Lack of civic sense has been a topic that’s been argued, debated on in India with no results, as most Indians do not care for civic sense, people today are so driven towards their personal goals that civic sense takes a back seat and is a nuisance and bother.
Many believe that civic sense is just about keeping our roads, neighborhood, public property etc, clean and neat but it’s more than that…it has to do with law abiding, respect for fellowmen and maintaining decorum in public places. A total disregard and lack of civic sense comes from separatism, vandalism, intolerance, road rage etc, people are becoming less and less tolerant of each other, of other cultures, backgrounds etc and have no consideration of fellow city dwellers.
Passing by a bus, car one is not sure that one will be safe from spitting flying from a moving bus, packets and bottles being thrown by a moving car, and sometimes food being littered on the roads, the stench and garbage lying unattended for days together leading to diseases like Dengue, Typhoid, Jaundice etc.
Everywhere you go, you are witness to spit marks, urine marks, vulgar graffiti’s, monuments and building being scribbled on, marble stones broken and names scribbled on. These can be seen at every nook and corner of India today and no city till day has managed to fight this menace. Roads lie dirty not because no one has cleaned it…but because someone has dirtied it in the first place. The term “everybody does it so why blame me” is an excuse, it’s difficult for a country to change its mindset when its leaders are setting bad examples round the clock.
So let’s face it: there is no denying that we Indians lack the basic civic sense whether it is our roads, bus stops, railway stations, ticket queues, public places etc….I have seen so called educated Indians travelling in their BMW’s throwing out plastic bottles, paper cups , chip packets on the roads and when I stopped them and corrected them …they said” Mind your own business” The littering of garbage and dirtying of places is more nowadays with public engraving their names with hearts on monuments….disgracing the Ajanta & Ellora Caves, Tombs and religious places showing a clear lack of decency and morality.
Lack of civic sense is not far to seek, we find it all pervading no matter where we go, be it our own home, our neighborhood colony roads, office, theatres, restaurants everywhere we go we see disgusting signs of uncivility.
The very fact that even with garbage bins being put up at public places by the government we tend to litter the roads…. setting up of urinals is of no use as we Indians like to defecate in the open…. throwing garbage in the open is our right…. dirtying and damaging our monuments is our birthright and no one can stop us…. that’s the attitude…” Kya Kar Lega”.
The reasons for all this are that we have never been taught to treat things that belong to us and others nicely, kindly and well. We never educate our kids to treat neighborhood, society, public property as something meant to be kept clean and neat…hence it’s no wonder that our parks are littered with leftovers…cinema halls are left untidy and messy and we contribute filth wherever we can.
We clean our homes and throw our garbage in front of our neighbors’ house, we eat sweets, chocolates, chips and throw the wrapper on the roads, rivers, etc. Many a times bottles are thrown from speeding cars without realizing that it can cause injury to passer byes.
All this shows us how civic & polished our creamy layer of society is. We will never dream of doing the same to the interiors of our homes then why this indifference to public property…because we have become more and more selfish and self –centered…we want everything but cannot contribute to the maintenance to anything.
In this the most tragic fact is that we are at no stage of life taught to respect other people’s property or public property. We must make destroying and vandalizing public property a punishable offence.
In the end without civic morality…. communities perish…It’s time we got our acts together and truly changed our habits and ways of life…It’s the small things that make a big difference…We refuse to learn and do anything positive yet claim we are proud Indiana. When we should be ashamed that we can’t keep our country, cities, towns and villages clean…It’s all in the mind….and to make a difference we have to look into our own conscience before blaming or pointing a finger at our neighbour…Clean up our dirty filthy minds first before cleaning the nation.
Bhavani Sundaram is a Delhi-based freelance writer.
