Almost a century back he firmly believed in not exploiting nature due to our life styles, for the protection and \u00a0 sustenance of our planet Earth. He used to say that the Earth has enough for our needs but not enough for our greed. This issue has gained worldwide attention since we are witnessing the adverse impacts of pollution, global warming, climate change resulting in rising sea levels, unexpected weather conditions, floods, hurricanes and disease.<\/p>\n In addition to these concerns, Gandhi firmly believed in cleanliness and sanitation for the health and dignity of millions of poor deprived peoples all over the world. In fact, he, his wife and his followers always worked to keep their homes and the ashrams that they lived in, clean and tidy.<\/p>\n Cleanliness is of course associated with environmental issues but it has other dimensions related to the safety, sanctity, dignity of people especially women and young girls. In India, there is an acute shortage of toilets at home especially in rural areas that forces people to defecate in the open. Many unsavoury incidents have taken place that are cruel and create a fear psychosis, especially among girls, including a feeling of shame and occurrence of some brutal incidents of rape and other forms of violence.<\/p>\n Even in schools, there is a shortage of toilets; even if there are toilets they are not clean which again results in adolescent girls absenting themselves or even altogether leaving schools and abandoning education. Absence of toilets also results in defiling the towns and villages, causing disease and affecting people in several adverse ways.<\/p>\n The Indian government is active in construction of toilets and encouraging the private corporate sector towards this objective. Several NGOs are also helping in the mammoth task of construction and maintenance of millions of toilets in homes, public places, in schools, etc.<\/p>\n This mission has been promoted as a follow-up of Gandhi\u2019s belief in cleanliness and sanitation. It is being called \u2018Swatchta Abhiyan<\/em> \u2018 (Mission cleanliness and sanitation \u2014 a drive for health and dignity). It is beneficial not only for individuals but also for maintenance of a clean environment. It does not just mean building of toilets but also refers to keeping the environment \u2014 roads, streets, water bodies clean and free from garbage such as plastic and other non degradable items. Many people, especially tourists are shocked while traveling in trains to see people defecating along the railway tracks and garbage scattered all over.<\/p>\n These concerns are genuine and call for urgent remedial action. Gandhi\u2019s standing and his relevance even 70 years after his death in January 1948, have given the Mission Cleanliness and Sanitation a boost and encouragement.<\/p>\n It is hoped that by the time that we come to Gandhi\u2019s 150th anniversary, our country is sanitary, cleaner and greener and people especially the marginalised sections feel a sense of security and dignity in their lives. Gandhi will always remain an icon of truth, amity, nonviolence and cleanliness.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n The Indian government is active in construction of toilets and encouraging the private corporate sector towards this objective. Several NGOs are also helping in the mammoth task of construction and maintenance of millions of toilets in homes, public places, in schools, etc. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":59911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GandhiVirtues.jpg\")
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