Hazards of Delhi's street food : High level of faecal matter
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 03 2015 -

Makes the Swachch Bharat call all that more meaningful.

It is not without reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has indicated that Swachch Bharat is more than a slogan.

The country is filthy and so are majority of its citizens.

Double standard cloaks the filth and decay that surround any place in this great, big country.

On the one hand there is the great social divide of the pure and the impure and on the other is the fact that majority of the people do not hesitate to sup amidst all the filth and dirt.

This is India as one sees it and the disturbing part is no one seems ready to do something about it.

Perhaps complementing the dirt and filth which have come to personify this place is the report that street food in Delhi may have poop or human faeces in them.

This probability has been drawn from the findings that most street food in the country’s capital were found to contain a high level of the bacteria, E Coli, which can cause severe infections including typhoid and cholera.

Disgusting it is, yet at the same time such a report should not come as such a shocker to all given that sanitation has never been a strong point for many Indians.

It is precisely because of this that numerous Indians still practise open defecation, a point most visible along any rail track.

It is again the same thing when one takes a look at any of the open drains that pass through any big city in the country.

If one looks at it minutely, the term slum may be a misnomer, for all cities and towns in the country may fit the description of slums.

Imphal is no better and one just has to take a look around to realise this point.

It may not have been like this a few decades back, but with the multiplying human population and the manner in which all open space have been turned into public toilets should underline the point that is sought to be made here.

Human poop. A parliamentary way of putting it.

Shit may sound too crude and this may be the reason why the word poop was used while giving the highly unpalatable report.

Today it is about food and one can imagine how long this has been the trend or practise.

Anyone going through the report will have a second thought before downing any more street food, at least in Delhi but this should be a wake up call for everyone.

Why should everything that come for public consumption be so dirty, unhygienic and unhealthy ?

It is much more than lack of Government rules and regulations.

It is more about people’s attitude towards hygiene and cleanliness.

And to imagine that such a story should come from a country where the concept of the pure and impure has so distinctly divided the people and it may not be out of place to suggest that the people here have got the idea of what is clean and what is dirty all muddled up.

The faecal matter in the street food of Delhi may have come from any source, but it is undeniable that it is a pointer to the unhygienic condition under which people in the country have had to live all these years.

The Prime Minister has already sounded the call for a Swachch Bharat and eating polluted food or food laced with human waste is something which is against the concept of making India a cleaner, more hygienic place.