Letters: The onus is on us

Apropos the editorial "Toilet-training India" (October 2), the two issues raised - owning and maintaining - are germane to the problem. Gandhiji had taken up the issues of sanitation and manual scavenging for a social reform, that is why he said: "Cleanliness is next to godliness". Had he imagined that the monster of cleanliness will persist 70 years and billions of rupees spent after independence, he would have definitely said that "Godliness is next to cleanliness". Fortunately, we now have a leader who said "pehle shouchalay, phir devalaya" (toilets first, temples later). Therefore, the citizens of India have to contribute 90 per cent of the efforts towards cleanliness and hygiene, only 10 per cent has to come from Narendra Modi.

Modi is doing his bit to create awareness, exhorting the people from the ramparts of the Red Fort and seeking American technology and investment to eradicate the menace of garbage disposal, open defecation and so on. If we are unable to present a spick-and-span India (as we see and appreciate other developed countries) by 2019, it will be the people of India who will fail, not Modi.

Naresh Saxena, New Delhi

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