So Chidambaram thinks Delhi is a dirty, uncouth city. What about Mumbai? I bet our own dear metropolis, the financial capital of the country, the home of Bollywood and teleserials isn't very couth or clean either (in spite of all the soaps). Is Bengaluru better? Chennai? Kolkata? I doubt it.
As a long-serving finance minister, Chidambaram should know that mere exhortations to be better citizens are never enough. Did tax-payers suddenly get more honest because the FM asked them to? Did the black economy disappear because the minister wished it so? This is not an original thought, but the key to better compliance to rules and regulations is always a carrot and stick approach.
Why does the Delhi commuter push and shove his way into a bus? It's because he knows that if he doesn't get into this one, there's a very long wait ahead for the next bus and he will be late for work. The English are admirable queue formers, but reduce the bus/train frequency to a quarter of what it is now and see if everyone will still remain polite.
As for things like peeing on the road, how easy is it to find a public toilet in our cities? And if you do locate one, will it be clean or downright filthy? No prizes for guessing the correct option. Faced with this choice, or lack of it, and nature's irresistible demands, what is a person to do but fertilise the neighbourhood?
What Chidambaram is saying to the guest in the house is, please observe good hygiene, please be clean and tidy, but sorry, there is no soap or water available. If you don't provide the infrastructure you can't crack the whip on citizens for not using it.
Watch an Indian when he is a tourist in the West. Does he pee on that archaeological wall when no one's looking? Does he spit on Oxford Street? Does he even throw a used bus ticket out of the window? Is this only because he is intimidated by people around him? That's one reason for sure, but it's only one of several. If the city is clean to start with, you are less likely to dirty it. If you are walking in Mumbai and there is debris lying around, stinking uncleared rubbish wherever you turn, you feel stupid holding on to that piece of unwanted paper, rather than just add to the general muck.
That said, many of us, especially the well-off, do need to be reminded that civility is not a bad thing. Like in the interval at the NCPA as you rush to the sole counter serving its delicious cold coffee and chutney sandwiches, it may not be a bad idea to form a queue rather than poke the little lady in the eye in your rush to be the first to be served.
It may also be in your enlightened self-interest not to start a cacophony of horns the moment the traffic light turns green (as it happens the guy ahead of you is also in a hurry to get going). Enlightened self-interest will also tell you not to cut in brazenly into a traffic lane from left or from the right, because someone else will do the same to you too.
There are two forces at work here. One is that we have no one in our society to set a good example, whether it is about public behaviour or moral excellence. Most of our politicians, supposedly our leaders, in fact do the opposite.Take the case of the President's son undeservedly getting a Congress ticket for the forthcoming elections. The decline in standards in one field affects standards in every other field. It's not such a jump as you might think from election seats to bad road manners.
There's one more thing, and perhaps one of DNA's clever readers might want to enlighten me: why are Indians Jekyll and Hyde personalities? Why are we so courteous and hospitable in the house and so rude and selfish outside? Why do we keep our home/even the poorest one, spick and span by washing it again and again, and yet have no compunction in throwing the dirty water out of the window?
Readers' comments:
You are asking whether Indians spit in Oxford street. Well, I am in London now and I do see Indians (and more than Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, spitting everywhere in London). Learning from our people, even the white British natives have started to spit and throw garbage in the street. The leaders of the country need to set the example. How can you expect the common people to keep the city clean when ministers like Lalu spit paan on railway platforms in full view of TV cameras? Somebody has rightly questioned the behaviour of the police in the capital and for that matter, anywhere in India, in response to the home minister's request to citizens. Police is the 'friend of common people' say police departments all around India, but is that what the people see in reality? What about India's modern temples, the slums of Mumbai, Delhi and other cities? Perhaps the minister would want to preserve them as living museums of Gandhian simplicity!
Saturday, October 3, 2009 0:26 IST
Shaan,
All very well said, Gajanan and Mr Dharker. The issue always comes down to who will bell the cat. And the middle class is always a very easy target for anyone, so there will be N number of people blaming the middle class for not participating in politics. The oft-maligned middle class is more educated, civil, and socially responsible than either the upper or the lower classes. The responsibility should lie with the upper class to get itself in line, and then set an example for the lower classes to follow, or draw a line that they should toe. A sensible person will never enter the political arena because it is full of uncouth and dirty politicians and their goons. Corruption is rampant. Why should any politician get a car provided by the government? Why doesn't he/she travel by common transport, that is also provided by the government? There is no need for any perquisites or security for anyone at taxpayers' expense (already a limited number -- everyone knows how many in the upper and lower 'unsalaried' classes actually pay tax). Once they have to use the common infrastructure, it will improve. The problem is that politicians are treated as royalty. Treat them as ordinary people. Don't give them any priorities anywhere.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 21:46 IST
Balaji, Pune
You are right, Mr Dharker. All Indian cities are dirty, except for Chandigarh. The main reasons for this are:
1) Indians, when in India, do not do physical work. They always want servants. So when on a street an Indian in India has to do it all alone, he pees on the street and then just throws his rubbish on the road. This is because he relies on a servant too much. When he has to do it alone, the Indian is helpless and he does all this with gay abandon.
2) Labour in India is treated very badly. If you compare the salary of a street cleaner in Europe, USA, or Australia, it is pretty high. You will be astonished at the low levels of salary given to the labour class in India.
3) In Japan, schoolchildren are made to clean allotted parts of a school every month with all the gear provided. They do not force the children to do this, but it is part of the curriculum. Cleanliness is cultivated in school itself.
4) Indians should give up their brown sahib or memsahib mentality asap.
5) Most slum dwellers are agricultural workers who have left agriculture for good in farms which have turned infertile, been mismanaged, or been corporatised. Recently there was news that they are going to build a coal-fired power plant in a fertile part of Maharashtra and displace thousands of farmers who have been earning well there. Power is required. But why do it on fertile agricultural land when land fertility is dwindling rapidly all over the globe due to climate change and soil mismanagement? In Germany, a coal-fired power plant was shifted in the Ruhr valley as a cheese factory refused to shift. They felt that cheese is more important. Now they have become wiser. Germans with little sunshine are going for huge capacity solar power plants, while India with abundant sunshine is going for coal-fired power plants, that too in pristine agricultural lands.
Mr Dharker, just writing is not enough. One must give solutions. For this you have to go through the activities of Dr Vandana Shiva, who has done great work in organic farming and opened 50 seed banks in India. In this area she has become an adviser to many other countries. Our government is only full of babus. All talk and no action.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:39 IST
gajanan, Mumbai
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