Bhopal: Imaginative campaigns with strong emotional content have compelled many villages in Madhya Pradesh to discourage open defecation.
The people of Harda district have been actively involved in spreading the word of cleanliness through the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. One of the campaign’s motto was Mahatma Gandhi’s “fourth monkey” stands against open defecation — similar to how the other three monkeys stand for against evil. As a part of another campaign, the male members of the district are being given rewards if they give a toilet to their sisters as a gift for her marriage. Through these incentives, the promoters of the cleanliness drive want to turn Swachh Bharat into a social movement.
Senior district officers including the district collector of Harda had actively participated in the Swachh Bharat campaign by making extensive tours to interior villages wearing t-shirts painted with the ‘four monkeys’ in which the fourth simian appeals to the people not to relieve themselves in the open. “The campaign had generated curiosity among the rural folk in the district who were well aware of Mahatma’s moral brigade of three monkeys, and were amused by the addition of the fourth one, contributing to the success of the mission,” a senior district officer, told this newspaper on Sunday. The district authorities had also launched an innovative initiative called as ‘Bhai No.1’, where rewards are announced for men who gift toilets to their sisters for her marriage.
This innovative campaign had also attracted the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who made mention of it in his monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio broadcast.
Harda has been declared open defecation free (ODF) district on August 15. A woman sarpanch, Kusli Bai, in Betul district has introduced ‘Name to Shame’ scheme where she opened a ‘control room’ in the panchayat office and broadcasts names of the residents in her locality who were found defecating in the open.
