New Year Greeting Card - 2020

Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi declared India Open-Defecation-Free on the occasion of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at Sabarmati Ashram, Gujarat, on October 2, 2019

Sulabh International Social Service Organisation won the ‘Gandhi Peace Prize’ in recognition of its contribution towards improving the condition of sanitation in India and emancipation of manual scavengers. Sulabh Founder Dr. Pathak was honoured with the award by the Hon'ble President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind in the presence of Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi on 26th February, 2019 at Darbar Hall, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.

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Bindeshwar Pathak and the Sulabh Family

Tribute to

Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary On the occasion of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, let me solemnly remind the country about Gandhi’s dream of a ‘Clean India’. History is witness that the Mahatma’s dream of a ‘Clean India’ remained dormant until 2014 when Hon'ble Shri Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister and brought sanitation to the centre-stage.

Laying Gandhian emphasis on sanitation, he launched the Swachh Bharat Mission and led an effective campaign to make India Open-Defecation-Free by 2019. What Gandhiji had done in 1901, the Hon'ble Prime Minister did in 2014, as he took up a broom and started cleaning the streets of Delhi. This personal example that he set has ignited the people’s minds, inspiring them to clean the streets, roads, offices and other public places.

The Hon'ble Prime Minister’s call for Swachh Bharat has become a people’s movement.

Now everybody is paying attention to cleanliness, using dustbins and disposing dirt and waste materials properly. The heightened awareness about cleanliness is now so palpable that even children remind their parents not to throw anything on roads or in public spaces.

The Hon'ble Prime Minister’s call for a toilet in every household to stop open defecation has inspired people to recognize the need to have a sanitary toilet at home. Examples of popular enthusiasm for toilets abound. A hundred-year-old poor woman sold her goats and paid for building her household toilet. Now, marriageable girls persuade their parents to first check whether their potential in-laws’ house has a toilet or not. Some of them ask for a toilet as wedding gift instead of ornaments! As a result of all this, India is now an Open-DefecationFree country.

The credit for bringing sanitation to centre-stage and making it a mass movement goes to Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. In my considered view, making India clean and ending open defecation will make him immortal in the history of India.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak is an Indian Sociologist and the Founder of Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform Movement which works to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms.