Jasveer Singh’s post sparked a wide discussion on X (formerly Twitter). The co-founder and CEO of Knot Dating says India’s purity problem has nothing to do with awareness or infrastructure. And it has everything to do with caste conditioning, he says.
In his post, Singh wrote that Indians do not litter because they lack civic sense. They litter, they claim, because they truly believe that cleaning is not their job. And this belief has been inculcated in people for generations through the caste system.
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Singh points out that caste in India was never just about social hierarchy. It was basically a division of labor. Cleaning has been pushed to the very bottom of this hierarchy.
As a result, even today people carry the same subconscious thinking without realizing it. When someone throws trash in a park and walks away, Singh counters, their brain doesn’t even register that they should be picking it up. It’s because somewhere deep inside they associate cleaning with people of lower social status.
“You go to the park, people will eat, litter, leave. Not because they’re not aware of it. Their brains literally don’t even register that they should pick it up. Why. Because somewhere deep inside they think cleaning up is the job of a ‘lower’ person,” he wrote.
“Same everywhere – hill stations, rivers, tourist spots. Throw it in the trash and leave. Not laziness. Air conditioning,” he added.
It contrasts sharply with Singapore, where people clean their own tables after eating, wear handkerchiefs and dispose of waste properly. According to him, the reason is simple. They don’t think it’s anyone else’s job.
“Compare it to something like Singapore – You eat on site, people clean their own table. They wear tissues, wipe it and dispose of the rubbish properly. Why? Because they don’t think it’s anyone else’s job. Even Sri Lanka feels cleaner than India!” Singh wrote on X.
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Singh rejects government-led solutions. Campaigns like Swachh Bharat, he said, cannot solve the problem, which is rooted in identity rather than infrastructure.
Placing bins every ten steps won’t change anything, he says, as long as the basic mindset remains intact.
“And then we pretend it’s a Swachh Bharat problem. You can run a hundred Swachh Bharat campaigns. Put dustbins every ten steps. Nothing changes. Because the problem is not infrastructure. It’s identity,” he concluded.
The post generated considerable online discussion. Many users agree, while others push back against framing.
This report is based on user generated content from social media. LiveMint has not independently verified and does not endorse these claims.
Reaction on social networks
“If the upper castes litter because they think they will clean the lower castes, then the parts of the villages where the lower castes live must be cleaner. In fact it is the opposite… It will take two generations to do this if we start from the schools and stop blaming everything on caste,” one of them wrote.
“I’ve always believed it’s a question of privilege more than a question of civic sense. When people grow up to think that public space is not their responsibility, the right takes over and the responsibility disappears,” another comment read.
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One user wrote: “Caste has nothing to do with it. Most people have reasonable civic sense (including cleanliness). Only about 10% of the population lack these things.”
“The same goes for people who keep complaining that India is not growing. They just want to complain the day everyone decides to work hard. No one can stop India. India’s growth is in the hands of the Indian people, not the Indian government,” came another.
