Is Sadhguru trolling Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan with elephant video?
Another day, another hoax.
This time it’s from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a self-avowed yogi, bestselling author and the founder of Ishaa Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation. Vasudev, while definitely not a hardliner, is a both a preacher of Hinduism and an admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But even the Sadhguru, on July 7, tweeted a video of an elephant putting empty cans in a recycling bin:
#SwachhBharat has truly caught on. Congratulations to the Prime Minister. -Sg @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/wUYPwsW3c0
— Sadhguru (@SadhguruJV) July 6, 2017
The idea that now animals too are taking part in the PM’s Swachh Bharat campaign is a ludicrous one; it is something Vasudev may have just said in jest. After all, the general perception about the nationwide cleanliness drive is that it has been a success. Here’s another snag: the video is not even from India.
It is more than two years old and from Africa! The elephant in the video is a resident of the Greater Kruger national park in South Africa. The footage was captured by CCTV cameras set up by Russell Owen MacLaughlin, a photographer based in the South African city of Hoedspruit.
Perhaps, Vasudev is just in the mood to troll Narendra Modi, because the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan has not been as successful as the PM would like it to be.
According to a report card by data journalism website IndiaSpend, despite the government going on a spree to build toilets across the country - between May 1 and May 21, 2017, 4,89,710 individual household latrines were constructed across the country - 51.6 per cent of households across the country did not use the sanitation facilities.
In fact, the guidelines of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan require eight per cent of the allocated funds to be used for information, education and communication (IEC) activities. Between 2016 and 2017, only one per cent of the total expenditure had been made on IEC.
Is the Sadhguru’s source of news a WhatsApp forward, perhaps from the same WhatsApp group where BJP MP and actor Paresh Rawal gets his quota of fake APJ Abdul Kalam quotes?