Freedom to litter...

From being crowded, noisy, dirty, impersonal, just another third world war torn country destroyed by America in the 1960s forced their people to dwell in dust, smell, noise, and not to forget the ever-changing skylines to being a wealthy Asian nation today. Japan’s progress today boasts arguably the most cleanest cities we ever find around the world. 

Did this makeover happen in a day? Definitely not! But we can assume the process started when the country was struggling to hang by, for making ends meet after getting their independence.

Right before the Olympics in 1964, Tokyo’s government launched a massive campaign to educate Tokyo’s residents about manners so that they would not embarrass the country in front of the visitors who would be arriving for the Olympic games. The government even sent fliers to every residence in Tokyo, urging residents to improve their manners so that overseas visitors would not encounter a city full of litter and garbage. This campaign worked and changed the ethics of Japanese people, especially with respect to keeping public places clean. And this was not just limited to Olympics, it went on.

How was Japan so fast in its transformation? Well, it understood the power of young brains because they bypass the filter of prejudice which is attached to the elderly’s brains. So, they started with schools. Every class was responsible for cleaning its own classroom and two other places in the school, for example; the nurse’s office and the library. The class was divided into han (small groups), each of which was responsible for one of the areas to be cleaned. If we are the ones’ cleaning up ourselves we understand the pain it takes to make or keep a surrounding clean. Three times a year, students in third grade and above do chiiki seiso (neighborhood cleanup). Many of us might take these activities as waste of time, many of our parents would even drag the schools to court if this rule was implemented here in India under the charges of child labour, or oppression towards students, but as viewed by us it’s neither of these, children are learning to respect their surroundings and to help each other through this process.

What japan realized almost 45 years ago we are realizing it now, thanks to corona. Yes! it took a pandemic for us to realize the hazards of wrongful littering, spitting. The reason why Japan woke up earlier than us was because they had fair share of epidemics, food poisoning they have seen their loved ones’ suffer, and now so are we. Things won’t change just because of this one step but we need a serious revision towards our policies regarding littering which is almost two centuries old that’s around 1860 and all we pay is 500/-, looks like this penalty was immune to inflation all this while.

But like I always say it’s better late than never, you rather start now than wither!

- NISHITA PATIL