Cleanliness is next to godliness The proverb ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ means that Cleanliness comes next to godliness in importance. On a practical level Cleanliness means hygiene and disease prevention and, thus, it is closely connected with health and beauty too. But when spoken along with godliness, the term cleanliness also implies moral purity. Just as light is associated with truth while darkness with ignorance, in the same way cleanliness is symbolic of moral purity – both externally as well as mentally. Hence, cleanliness is indispensable to the modern notion of social perfection. Therefore, it becomes our absolute duty to keep our surroundings and also our thinking pattern clean and pure. Our honorable PM has given a passionate and enthusiastic call for a ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’. It aims at fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of a clean India by 2nd October 2019, .i.e., the 150th birth anniversary of the father of the nation. In fact Mahatma Gandhi‘s idea of clean India was three pronged – a clean mind, a clean body and clean surroundings. His concept of cleanliness extended much beyond mere public sanitation and hygiene. His efforts were directed towards cleansing our country of things like; 1. Communal divide 2. Social hierarchy 3. Regionalism and linguistic issues 4. Self sufficiency of villages to counter the ill effects of industrialization 5. Overcoming the agony of partition, etc., to quote a few. The clarity and cleanliness in his thoughts empowered him to express them freely. His following quote is very famous, “I will not let anybody walk through my mind with their dirty feet”. Our country is well recognized as the spiritual and religious capital of the world. But at the same time, we find that areas of our cities, towns, offices water bodies and even the surroundings of many shrines are stinking with dirt, garbage and muck. When our rivers, for example, river Jhelum will be used as open sewers by the people, diseases like cholera will become a scourge, as is currently happening in the otherwise beautiful Kashmir. We need to understand that dirt and diseases cannot go together. Disease carrying germs breed and thrive in dirt and the epidemic diseases like plague etc are the result of dirty habits and surroundings. In 1994, a combination of heavy monsoon rains and clogged sewers and the resulting unhygienic conditions led to the outbreak of plague in Surat (Gujarat). Due to this many people died and many others vacated the place and migrated from there. We also see many motivating and inspiring examples, for instance, people in Goa took the initiative of worshipping cleanliness and named this campaign as ‘Swachch Narayan Pooja’. This programme entailed the idea of keeping the streets and every nook and corner clean and tidy. Later, we witnessed the creation of a deity named ‘Swachch Narayani’ in the Sewa nagar Market area of our capital state of New Delhi. The goddess is sculpted as having many arms; holding a broomstick for cleanliness in one arm, in the other a pen to signify the power of reason, in yet another arm she is shown to hold a calculator stressing to imbibe the value of honesty in transactions, in one more arm she is holding a clock to signify the importance of timely decisions, and the scales she is holding represent the concept of justice for all. Such steps proved miraculous in garnering the collective efforts of one and all, and these areas now boast of a remarkable cleanliness. All the religions also emphasize on cleanliness before worshipping as it is synonymous with godliness.. People thoroughly clean their houses before the festival of Diwali. It is considered auspicious and people believe that Goddess Lakshmi would visit them and bless them with prosperity if they keep their homes and surroundings clean. Even the simple daily routine of offering prayers before bathing strengthens one’s belief in the fact that we human beings are naturally attracted towards clean places. Clean areas certainly exude welcoming warmth. In general also, people who are smartly dressed up and have clean habits are more impressive than those with unkempt or slovenly appearance. A person with clean habits is more likely to tick to morals and surely a pious person will have a good character. To conclude, I would say that it is our utmost obligation to keep our houses and neighborhood clean as it is the best remedy available for national health and hygiene. I urge every citizen to adopt cleanliness as a value and ensure that our surroundings are not littered.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:11:39 +0000
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