DNA Special: People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights

Former President of India and great scientist Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had said that if you salute your duty, you will never need to salute any other person. Today, we will analyse the same merit of duty because people in our country remember their rights, but most don’t want to do their duty.

A Hyderabad traffic cop ran 2 km ahead of an ambulance to clear traffic from its path. This is a contrasting account of the ones we hear about men in khaki. Policemen usually make way for ministers and the high and mighty, but cop went beyond the call of duty and made way for an ambulance.

In the year 2016, more than 1,46,000 people were killed in road accidents across the country and 30 per cent of them died because ambulances carrying them to hospitals were stuck in traffic. Similarly, in 50 per cent of heart attack cases in India, patients reach hospitals late because they do not get ambulances on time or because ambulances get stuck in traffic.

The sense of duty comes from discipline and Indians are lacking in this discipline. However, there are several countries in the world, where people are extremely considerate and have a sense of duty. In our country, most educated and affluent people lack this sense of duty because of their arrogance. Another such example comes from Karnataka’s Madikeri town, where a young duo had to travel back 80 kms for picking up the litter they had thrown on the road.

Madetira Thimmaiah, General Secretary of the Kodagu Tourism Association, saw the litter at around 2:15 pm on his way home.

His efforts of cleaning the area got a jolt seeing litter on the road. It was only two days back that Madetira, with help from members of Kadagadalu gram panchayat, had cleaned the area. Searching the litter, the general secretary found the phone number of the couple who had thrown the pizza boxes. He requested them to come back and collect the garbage from the road.

However, the person on the phone simply apologised but refused to return back citing he had crossed Coorg already. But Madetira did not leave the matter here.

He took the help of the local police station to call the duo and convince them to come back and pick the garbage. But both did not agree to this.

Finally, a social media campaign was launched and the duo was left embarrassed after receiving a number of calls. The youngsters were ‘forced’ to turn around and drive back 80 km to come pick up the discarded pizza boxes. 

However, Madetira feared that they might throw the boxes outside again. To avoid that, they wrote the names and phone numbers of the two friends on the packet as a warning.

Madikeri is a part of the Kodagu district. This district is popularly known as Coorg and is a famous tourist spot in the state of Karnataka. Many travellers from all over the country visit Coorg for its beautiful hills. The area is covered with coffee estates and cardamom gardens.

After the incident, Twitteratis took to the Social media to applaud Madetira Thimmaiah and wrote, 'serves them right' for the duo. We too can't agree more.

The duo is among such people who when visiting another country, do not dare to break the rules of cleanliness there. However, they treat their own country like a trash bin.

According to data from the Ministry of Urban Affairs, people in India produce 13 crore kilograms of garbage every day. There are more people living in less space in India, so there is not enough space for this garbage and people start throwing garbage. But that does not happen in other countries of the world.

Thailand's Khao Yai National Park, for example, has launched a powerful campaign to teach people who throw garbage a lesson. The national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but despite that, people throw garbage here. But the authorities at the national park courier the garbage to people’s homes with a note reading, “You had forgotten some of your belongings”.

As the national capital breathes toxic air yet again this year, we should all introspect our sense of responsibility towards our environment. The relentless burning of crop waste in neighboring states contributes to Delhi’s pollution drastically coupled with vehicular and stagnant winds, among others.

It is time, we understand our sense of duty towards people, nature and country as a whole and be productive contributors instead of being destructive.