© 2020. Ramadhar Singh & Neeraj Pandey. This is a research/review paper, distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-
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Psychological Foundations of the Cleanliness Initiative in
Ahmedabad City of India
By Ramadhar Singh & Neeraj Pandey
Ahmedabad University
Abstract- Spitting on the roads of and littering around a city in India have been of concern to national
leaders and civil servants since the pre-independence years. It was unsurprising, therefore, that the Prime
Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) as a nation-wide cleanliness
campaign on October 2, 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi. The cleanliness initiative by the Ahmedabad
Municipal Commissioner (i) dissuades spitting on the roads and littering around the city, (ii) collects fines
from those whose photos are captured by CCTV cameras, and (iii) invites active participation of all
residents of Ahmedabad in the cleanliness drive. The authors present psychological foundations of this
initiative, arguing that all residents ought to hold the offender and anyone else associated with such an
offense as accountable. Further, they raise four new issues with the current cleanliness drive and offer
suggestions for how to resolve them.
Keywords: association, commission, collective ownership, omission, norms, participation.
GJHSS-A Classification: FOR Code: 170199
PsychologicalFoundationsoftheCleanlinessInitiativeinAhmedabadCityofIndia
Strictly as per the compliance and regulations of:
Volume 20 Issue 8 Version 1.0 Year 2020
Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal
Publisher: Global Journals
Online ISSN: 2249-460x & Print ISSN: 0975-587X
Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: A
Arts & Humanities - Psychology