Bundelkhand 'vanar sena' steal lotas of men defecating in public to teach them a lesson
A group of young kids from about 250 schools are targeting people with lotas and dabbas who are defecating in public in a bid to make the city open-defecation free.
Back in 2014, a ‘pissing tanker’ made headlines by driving across Mumbai streets spraying water on men urinating in public spaces. The anonymous anti-public urination group named ‘The Clean Indian’ would use water canons to address the huge problem of open urination, and videos of the whole incident would be shared on Youtube. Of course, this wasn’t legal, but it did win a lot of hurrahs on various social media platforms.
Well, now it seems a Bundelkhand ‘vanar sena’ (monkey army) is out on a similar mission – to stop open defecation – in a unique way. According to an Indiatimes.com report, a group of young kids – aged 6-16 and from about 250 schools in Sagar district – fanned out on Sunday morning targeting people with lotas and dabbas who were defecating in public. These kids would ‘steal’ these water containers in a bid to teach these people a lesson and hopefully deter them from defecating in the open.
“Many open defecators ran away in shame. Though the atmosphere has changed, people still go out in the open to defecate. They are being challenged,” said Koushlendra Vikram Singh, municipal commissioner of Sagar, in the news report. The schoolchiildren have been roped in this novel way to work for the Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan with the intention of making the city ‘open defecation free’ (ODF) by 2017.
The ‘army’ has reportedly been formed in 22 municipal wards of Sagar, all of which have apparently been declared ODF. “Overall, there are 48 municipal wards and some of them are difficult in the sense that people are still not cooperating,” Singh said. “We plan to make the whole city ODF by December 31,” Singh said.
The city’s district administration had also organised a marathon – Run for ODF Sagar – that saw participation of 2,000 people. “The district administration in Sagar has now deployed the corporators of the municipal corporation to snatch water containers from those defecating in open,” Singh said in the report.