Just as we judge a person by his character, we judge a city or a sub-urban town by the infrastructure facilities it has, right ? OK, not just infrastructure . I would say a lot of factors determine the completeness of a city. Things like public transport systems, civic administration, socioeconomic features, accessibility, environment friendly constructions etc are just a few of those. There is also something else that we would expect from the people of the city, Civic Sense. One of the major factors distinguishing Indian cities from its counterparts in Europe and Americas.
What is civic sense ? Well there is no clear cut definition but all I can say is keeping your premises clean comes under civic sense, driving obeying the traffic rules comes under civic sense and helping ourselves and others to make the city we live in a better place comes under civic sense.
I and my friend were walking on a street in Italy . It was half past 10 in the night and a lady was walking in front of us. We came across a small junction and the light was red . There was no vehicle in the near-by vicinity but the lady stood still till it became green. Now, we may think why to waste our time in such a situation when there is no danger to cross the road. But at least we could avoid all those hit-and-run cases that happen in metro cities in India, especially Delhi. It is this patient understanding of simple things that we miss as a responsible citizen. I wonder , how such a nation with such a great civilization history, rich traditional and cultural values, deep-rooted following of good ethics has become so impatient and disrespectful when it comes to obeying the rules and laws of the land. Our cities are filled with such chaos and cacophony, that we feel totally out of place when we visit a foreign land. I was dumbfounded after coming out of the Paris railway station at 9 in the morning. It was calm and quiet outside, no vehicles on the roads, very less people walking on the streets, for a minute I thought if am in the wrong place !! But even if it was a busy road, you won't hear much of horns . They wait till a cyclist gives you the way or till a pedestrian crosses the road. They wait till the car in front of you takes a left turn or till they park and give you the way.
You can pat on yourself if you succeed to drive in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad or Chennai without getting disgusted over your fellow drivers. Well , that's the way it is in India and we all are used to it. One of my Italian colleagues was telling me about how people don't care at all even when auto rickshaws brushes past their shoulders in a busy street in Varanasi. But, come further south and its not so horrible in Cochin or Trivandrum. Why ?? You will find out soon. The other day I was just going through some statistics of different countries and I came across this thing called the HDI - Human Development Index. Its a measure of life expectancy, income and education of the place or state under study. The max value is 1 and the more nearer it is to one , the more better is the standard of living of that place. Developed countries have this value near to 0.95. Norway, Australia, Netherlands top the table . Now, India's value is 0.547 and its rank in this list is 134, behind countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and South Africa. But, if you take Kerala's value and rank it with other countries in the world, it can come in 3rd position !! Its value is 0.92 very much comparable to the developed countries of Europe and America. (HDI values of Indian states) . These values tend to change often but not much though. Now, as HDI is a direct measure of education and income, it can indirectly mean that people here know more about traffic rules or more aptly, they try to follow them. What am trying to say is that education is a major factor in determining many things . We know we need to follow some rules . Civic sense has a relation with the education of the civilization. All socioeconomic factors like these, be it mortality rates or dowry or cleanliness, have something to do with education. Now, you know why it is not as horrible to drive in Cochin as it is in Hyderabad .
One reason why people strictly follow traffic rules or we find the western cities more cleaner and neater than ours is because if you try to deviate from the law, you have to pay a heavy price. It must be the same for people fed with golden spoon though, and I don't see any difference in that aspect between India and any other country. But see, fines are there in our country too, only factor is we can over-ride them with something called BRIBE. Scams happen there also, India is not the only country where its difficult to count the number of zeros in the scam figures. Politicians play dirty tricks everywhere in the world, but not the people. You don't need to play games with the law and rules. That's the difference. This is not a derogatory statement but a fact. The respect pedestrians and cyclists get from other drivers in the west makes us feel shameful of our own country. Well , we don't need to stop blowing horns, but we can start respecting fellow drivers and obeying rules. We don't need to start building parks to make our cities beautiful but we can stop littering the public spaces, right ?
I and my friend were walking on a street in Italy . It was half past 10 in the night and a lady was walking in front of us. We came across a small junction and the light was red . There was no vehicle in the near-by vicinity but the lady stood still till it became green. Now, we may think why to waste our time in such a situation when there is no danger to cross the road. But at least we could avoid all those hit-and-run cases that happen in metro cities in India, especially Delhi. It is this patient understanding of simple things that we miss as a responsible citizen. I wonder , how such a nation with such a great civilization history, rich traditional and cultural values, deep-rooted following of good ethics has become so impatient and disrespectful when it comes to obeying the rules and laws of the land. Our cities are filled with such chaos and cacophony, that we feel totally out of place when we visit a foreign land. I was dumbfounded after coming out of the Paris railway station at 9 in the morning. It was calm and quiet outside, no vehicles on the roads, very less people walking on the streets, for a minute I thought if am in the wrong place !! But even if it was a busy road, you won't hear much of horns . They wait till a cyclist gives you the way or till a pedestrian crosses the road. They wait till the car in front of you takes a left turn or till they park and give you the way.
You can pat on yourself if you succeed to drive in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad or Chennai without getting disgusted over your fellow drivers. Well , that's the way it is in India and we all are used to it. One of my Italian colleagues was telling me about how people don't care at all even when auto rickshaws brushes past their shoulders in a busy street in Varanasi. But, come further south and its not so horrible in Cochin or Trivandrum. Why ?? You will find out soon. The other day I was just going through some statistics of different countries and I came across this thing called the HDI - Human Development Index. Its a measure of life expectancy, income and education of the place or state under study. The max value is 1 and the more nearer it is to one , the more better is the standard of living of that place. Developed countries have this value near to 0.95. Norway, Australia, Netherlands top the table . Now, India's value is 0.547 and its rank in this list is 134, behind countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and South Africa. But, if you take Kerala's value and rank it with other countries in the world, it can come in 3rd position !! Its value is 0.92 very much comparable to the developed countries of Europe and America. (HDI values of Indian states) . These values tend to change often but not much though. Now, as HDI is a direct measure of education and income, it can indirectly mean that people here know more about traffic rules or more aptly, they try to follow them. What am trying to say is that education is a major factor in determining many things . We know we need to follow some rules . Civic sense has a relation with the education of the civilization. All socioeconomic factors like these, be it mortality rates or dowry or cleanliness, have something to do with education. Now, you know why it is not as horrible to drive in Cochin as it is in Hyderabad .
One reason why people strictly follow traffic rules or we find the western cities more cleaner and neater than ours is because if you try to deviate from the law, you have to pay a heavy price. It must be the same for people fed with golden spoon though, and I don't see any difference in that aspect between India and any other country. But see, fines are there in our country too, only factor is we can over-ride them with something called BRIBE. Scams happen there also, India is not the only country where its difficult to count the number of zeros in the scam figures. Politicians play dirty tricks everywhere in the world, but not the people. You don't need to play games with the law and rules. That's the difference. This is not a derogatory statement but a fact. The respect pedestrians and cyclists get from other drivers in the west makes us feel shameful of our own country. Well , we don't need to stop blowing horns, but we can start respecting fellow drivers and obeying rules. We don't need to start building parks to make our cities beautiful but we can stop littering the public spaces, right ?
