For eight months, Surendra Singh Choudhary aka Bittu Tabahi worked hard and non-stop to give a polluted river in Madhya Pradesh a new life. The young environmental activist shot to fame after he removed tonnes of garbage from the Ajnar River. He was often working alone, with little equipment and sometimes using his bare hands or plastic gloves. In his mission, he also got some severe skin infection.But when he returned to the river after his painstaking cleanup, he found it littered with plastic bags and other waste all over again. His reaction was one of heartbreak. “I never imagined that eight months of my hard work would go to waste like this,” he wrote in a video shared on social media. Yet, even after witnessing the disappointing sight, he chose to resume cleaning the river.Eight months of effort gone to drainBittu recently shared a video showing the Ajnar River in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district again covered in plastic and pollution after he had spent eight months cleaning it. His efforts had gradually transformed stretches of the waterbody, with videos of the cleanup drawing widespread attention online.What he did was a physically demanding task, but the visible improvement offered a reason to continue. For a while, the river looked markedly different from the garbage-choked waterbody he had set out to clean.His latest videos on Instagram shows the riverbanks strewn with rubbish once again. Plastic waste and other discarded items had returned, undoing much of the progress he had made. The contrast between the cleaned river and its polluted state was particularly painful because it exposed a problem that no amount of individual effort can permanently solve if people continue to dump waste. For Bittu, the disappointment was more about seeing a people still treating the river with such disgrace.The blue drums to the rescue?In another video, Bittu shared that to save the river, he also put two big blue drums so that people could dump the waste inside. However, the next day when he came, he saw that one of the drums was stolen overnight. Somebody had taken it after cutting the ropes. What makes Bittu’s efforts particularly striking is his determination to continue despite the risks and setbacks.After finding the river polluted again, he resumed the cleanup. He entered the water again and started removing the garbage.Rather than simply expressing his frustration, Bittu also appealed to people online for suggestions on how to remove larger quantities of waste more efficiently. His request indicated that determination alone was not enough.From a local cleanup to national attentionBittu’s environmental work has attracted global attention. His videos documenting the Ajnar River cleanup gained widespread attention online, eventually drawing the attention of industrialist Anand Mahindra, who also acknowledged his efforts along with many politicians.His work also brought international recognition. Boyan Slat, the founder and CEO of Dutch environmental organisation The Ocean Cleanup, offered him a job after his river-cleaning efforts came to wider attention.Besides Madhya Pradesh, Bittu has also taken his cleanup mission to other places. He worked with a team of around people to clean Turahalli Forest near Bengaluru. His wider campaign, associated with the hashtag #CleanWithBittu, has included cleanup drives in different cities.The larger challenge
Photo: @bittu_tabahi/ Instagram
Maintaining the river requires regular waste collection, accessible disposal facilities and public accountability. This will always remain the larger challenge. Without these measures, a river can quickly return to its previous condition. But his determination definitely deserves recognition.The real measure of successBittu’s eight months of work were not meaningless just because pollution returned to the river. They showed what sustained individual effort can achieve, drew attention to a neglected environmental problem and encouraged others to participate in cleanup drives.It is important to remember that a river cannot remain clean because one person is willing. It stays clean when people stop treating it as a dumping ground, when waste is disposed of properly and when communities take responsibility for the spaces they share.