Learning from Meghalaya village to keep India clean

Learning from Meghalaya village to keep India clean

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 09:22 AM IST
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Mawlynnong (Meghalaya) : If Indians want to make their country a clean and healthy place, then they should learn from the Khasi tribesmen of Meghalaya’s Mawlynnong village, says tourist Michael Dough.

“I thought I was in another countryside in a different continent and not in India,” Dough told IANS of his visit to the village, referred to as “God’s own garden” and  also cited as “Asia’s cleanest village”. Like the visitor from Canada, Indian tourist Meenakshi Datta strongly felt that all Indians should visit Mawlynnong village and learn the habit of keeping the surroundings clean.

“On Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken much about making India a clean and healthy place. I strongly feel that the prime minister should take his team to this remote village and learn something about cleanliness,” Datta said.

Children in the village are taught about hygiene in school at an early age and about how to keep their surroundings clean and green. Mawlynnong, which means “a cluster of stones” in the local Khasi dialect, is located on the southern slopes of East Khasi Hills. It is about 90 kilometres from Meghalaya capital Shillong and four km from the Bangladesh border.

Mawlynnong presents itself as a pretty queen amongst a cluster of rural areas located on a critical micro-watershed of the Wah Khuri (Khuri river). Unlike other tribal villages, where one is greeted with barking dogs and strange looks, Mawlynnong warmly receives tourists with open arms. Villagers are polite and friendly.

The Khasi tribesmen residing in the southern slopes of Khasi Hills are locally known as War people and are experts in horticulture. Villagers traditionally raised betel vines, arecanut, oranges and other horticultural crops and spices on the foothills and traded these products across the plains in erstwhile Eastern Bengal and East Pakistan, at present Bangladesh.

Unfortunately, their traditional market links got snapped after India’s partition in 1947, causing great economic hardship to the people of the bordering villages. Nonetheless, they still maintain the same kind of plantation activities on the foothills.

Most of the houses are built with traditional material like stone, tin, bamboo and wood. There are a few cemented houses too. Each house is decorated with exotic and ornamental plants, while the courtyards are covered with a green carpet of grass.

The footpaths and lanes within the village have been carefully built with stones and boulders. In each walkway, there are cone-shaped bamboo dustbins. Nobody is allowed to litter any plastic or any waste material on the footpath or in the village premises.

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