A 21-year-old student in central India has spent months wading into a filthy river to pull out plastic, bottles, algae, and other rubbish, with little more than basic tools and his own hands.
Surendra Singh Choudhary, better known online as “Bittu Tabahi”, began cleaning the Ajnar river in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in January.
What started with a few friends helping him gradually became a largely solo effort, as he kept returning to the river long after others had stopped.
A university student from the small town of Biaora, Mr Choudhary is studying for a degree in science and lives with his parents. In the beginning, he would lie to his parents and tell them he was going out to play cricket or meet friends and instead head to the river, he told news outlet NDTV.
The Ajnar runs past a temple he visited regularly, and he said the rubbish he saw there eventually pushed him to act.
“I used to think about it beforehand. Whenever I used to go to the temple or went past the river, I used to think about cleaning the river,” he told the Times of India.
open image in galleryHe kept at it through the changing seasons, sometimes going back in the evenings during summer, despite having no proper safety equipment or even knowing how to swim.
“I wanted to make a machine to clean the river, but I didn’t have the money. I am a student. So I thought, I will clean as much as I can with my own hands,” he told the Indian Express in April, adding that repeated contact with the polluted water had left him with infections and skin peeling on his hands and feet.
Mr Choudhary and his friends pooled money for equipment, and he told the Times of India that he spent about Rs 30,000 (£233) on the effort.
“I had installed a few dustbins as well around the river… no funding from anyone,” he said.
As photographs of the river before and after the cleanup spread online, Mr Choudhary began attracting attention beyond Biaora.
Anand Mahindra, the Indian businessman and chairman of the Mahindra Group, shared a video of his work on X in March after some people accused him of cleaning the river for social-media views. Mahindra said that if the desire for likes could become “a force for good”, that was fine with him, and called Mr Choudhary his “Monday Motivation”.
Former England cricket captain Kevin Pietersen also shared Mr Choudhary’s story on Instagram this week, posting before-and-after photographs of the river. “Heroic, I say! Deserves international recognition!” he wrote.
However, some people accused Mr Choudhary of cleaning the river for social media attention, while others questioned whether the before-and-after images were genuine. In one video, he responded to claims that the transformation had been made using artificial intelligence, pointing to the months he had spent doing the work himself.
Biaora’s municipal authorities have now provided heavy machinery to remove accumulated waste and debris, while local residents also joined the effort, municipal sub-engineer Rupesh Kumar Netam told ANI.
However, Mr Choudhary has argued that removing rubbish is only part of the problem if the trash keeps returning. Five major drains discharge wastewater into the Biaora river, while the municipality has proposed a sewage treatment plant costing Rs 147.7m (£1.1m).
At the same time, people leave flowers and other materials used in Hindu religious worship in the river as offerings, adding to the waste. He has collected some of those offerings and turned them into compost rather than leaving them in the river.
But even he too has little control over what other people put back. “I don’t know why people throw garbage in the river. I don’t know why they do that. You can’t stop them,” he told the Times of India.
open image in galleryOn Friday, Dutch inventor and founder and chief executive of The Ocean Cleanup Boyan Slat, responded to an X post showing Mr Choudhary’s work and simply wrote: “Come work for us.”
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav also met Mr Choudhary at his residence in Bhopal on Saturday and praised his efforts.