately come into existence. So there is a moral vacuum, and the only value is how to make money by hook or crook. Second, prices start shooting up, while incomes are broadly stagnant (or rise much slower than the price rise). For both these reasons, corruption becomes rampant. To maintain one’s lifestyle and to keep up with the Joneses, one must supplement one’s regular income, and this is only possible by corruption. Since the old moral code has largely disintegrated, and a new moral code has not come into existence, there is little check on one’s conscience to prohibit wrongdoings.

I am not trying to justify corruption. I am only presenting a scientific analysis to show that corruption is inevitable in a transitional society like India in which industrialisation has commenced, but is incomplete. Historical facts support this conclusion. For example, there was rampant corruption in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries when industrialisation was going on but was not complete. Sir Robert Walpole, who was the first prime minister of Great Britain (from 1721 to 1742), openly used to say that he could buy off any person, including members of parliament. John Wilkes and Junius attacked the corruption of the governments of the Duke of Grafton (1768-1770) and of his successor, Lord North. Similarly, in America too there was a lot of corruption in the 19th century when the process of industrialisation was going on. The administrations of Presidents Grant, Harding, etc were notoriously corrupt.

Upton Sinclair’s famous novel, The Jungle (1906), exposed the health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry of the time. This promoted the US Federal government to introduce touch sanitary and hygiene regulationsWhen Western societies were passing through their transition from feudalism to the industrial era their roads, rivers and atmospheres were highly polluted. Anyone who has studied conditions in England, for instance, knows that till the mid 19th century, roads in England were muddy, the Thames full of sewage, and the air full of smog.

It was only when the process of industrialisation was broadly completed that Western society  became largely corruption and pollution free. A new ethical code emerged, and people in the West are now relatively much more honest in their dealings than people in underdeveloped countries. Anyone who has been to the West and has interacted with people there can confirm this.

In view of this analysis, I submit that pollution and corruption will continue in India for another 15-20 years or so but will significantly disappear when the process of industrialisation is complete after this period, and the mindset of our masses has changed. Till then we may have any number of schemes, but they will remain on paper only.

(Published first on The Wire)