Swachh bharat is a state of the mind.

A couple of days back the students of one or another coaching academy near where I live were organising a cleaning drive. Brooms in hand, they bustled about sweeping an absurdly small stretch of land just outside the academy building considering the size of the lively crew. This was morning. In the evening when I went past that area again it was clean and tidy. But to be very honest, if I hadn't seen the cleaning in progress earlier that day, I might really not have noticed. 

Over the last few weeks, enough famous people have picked up brooms all over India to put quidditch training camps to shame. And yet, for all their much publicized efforts, is our country looking any cleaner? And more importantly, is that really the right question we need to be asking right now? I really do not think so. 

Our country has been like a lazy boy's hostel room for too long. The residents of such rooms are so used to the mess, they hardly notice it. Then when, say for some competition, they get to go stay in an expensive hotel room, their minds are blown by how squeaky clean everything is. "Why can't our hostel rooms be like this?" they remark. And yet, when they come back, they make no effort to clean up their rooms. And one of the reasons for that is that the task of cleaning up such a gargantuan mess simply seems impossible. So why even bother? 

Even now the news channels are constantly pointing out the water bottles scattered about at the sites of swachh bharat abhiyan activity post the cleaning, emphasizing on how nothing will ever change in this country. With that attitude, it's easy to see why that might even be true. But what if it's not true? We are a nation of people who have always been quick to jump on any bandwagon that crosses our path. If the ALS ice bucket challenge could catch on, why can’t the Clean India movement? If halloween can become a thing here, why can’t keeping the neighbourhood clean also become a thing? 

The success of the swachh bharat abhiyan shouldn't be judged on how much area has been cleaned effectively till now but on how many minds have been affected so far.

Because the people of India need to believe that our country can be clean. Of course more needs to be done on the government's side (installing more dustbins and making sure they stay in place for one). But what is happening so far isn't all that bad. Cleanliness is making its way into the list of things perceived as cool, a list full of such young-crowd pullers as parties, Honey Singh, and EDM. And so far we've seen that the swachh bharat abhiyan can be a decent crowd puller too. And make no mistake, things will start changing when the right things become cool. Because often we are more comfortable doing the cool thing than we are doing the right thing.

What needs to change is the vision of India we see in our head. Once that place becomes clean, we'll want to change our surroundings to be more like it. It’s all in the head. But why should that mean it can't be real?