Curio Critique # 2: A reference to sanitation in the University Convocation Address!
| Sl. No. | Curio Book Title | Year of Publication |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | The Educational Review- A Monthly Record For India Vol. I January to December 1895 | 1895 |
Curio Book
Curio reference:
The Supplement to The Educational Review has an article on the Madras University Convocation 1895.
A part of the Chancellor’s address is on sanitation and local self government.
Related references
119 years later, a Times of India news has the following headline: “Poor sanitation weighs down on Tamil Nadu’s development index”
Cleanliness it is said ...is next to Godliness...Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle in India laid great emphasis on observing cleanliness. He once worte: "I shall have to defend myself on one point, namely, sanitary conveniences. I learnt 35 years ago that a lavatory must be as clean as a drawing-room. I learnt this in the West. I believe that many rules about cleanliness in lavatories are observed more scrupulously in the West than in the East... Navajivan on 24-5-1925.
In Sevagram Ashram founded by Gandhiji in1936, the members used to engage in collective cleanliness. A participant, Shobhana Radhakrishna described it thus:
...march out in teams to our allocated area to take part in systematic community sanitation for three quarters of an hour each morning under the leadership of our elders. The time that we spent in cleaning the surroundings, especially the toilets, are one of the happiest memories of my life...
When the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign Government of India officially commenced in 2014, the national school sanitation initiative was also launched.
But colleges in Chennai as early as 2008 had taken up the sanitation issue seriously. The following is an image from a report of a sanitation awareness programme for college students which appeared in The Hindu
Despite several Indian initiatives, we seem to need foreign assistance to solve our own cleanliness issues. Recently the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), an informal network of organizations with a common vision on sustainable sanitation launched their programmes in Chennai.
Curio Quest
Why is sanitation a big issue in Chennai for over a century? What lessons can we learn from the programmes so far launched in Chennai?