Religious leaders come together to achieve cleaner India

With an aim to achieve cleaner India, the religious and spiritual heads of different faiths have joined hands to fight global climate change and clean up the Ganges along with other rivers.

The campaign "WASH" is a cleanliness drive to ensure access to clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.

The initiative taken under the leadership of inter-faith leader Swami Chidanand Saraswati focuses on achieving peace and environmental protection and start a sanitation revolution in the country.

"Sanitation and meditation should go together. To achieve a cleaner India, we have to not only sanitise our surroundings but our minds too. Different religions and faiths along with stake holders and civil society, we all have to come together to put our heart and soul in achieving a cleaner India," Saraswati said.
 

He has implemented several critical programmes such as Namame Ganga (Clean Ganga), Swachh Bharat (Clean India) and Swachhta Kranti (Clean Revolution). He is also the co-founder of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (GIWA).

At the recently concluded Ujjain Kumbha Mela, the alliance worked to sensitise people about sanitation and repercussions of bad environment especially on the health of children.

"On World Toilet Day a huge crowd including youth and many leaders from different communities pledged for clean environment and proper sanitation. It's time that we should move from building temples to more and more toilets," Saraswati said.

For Saraswati, Ganga is not a religious topic but lifeline for millions of citizens in the country.

"River Ganga is not a religious topic but the very lifeline of millions of people and our heritage. When we talk about Ganga we are actually talking about mostly all the rivers in the country and the deteriorating conditions of most of these rivers. Health, hygiene and harmony all should go together for a changed India," he said.

To induce and spur growth, the drive is supporting technology and several other innovations.

"Socio-economic development has to happen from bottom-of-the-pyramid population. We along with spiritual leaders from all across the world have created a new term for us- RSR- Religious Social Responsibility.

"It is amazing how our Prime Minister spoke vigilantly about cleanliness from Red Fort and actually started a campaign to make people aware of the initiatives and how we all can come come together to achieve this dream," Saraswati said.