Tathagata🌶️Satpathy

Why do so many Indians believe someone else will clean up after them? This mindset didn't emerge overnight. It has deep historical roots. For centuries, Indian society was organized through a caste hierarchy in which occupations—including sanitation and waste removal—were assigned by birth. Communities placed at the bottom of this hierarchy were expected to perform the work considered "impure," while those higher in the social order were expected to avoid it. This wasn't simply a division of labor. It was a division of dignity. When cleaning becomes associated with certain people rather than everyone's shared responsibility, keeping public spaces clean becomes someone else's job. Even today, sanitation work continues to be disproportionately carried out by historically marginalized caste communities. That continuity reflects how deeply social expectations can persist, even after laws change. Sanitation workers deserve far greater respect, pay, and safety than they receive. Also, many responsible citizens cleaning public spaces despite having no obligation to do so are looked down upon. This is why India's civic problem isn't only about education or fines. It's about inherited attitudes. If we want better civic sense, we cannot ignore the social structures that shaped our relationship with cleanliness. Real civic sense begins when we stop thinking of cleaning as "low" work. A society becomes cleaner when every person believes: "If I create the mess, I clean it." Not because of fear of punishment. But because public spaces belong to all of us. The opposite of caste hierarchy is individual & shared responsibility. The day we stop expecting invisible hands to clean up after us is the day we begin building a truly just & civic society. #India #CivicSense #casteism

Headline writer is good 👍 @SatpathyLive

It's deliberate, not a typo. Tathagata Satpathy has long preferred "Orissa" and publicly called the 2011 rename a convenience for some IAS officers. His paper remains OrissaPOST. Officially, the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act, 2011 (Act 15 of 2011) changed the state's name to Odisha effective 1 November 2011. It amended the Constitution's First Schedule (and related articles). The language shifted from Oriya to Odia via the Constitution (113th Amendment) Act.