Bill Koul
Your behaviour on the roads – as a pedestrian or a vehicle driver – reflects the quality of your education,upbringing and culture. Accordingly, the erratic behaviour of the commuters – especially the vehicle drivers – reflects their general state of mind and health, and their social values, mutual respect, self-discipline, and civic and ethical responsibility towards their fellow road-users and, therefore, towards their nation in the bigger picture.
The irresponsible hillbilly behaviour of drivers also speaks loudly about their poor education, training and awareness about the road/traffic rules, whilst putting a big question mark on the authenticity and validity of their driver license. Put simply, how do most people manage to obtain their driver license? And, these are not only the drivers of public vehicles, the questionable behaviour is more profound in the drivers of both large and small, expensive and branded, private SUVs, sedans and hatchbacks.
Roads and streets can be likened to the blood vessels of the country. They reflect the values and the state of health of the nation. In India, people everywhere seem to be rushing, and trying to forge ahead of others,in a seeming perpetual race, pushing and elbowing away every other person around them.
All Indian cities are characterised by a heavy traffic; smoke and dust in the air; and a constant din, with a generally bluish-grey sky and dull sunshine. Most lanes, streets and roads seem to be teemed with people and vehicles of all shapes and sizes – parked or moving in a slow motion.
In the last couple of weeks, I have observed how drivers – of private, public and even security /defence vehicles at Jammu – hardly respect standard traffic rules or stop at traffic signals, and hardly use their indicator to show their intent of planned direction in advance. Most irresponsibly, public vehicles suddenly stop in the middle of already-clogged and narrow roads / streets of Jammu to pick up passengers. Surprisingly, I also just noticed a 10-feetlong wooden ladder being dragged by the pillion rider of a scooter on a main and busy leafy road in south Delhi. People trying to enter narrow one-way lanes – to access carparks or businesses – is not an uncommon affair, be it at Delhi or in Jammu.
India occupies about 2.4 percent of the world’s land area, butcontains more than 18 percent of the world population. She adds around 25 million new people every year at the present rate, as a result of a high ‘birth to death’ ratio (about 3.0), with a net daily addition of around 60,000 new people. It must be noted these numbers exclude a significant number of illegal immigrants that sneak into the country through her porous borders.
India’s high population is apparently at the root of most, if not all, serious issues that are surreptitiously sickening or, to be more candid, killing the country. Since the British left seven decades ago, her population has grown four-fold. India is destined to be the world’ most populous country within about a decade from now! Over time, Indian population growth has led to a series of major existential issues, such as:
* Continuously falling liveability of the country, at least the cities, with rising environmental and noise pollution, reduced air and water quality;
* Ever-increasing commuter time – due to rising traffic density, slow moving traffic and frequent road congestions – resulting in the loss of precious human time and, therefore, the nation’s productivity, accompanied with frustration, fatigue and anxiety of the commuters, whilst exacerbating the air pollution levels; and
* A range of social diseases silently undermining the nation, like termites, and erosion of her traditional values, due to an ever-increasing ‘demand to supply’ ratio in all walks of life:
(a) Corruption in most, if not all, walks of life to get the job done, by hook or by crook. Money seems to buy everyone;
(b) Adulteration in food – fruits, vegetables and diary – and medicines to meet a high and growing consumer demand; and
(c) Sickening competition and a rat-racing community -aggressive,selfish, snobbish and arrogant, if successful; unhappy and depressed, if unsuccessful.
The manner in which the cities are getting populated and densified, they may potentially choke in a not too distant future.The Indian city dwellers are fast moving – possibly in the next 5 to 10 years – towards a lifestyle wherein they will be commuting 8 to 10 hours a day, and left with leaving just 2 to 4 hours for their sleep and the family time.
India is tipped to be the world’s most populous country by 2024 – 2030. The population of India, currently in the order of about 1.35 billion, is tipped to grow to about 1.53 billion by 2030 and about 1.7 billion by 2050,at which time, India may possibly feature three of its cities in the top five most populated cities of the world, with Mumbai (42.4 million), Delhi (35.2 million) and Kolkata (33.0 million) tipped to rank 1st, 3rd and 5th in the world, respectively.
The Indian politicians seemingly have lost touch with the reality of life faced by the ordinary citizens. The only way to make them see it is by making them experience it, i.e. if they are made to commute like common Indian citizens – without the assistance of traffic wardens.
Who are the politicians? They are just the sample representatives of the people; they have not come from outside the country. Going by the Indian television channels and newspapers, political parties and politicians are seen to mainly engage in proving their opponents wrong. The power politics and mudslinging generally take the centre-stage, and the country is neglected.
The country’s economic growth does not factor-in the country’s liveability and happiness. The published statistics about mental illness, suicide rate, cancer, lung diseases, malnutrition etc. are alarming! BBC television news, dated 5 December 2018, reported Delhi could soon be facing a lung-cancer epidemic, mainlydue to air pollution. One could argue other cities of India would not be very far behind, considering the pollution levels – driven mainly by traffic and the energy consumers – across all Indian cities.
To see the current state of liveability in the country or predict its future catastrophic state, one just needs common sense.But, the rote-based Indian school education does not encourage the development ofcommon senseand independent thinking.The country needs a vision about the direction it should take, irrespective of the political party or the Prime Minister that rules it. The broader picture of the country must be drafted and painted by visionary leaders for coming decades and centuries.
India urgently needs drastic measures – through a range of multipronged, time-bound and direct actions – to control hersickening population growth rate and itsadverse effects percolating through the very fabric of its community, thereby, undermining the country. That includes: (a) stringent population control; (b) free, compulsory and good quality school education, with accountability of teachers; and (c) enforcement of the law & order, with punitive measures for defaulters.
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