I don’t like writing articles like this one. I love Vrindavan and the people of Vrindavan, but there comes a time when there is no option other than to shame them. And indeed, the situation is shameful.

A friend wrote me yesterday: “Let me be frank. When I was in Vrindavan, I thought I must have been mad. It is a horrible place, . I took my partner there in 2011 . I was embarrassed. Totally embarrassed. So why did I think I was mad? Because why would I stay in such a place? That is when I gave up on all the ‘Vrindavan is the spiritual world’ baloney.”

And as Joshua Nash concludes his essay on Vrindavan, the Human Sanctuary, “From a purely physical point of view, Vrindavan is one of the most putrid and filthy places I have ever visited.”

I have previously expressed the idea that development is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Development in Vrindavan is killing the very thing it is trying to profit from. PM Modi has started the Swachch Bharat initiative, but after a few highly placed officials swept a meter of road or two, Swachch Bharat has barely been able to penetrate the conscious awareness of the average Indian citizen or Vrindavan resident.

But individual consciousness on its own is not enough. Action is needed. And for action, even well-meaning people need an infrastructure.

Read more: http://news.vrindavantoday.org/2016/06/vrindavan/