The writer visits the Prime Minister’s constituency and finds that this corner of Bharat is not so Swachh after all

These days, those using public toilets in Varanasi are gently reminded that they have Prime Minister Narendra Modi to thank for the relief. These public utilities have been given a facelift with walls on three sides — passers-by can still watch you in the act — and a roof, on which sits a water tank. They have been painted a deep shade of saffron and bear a proud proclamation: ‘ Pradhan Mantri Shri Narendra Modi Ji ki prerana se (inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi)’.

When I first spot a urinal, a rickshaw-puller is there, and as I look at his back and then at the slogan, I wonder what exactly is inspired by Modi: his act or the facelift?

Of course, it has to be the urinal, but since it looks filthy in spite of the fresh paint, the proclamation seems open to interpretation. Unlike this man, many others choose the open drain rather than the revamped facility.

A labourer squatting across the road says, “The stench is unbearable. The water tank is empty, the pipe has come off, the taps don’t work. They used poor quality material, which didn’t last even a month.”

“Do you find Varanasi cleaner than before?”

“Why ask me, babu?” he says, taking a long drag from his bidi. “Walk down the road and you will see for yourself.”

I had seen it for myself, of course, when the autorickshaw had brought me from Mughal Sarai to Varanasi some days before, via the residential neighbourhood of Lanka. What had struck me was the filth, even though my eyes are long used to the sight of garbage — and this is a city represented in Parliament by Modi, the country’s chief executive, who wants a swachh Bharat, or clean India. Reality, clearly, lay outside the realm of social media.

While nearly everybody I speak to agrees that Varanasi remains just as dirty as before, in spite of Modi being in power for a year and a half, no one wants to blame him for the mess.

“Give him some more time, he doesn’t have a magic wand,” says a trader.

“Why blame Modi when the people of Varanasi don’t have any civic sense? You will see them throwing rubbish on the road from the terrace,” says an artist.

“Modi wants to clean up Varanasi but the state government is stalling his schemes. The state government wants the city to remain dirty to show Modi ji in a poor light,” says the manager of a lodge.

“Modi ji is trying his best, but the ministers he has assigned to look after Varanasi aren’t doing enough. They come here, pose for the cameras and go back. He should send spies instead of ministers to see what’s going on,” says the owner of an art gallery.

“He is the Prime Minister, he has bigger worries, but I am 100 per cent sure he will improve the condition of Varanasi. Why 100 per cent, I am 200 per cent sure,” says a teacher.

Faith and hope are the two wheels that have kept Varanasi moving since time immemorial, and these responses are in keeping with the spirit of the holy city, even though everyone, when I ask them if their lives had changed in any way ever since Modi became the Prime Minister, replies with an emphatic “No”.

“How can one Modi change our lives?” says the art gallery owner. “Who is Modi anyway to change our lives? Kashi is the city of Lord Vishwanath — no one else matters in this city.”

He is right. Modi, if you walk the streets of the city, is barely visible in Varanasi — except in the signage at public urinals. Actually, there is one more spot in the city where his presence is overwhelming: Assi Ghat.

Assi Ghat sits on the southern extreme of the row of 84 ghats that constitute the riverfront of Varanasi, and has been in the news recently for being completely renovated, by Mr. Modi of course.

“All my life I didn’t even know that stone steps existed at Assi Ghat because it remained buried under silt,” Deepak Jaiswal, the caretaker of my lodge, tells me as I set out for the ghat one evening. “Go take a look now, Modi ji has cleaned it up. Pura chakachak hai (it’s all spruced up)!”

Assi Ghat looks spruced up no doubt, designed to impress tourists more than pilgrims: a new stage has been erected to host cultural events; benches with backrests (something that ghats at Varanasi never had) have been installed at various places; and, instead of the Modi-inspired urinal, it has a state-of-the-art toilet complex, run by Sulabh International.

It was Sulabh that cleaned up the ghat and is now maintaining it — the central government sanctioned close to Rs.30 crore for the project, formally titled “Development of Area around Assi Ghat, Varanasi” — and I find Sulabh sweepers constantly at work, one of them dislodging silt from the base of the ghat with the help of a hosepipe.

Initially, however, earthmovers were used to remove the silt, and the machines — being machines — could not distinguish between silt and stone and ended up damaging the tall octagonal platforms (called marhi by the locals) at the adjoining Ganga Mahal Ghat. They are yet to be repaired, their broken stones a testimony to the force with which the clean-up was carried out.

From Assi Ghat, I walk downstream to Prabhu Ghat, one of my two favourite ghats of Varanasi, the other being Darbhanga Ghat. I like them because they are clean, set against handsome, historical structures, and have an old-world feel about them — ideal spots in the city to gaze at the river.

At Prabhu Ghat, I find young men with guitars sitting on the steps. Loudspeakers are being set up and standees erected. A musical programme is about to begin: a radio channel is celebrating the first anniversary of a show in which budding singers from the city are invited to perform, and many of those singers are in attendance now.

A small audience has already gathered, among them a lady who stands out because every now and then, someone or the other, mostly young men, touch her feet.

“Who is she?” I ask the boatman, a boy of 17, who has become friendly with me in a matter of minutes.

“She is the one who cleaned up Prabhu Ghat,” he says.

“Was this ghat also dirty?”

“Unimaginably dirty. Go talk to her,” the boy says.

The lady, Temsutula Imsong, who is 32 now, was born in a village called Ungma in Nagaland. She studied in Shillong, went on to work in Delhi, and in 2012, came to Ghazipur, near Varanasi, to join an NGO started by her friend — an ex-Navy man — who is now her husband. That’s how she first set eyes on the ghats of Varanasi.

“This ghat was an open toilet when I first saw it,” she told me. “It was buried under silt — you couldn’t see the steps — and people were relieving themselves wherever they pleased. It irked me.”

One day in March this year, she and a woman friend — who has now left Varanasi — pooled in some money, bought brooms, buckets, masks and some basic equipment, and, enlisting the support of local boatmen and idlers on the ghat, began cleaning it.

“Were you inspired by the Swachh Bharat campaign?”

“No, nothing like that. Though when we were cleaning up the place, we could hear passersby saying, ‘See, see, Modi ji’s campaign is going on!’”

Modi has acknowledged her work. He mentioned her name in two tweets, she said. A local paper called her ‘Kashi ki bahu’ — the daughter-in-law of Kashi, or Varanasi. “I take that as a compliment, even though that’s not correct, I am the daughter-in-law of Ghazipur,” she laughs. As I sit with her on the steps, more boys touch her feet as they walk past.

“How long did it take you to clean up the ghat?” I ask her.

“Five days. We started on March 18, and by March 22, the ghat was shining, just the way it is now,” she pats the steps.

“And how much did it cost you?”

“Three thousand rupees.”