Another road accident and another headline ‘seven people killed in road accident’. Another forthcoming show of sympathy and expression by the political class who are ’grieved over the death’. And the ritual gets over, till the next accident and the same news coverage and the same response from the political class is played all over! The only variation that one can see may depend on the numbers – larger the number of death, more intense may be the response. May be the news remains the ‘news’ for more than a day, may be for a week. The political leaders may express their sense of ‘grief’ with greater emotions but that is all!
Simply stated
Rekha Chowdhary
This latest road accident took place early this week in Gulabgarh in Kishtwar district and consumed seven lives. These were the people who were going through the normal business of their lives and must have planned for their future – that was not to be. But so many others would have done the same who died over the years in the road accidents in the Doda belt comprised of three districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban. It is now a cliche that more people have died in this area in road accidents than in the militancy-related incidents. Roads are bigger menace than the militants have been!
But what remains the most significant fact about these deaths in road accidents is that these were mostly ‘avoidable’ deaths. These were not caused by the ‘natural disaster’ over which no one would have any control. On the contrary, these were the deaths in which ‘human’ element was very much present – Human element arising out of a sense of greed, lack of sense of responsibility, indifference to rules and regulations and so on.
How these ‘avoidable’ deaths could have been avoided – remains the most significant question. But more pressing is the question how to avoid the next accident that might be waiting to happen and the next death that may be caused by it. Are we in any case thinking about this? Any civilised society would have been appalled by the frequency of such deaths. There would have been hue and cry, responsibility would have been fixed and even governments would have rolled. But here nothing moves.There is almost a sense of inevitability attached to these accidents happening and one knows that not much is going to change. Meanwhile, people in these districts are left vulnerable. They travel knowing the risk but cannot avoid it as well.
There are three kinds of actors who are answerable to this state of affairs. First it is certainly the government. It is the first duty of the government of the day to ensure safety and security of people and to see that their daily routine travel does not become hazardous and life-challenging task. Since most of the accidents take place due to either poor infrastructure including the one related to road and transport or because of the problems of traffic management – the government’s responsibility is there for everyone to see in both the cases. Whether it is the long term issue of making alternate roads or of making the existing ones safe for travel; investigating the causes of earlier accidents and controlling these in future; seeing to it that the traffic rules are enforced by the enforcing authorities (be it the case of overloading or the case of rash driving, untrained drivers or the issuance of licenses without proper checking) – all this lies within the realm of the government. At the time when accidents take place, the successive governments do refer to this responsibility, but one cannot see a long term commitment to ensure that no ‘avoidable’ death in these roads takes place.
Besides the government, it is the political class that is answerable to this situation. One knows very well that what makes the government priorities a particular task depends a lot on the pressure that is built by the political actors on the ground. Our political class, across the board, has been involved in so many issues and on daily basis raises its voice on these. However, what attracts this class most are the emotive issues of one kind or the other – the ones that have the potential of consolidating the vote banks that each of the political actor seeks to invest in. While these emotive issues are raised, agitations around these are organised – the issue of accident on the killer roads does not attract this class. Thus no bandhs are organised, no roads are blocked, no emotive slogans are raised when innocent people are killed in accident after accident. The road accidents, it seems, do not have emotive value and the political parties across the board do not see any political benefit in raising this issue. Hence, apart from making the usual noise after each accident, condoning the deaths and blaming each other – political parties are not interested in this issue at all.
The civil society has also lot to contribute in governmental indifference to this issue. Civil society in Jammu and Kashmir is generally apathetic to issues of importance, but even the civil society in the affected districts is not very vocal. There are cases of spontaneous bandhs or some immediate response, but on the whole there is no organised response of civil society worth mentioning.
It is high time that the issue of death on the roads be seen as a major issue of governance. Failure to protect lives of those who are taking the risk of travelling on the killer roads on everyday basis, should be seen as failure of governance itself. While the government at present should give its utmost attention to ensure that no further accident takes place and no ‘avoidable’ loss of life takes place, it is also important for the political class to pay attention to it and civil society to raise its voice and demand safe and secure road travel in any part of the state.
(Feedback welcome at rekchowdhary@gmail.com)
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