Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Variable Sum Power, A new Reference Group, Collective Action, Civic Nationalism and Gendered Benefit

        Swachh Bharat Abhiyan as a mass movement is now ever so familiar to every one of us, its visible impacts right before our eyes in public places and village homes. Although driven by the welfare state, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is essentially a movement of the society, by the society and for the society

        

        It is thus a crystal clear elucidation of the Parsonian thesis of Variable Sum Power where power exists as a collective faculty that is beneficial for the society. Here, it is the idea of Swachhta where a value consensus was forged through the instruments of media and state- particularly the gram panchayats. A greater collective conscience thus creating more power to achieve the goal of ODF across panchayats and states.

         

        At the centre of this movement is thus a collective action driven by civil societal spirit. SBA thus slots in as a reformative movement in David Aberle’s classification of social movement where a large social base is driven by a limited reformative idea of Swachhta. 

        

        Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is also a Social Movement driven by Revitalization as propounded by Wallace where a movement urges a new value system for solving the structural strain in the social system thereby restoring its desirability for constituent individuals. The structural strain here being open defecation and issue of women’s dignity urging a new value system driven by toilet construction and use.

          

        Swachh Bharat Abhiyan can also be analysed through the prism of Merton’s Reference Group Theory. Here, the reference group refers to those who have toilets, use them and are thus non contributors to open defecation. The new value system provided them a higher social status that enabled them to be reference groups for non-membership groups who are yet to adopt sanitation in household.

Through campaigns like the ‘Darwaza Bandh Karo’ and ‘No Toilet No Bride’, the state and society sought to reinforce this reference group and develop a positive orientation among the non-membership group. This drove the rest of society to socialize accordingly and adopt sanitation techniques further strengthening the value system defined by Swachhta.

          

        The very same value of cleanliness is fast becoming attached to a civic duty linked to the idea of nation itself as a shared belief and virtue among all responsible citizens fulfilling their part of the citizen-state social contract. In this way, Swachh Bharat becomes a pillar of Civic Nationalism rooted in the very idea of New India.

          

           

        Swachh Bharat in its outcome is notable for its gendered benefit, given the vast improvement in girl students in schools besides ensuring women’s dignity and security. It thus highlights how welfare state’s programmes despite being not gendered inevitably has gendered benefits given the overlapping inequalities women and the third gender face in male dominated society.

       

        Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is thus clearly an astonishing mass social movement kick started by the state, driven by the society centred around the idea or value of Swachhta that forged collective conscience and inadvertently created a new value system that brought immense social progress.