Madhya Pradesh BJP MP Janardan Mishra unclogs school toilet with bare hands [Video]

A BJP lawmaker decided to take matters into his own hands — literally — after he came to know that children from a school in Rewa's Khajuha village were unable to use the toilet as it was clogged.

The video of Janardan Mishra (61), a BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh, unclogging a school's toilet with his bare hands has taken the internet by storm.

In a video that Mishra later posted on Twitter, he is seen bending down, reaching into the toilet and scooping out soil that had accumulated in it. The "accumulation of soil" had choked the toilet.

Somebody is then seen handing him some reeds, which the BJP MP uses to clear the blockage in the pipe before reaching down once again with his bare hands. He continues to do so till the blockage is cleared and water flows down the toilet smoothly.

The video which was posted on social media on February 15, has already been viewed more than 30,000 times and retweeted by over 1,600 Twitter users.

This incident has yet again brought to light the pathetic conditions of the schools in rural areas of India. Most schools in rural areas, including those run by the government do not even have a proper washroom let alone basic facilities like electricity, books and hygienic mid-day meals.

Audiences in developed countries may find what Mishra did shocking, even revolting. But had he not taken the initiative and got his hands dirty, the shool toilet would have remained clogged and unusable for days, even weeks. Thousands of schools in rural India still remain victims of bureaucratic apathy despite the focus many governments have put on raising rural living and educational standards.

Here's the video of the incident:

This comes just a few days after Rajasthan Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf's photo showing him urinating in public in Jaipur went viral on social media. 

Bathed and clipped nails of students

However, this is not the first time that the district president of BJP in Rewa, who often emphasizes on the need of Swacch Bharat, has taken the matter in his own hands. The BJP MP in a video that was posted on February 16, is seen sweeping the streets in Rewa Nagar.

In another video that was posted on Sunday, Mishra is seen clipping the nails of students in order to stress the importance of cleanliness to them.

He also bathed and scrubbed a student of state-run school in Nayi Garhi. He had gone on a inspection to the school and found that several students had come to attend classes without taking a bath.

Mishra's actions can be seen as playing to the gallery but they tie in with the clean India, or Swacch Bharat Campaign, launched  by his party boss and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014.

Besides, aiming at providing safe drinking water, waste disposal systems and clean roads, one of Modi's main focus areas is providing toilets to all. According to a 2011 census, 53 percent of Indian households did not have toilets. 

Modi has pumped considerable resources and money into this cleanliness initiative but, as Mishra's initiative shows, much more still needs to be done.