The Swachh Bharat Revolution: The Four Pillars of India's Transformation

On 15 August 2014, in his maiden Independence Day address to the country, Narendra Modi became the first Prime Minister of India to address the challenge of open defecation from a national platform. It was a practice historically ingrained in Indian society and had seemed impossible to curb. But the Prime Minister did the he declared a firm resolve to eradicate it in just five years. Launched to implement this vision, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) had a challenging job on hand but has proved to be one of the major successes of the government. Over the past five years, almost 10 crore toilets have been built under SBM-Grameen, and rural sanitation coverage has risen from 39 per cent in 2014 to 99 per cent in June 2019. The Mission s mass outreach effort has mobilized over 60 crore people nearly half of India s population to change their behaviour. India is now on the verge of declaring itself Open Defecation Free on 2 October 2019, Mahatma Gandhi s 150th birth anniversary. The Swachh Bharat Revolution looks at how India led the largest jan andolan (people s movement) in the world to make the impossible possible with the Mission s success resting on four key Political Leadership, Public Financing, Partnerships and People s Participation. With a Foreword by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and essays by Arun Jaitley, Henrietta H. Fore, Amitabh Kant, Ratan Tata, Sadhguru, Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Tavleen Singh, Arvind Panagariya, Bibek Debroy and many others, this book, edited by Parameswaran Iyer, provides wide-ranging perspectives on the programme and celebrates a historic national achievement.