NEW DELHI, Aug 15: Social activist who piloted the sanitation drive in the country and founded ‘Sulabh International’ Bindeshwar Pathak, died at a Delhi hospital due to cardiac arrest. He was 80.
Bindeshwar Pathak who campaigned extensively to alleviate the plight of manual scavengers, unfurled the national flag in the morning on the occasion of Independence Day and collapsed soon after. He was rushed to AIIMS Delhi and was declared dead at 1.42 pm.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation said, “Founder Sulabh Sanitation, Social Reform and Human Rights Movement, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak is no more. He died of cardiac arrest at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.” “He was rushed to the hospital after he complained of uneasiness in the midst of Independence Day celebrations at the campus of Sulabh, Palam-Dabri Road, New Delhi,” it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the social reformer’s death. “The passing away of Dr Bindeshwar Pathak Ji is a profound loss for our nation. He was a visionary who worked extensively for societal progress and empowering the downtrodden.
“Bindeshwar Ji made it his mission to build a cleaner India. He provided monumental support to the Swachh Bharat Mission. During our various conversations, his passion towards Swachhata was always visible,” Modi said in a post on X.
Sulabh has constructed nearly 1.3 million household toilets and 54 million government toilets using cheap, two-pit technology. Apart from construction of toilets, the organisation has led a movement to discourage manual cleaning of human waste.
Lawmakers have passed several laws aiming to stamp out the age-old practice of manual scavenging, the latest in 2013. But many scavengers are still used through subcontractors. The men are called “manual scavengers” because they mainly scrape the waste with their bare hands without any protective gear or masks, a practice Bindeshwar Pathak termed “demeaning.”
He is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
(Manas Dasgupta)
