Mawlynnong, a tiny village in
Meghalaya, has a toilet in every house. There are bamboo waste baskets on each
road to ensure that there is no littering. Children as young as four learn at
school to keep their surroundings clean. Cleanliness as a way of life came to
Mawlynnong, a village of 503, long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announced his Swachh Bharat or clean India Asia 's cleanest
village" given to it by India Discovery Magazine in 2003.
By 2007, the village had
eradicated the practice of open defecation, with toilets built for each of its
91 households under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. Littering even by the very young
is frowned upon and if any among the 200-odd tourists who visit the village
every day are found to throw things on the streets, they are issued stern
warnings. The number of tourists that visit Mawlynnong has gone up after the
India Discovery report.
A foreigner says that, he has
met lots of friends in Mawlynnong and have seen so many Indian villages, but
compared to others, it is very clean and the gardens are unique. Everyone takes
care of nature that is the main thing about Mawlynnong and it is a paradise.
The villagers are confident
that Mawlynnong will continue to live up to its pristine reputation. In the
village's three schools, the next generation is already learning how to keep it
in the record books for the right reasons.
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