Let me share a story. Around ten years back, I had gone to meet a friend who had returned to India after a long stint in the USA. Their six-year-old son was born and brought up there. We went out for an evening, and I bought the kid a chocolate pack. The kid was well-behaved and opened the pack to share it with all of us. But that is not the story. What amazed me was his searching for nearby dustbins and putting the wrapper in his mother’s handbag because he couldn’t find any. To test him, I asked him to throw it away, on which he got very offended, saying that it would be littering our city.

Unfortunately, a few days back, I saw a kid throwing a packet in a garbage heap by the road. When I asked him why he had done that, he replied that everyone does it. He asked where to discard the trash if he was on the road.

The incident got me thinking. While government initiatives such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and events organized by NGOs and schools are extremely welcome in grooming our next generation, are we doing enough to nurture awareness and cultivate positive habits from an early age? Because only then can we empower the future generation to take pride in their surroundings and contribute to a more hygienic India.

Cleanliness and civic sense are mandatory for building any sustainable and progressive society. As the future custodians of our nation, children play a vital role in shaping India’s destiny. Only by instilling a strong sense of responsibility towards cleanliness and civic sense in young minds can we pave the way for a brighter and cleaner tomorrow. We must explore and highlight effective strategies to create a cleaner and more responsible generation.

But where do we start? Is it the responsibility of the government, the schools, and parents, or is it a collective responsibility of all of us as a society? Revisiting the story narrated earlier, imagine that the government ensures urban areas will have a dustbin every 100 meters, categorized by the type of waste. Are we sure we will take that few extra seconds to put the trash in the appropriate bin? The bigger question is, if we are caught between two bins, will we walk 10 meters to throw the trash in a bin? A bigger question will be how many days the bins will last before someone steals them.

Yes, we know that we have problems in our system and society. But should the children also suffer from these? How will change come? My approach would be to start doing things in parallel, i.e., create awareness and instill good habits in the children while we also take measures to fix the issues of society.

In the next blog, I will list a few ideas for cultivating a cleaner tomorrow and ask for your input/ideas on the topic.