Civic sense? In India?!

In its October 27th edition, The Telegraph of Calcutta carried an editorial titled Stubborn Stain, covering the highlights of the first ever survey of civic behavioral attitudes in this country, and ranking the states according to how they fared overall. The survey was carried out by India Today. Look up this link before it vanishes. 

The subject of the survey has always been close to my heart, and I have written again and again here, much more scathingly than the editorial writer does. I have very firmly held since I just stepped out of teenage that in order to ever truly become a 'developed' nation, India should concentrate far more on educating and policing a civic-minded citizenry, and not just obsess with capital accumulation, technological advancement and administrative efficiency. Next to the monstrous burden of overpopulation, it is a pervasive lack of good manners and civic sense at every social stratum  that has been holding us back all along (we steal mugs from train washrooms and towels from posh hotels with equal insouciance, so for heaven's sake don't blame it all on 'lack of education'), and it is so hardwired into our genes (or social tradition for choice) that only the rare individual is different from the herd, and suffers tremendously in an atmosphere where virtually everybody is rude, noisy, aggressive, shameless, grasping, ostentatious about power and money, and completely uncaring about social responsibility of any kind. Most certainly the kind of 'education' we give our children does not even aim to make good citizens, regardless of which social background they come from. In fact, mummy cares only that her son may get ahead in life, and is actually delighted if the neighbour's son falls behind!

The survey is based on responses given by 9000-odd citizens from 21 states and one Union Territory. They were questioned about their attitudes to all kinds of unsocial (not to say anti-social) behaviour, from ugly gender-attitudes and public littering to open urination to flouting traffic rules, jumping queues and 'enjoying' themselves regardless of all the noise pollution they cause (I wish they had asked a question about cheating in exams). I am sure that if a hundred times more respondents had been quizzed, the findings would only have been more strongly reinforced. India is, overall, a very ill-mannered country, very difficult and even dangerous to live in: but there are wide variations among states. I am glad, and a little surprised, to see that West Bengal ranks pretty high on the list, i.e., reasonably well-behaved - as compared only to other Indians, mind you. Knowing WB as well as I do, I could only roll my eyes thinking about how bad things must be in the states which ranked lowest.

Two questions arise - two questions that every  minister, MP, MLA and city councillor should think about as much as every parent and school headmaster and examination board: a) why are good manners and civic sense important, nay essential for national progress, and b) how can we ensure that future generations will grow up much better in these respects than their parents and grandparents?

The answer to the first question is so startlingly, embarrassingly simple that most people just don't get it (though many of them have PhDs). Virtually all of us, except the most deluded and perverted, want others to treat us well, right? - keep appointments on time, check our exam answer scripts mindfully and honestly, give us just the right medical treatment without trying to fleece us, not  push us aside in queues, not make us the victims of their road rage, not insult and humiliate and hurt our womenfolk, not overburden our streets with garbage and worse, not steal whatever valuables we leave behind in a moment of forgetfulness, not disrespect our privacy and right to peace and quiet, not insult or threaten us when we have done them no harm... etc etc? Well, why on earth can't we see that if we don't give that kind of courtesy and consideration to others, we have no right to expect the same from them? And if this most important of all social lessons is not drummed early and daily into children's heads by parents and primary school teachers, how on earth can we expect them to grow up into anything better than civic nuisances and menaces, with their conception of their 'right' to ignore and offend and discomfit and hurt others increasing in proportion with the rise of their self-perceived 'importance' (I am the local dada with fifty goons under my command/ I am a doctor-IITian-IPS-MP/I am a cricket- or movie superstar/ Do you know how rich my father is? That is all the licence I need to misbehave, that is what democracy means to me).

The answer to the second question derives directly from the first. If our rulers, thought leaders and parents took the matter as seriously as it deserves, they would arrive at a consensus over two things at once: a) that 'education', from now on, must mean above and beyond everything else a training in good manners and consideration for others (and parents must be held to be just as culpable if things go wrong as everybody else in charge of youth), and b) the laws, and the way people are policed must be reasonably, democratically made, but rigidly implemented without fear or favour, with the elite (meaning everyone from prime minister to headmaster to parents at home) setting examples by humbly obeying the laws and paying the penalties for breaking them exactly like all ordinary folks (remember Rishi Sunak quietly paying a traffic fine to a humble police constable? Can we even imagine an Indian PM doing the same? I have heard that when there is a railway accident in Japan, the chairman of the railways publicly apologizes and resigns. In India, we at most suspend or dismiss a poor signalman. Maybe that's the most important reason why we have accidents so much more often than in Japan?). That is the only way a real democracy can survive and flourish. Otherwise, we shall implode sooner or later, when everybody, frustrated beyond toleration, begins to take the law into their own hands, and society dissolves rapidly into anarchy, to be followed inevitably by some sort of tyranny.

I can vouch that all my life most of my suffering, other than from illness, has come from people treating me rudely, cheating me or trying to push me aside from getting my dues. The worst consequence of this is that even the individual who is instinctively quiet, shy and gentle gets a raw deal, until he is forced to become harsh and pushy and threatening himself. That, to a large extent, is my life story. I wish it were otherwise: I was not born that way, and I am not proud that so many people have learnt to fear and avoid my tongue-lashing. A soft bodied animal has to grow a hard and prickly shell for self-preservation. 

Let me end with a little story. I was standing in front of a bank manager as though I had nothing else to do that whole day, waiting for him to sign me off with a new cheque book (in those days you couldn't get these things done online). The fellow, well aware that a customer was standing in front of him (with a large picture of Gandhiji on the wall behind saying 'The customer is God'), was chatting away merrily on the phone about utter trifles with some family member. He didn't have the courtesy even to ask me to sit down, let alone ask me what I needed. Familiar experience for many readers, isn't it? Finally, exasperated (and since I was running out of time for doing all the other chores scheduled for that morning), I cleared my throat and said, rather loudly I'm afraid, 'Excuse me, my name is Suvro Chatterjee, known as Suvro Sir, can I...?' Believe it or not, the man jumped out of his seat, cut the phone line, ran around his table to pull out a chair for me, and bleated, 'Ehe Sir, agey bolben toh' (So sorry, why didn't you say so earlier?') and yelled to some peon to bring me tea. My job was done in five minutes. The reason for the magical transformation? He had apparently registered his son's (or daughter's) name for admission to my class the next year, but never met me in person. So that's how we decide whom to behave well with. As for whom to ignore or grind under the heel, we all know how we decide that, don't we?

As I said before, knowing India as I do, I am very cynical about whether we shall ever reach true democratic civilization. But I am sure glad that some people are at least taking the trouble to bring these issues out in the open. It's not just me any more.