Why civic sense matters?

When it is time to write about civic sense, most Indians don’t even know where to start or should we even start? I am also hit with the same dilemma. Did we invent poor civic sense? Did we always have poor civic sense? Did we inherit it? By the way, what really is the civic sense because of which whole Indian civilians are presently mocked by the world?

A good place to start would be the definition of civic sense as per our AI friend. 

“In simpler terms, civic sense means being mindful of how one’s actions affect others and the shared environment, such as disposing of garbage properly, not smoking in public places, respecting elders and minorities, and participating in public welfare activities. It also includes obeying laws and contributing positively to collective social order.”

Life in ancient India as we know it, should have been closely linked to cleanliness considering the importance of the Sanskrit word Swachhatha in old vedic texts, which meant clean or pure. The link that it has with spiritual life, ecological balance and sustainability in India is something we can’t overlook. There should have been a distant past which is now forgotten and linked to cleanliness for sure. As we discuss today, it really is ancient knowledge only. We Indians were taught to keep ourselves clean and our surroundings cleaner. 

Fast forward few hundred or say thousand years, what is see, is a country filled with filth everywhere and above all citizens who have no sense of civility which even led government to have initiatives like Swach Bharat. And today we find the latest public transports having gutka stains, people dumping waste on isolated corners of their locality, throwing litter from running vehicles, jumping signals, cutting queues, playing music on mobile speakers in public spaces, vandalism of government spaces, fighting with neighbours, lack of tolerance of different faiths, wrong side driving and much more. I thought of detailing each of it but then felt, we ourselves are masters of many and this needs no introduction to Indians but for others there is always Google and/or other AI engines who can explain it in detail. If not, you could find an Indian wherever you are living in this world and they would be more than happy to despise without guilt to justify their reason to be away from home land.

We thinking this issue is related to the country’s wealth cannot be accepted anymore as many poorer countries have better behaving citizens which we can observe ourselves. Indians had grown up with a culture of cleaning up their mess as a job. Most times even a lower middle class family have a maid who comes daily to clean. People often think it is a cleaners job to clean and we can do whatever we want in a place where someone else is expected to clean. People show no urgency in cleaning where they live and why would they show it in public space. In actual fact, public space we need to be more careful as it is shared by many and we need to keep it clean for all, if everyone could think so the world would be a different place. In recent past, the cleaning was associated with castes in India which also emphasise that there is a large majority of other castes who never practiced basic cleaning and keeping things tidy. 

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

— John F. Kennedy

As a country developing faster than it could handle, similar to a condition we all face in teenage where our hormones are flooding our system faster than we could cope up with, people are really running short of time to think of the importance of all these while focus is on wealth creation. We think money can buy anything then why not a maid and someone else to mop behind us? We even forget to teach next generation assuming there will be a generation of low paid workers to clean our stuff. Considering the pace at which country is moving, we will fall short in this space too. 

Enough said about people, people makes the system and in a corrupt and broken system leaking filth, what could be better? The civic bodies who are supposed to provide better facilities for waste management, regular maintenance, attention to all citizen needs, is focused on filling their wallets and playing politics among themselves in current India. We even read many of the civic workers are never paid too which would definitely demotivate a large chunk of people to take this as a casual activity leading to unkept civic amenities and facilities. There is not enough working phone numbers or websites where we could raise a concern and follow-up to get it fixed without getting a threat call asking why we complained? In a country of 1.6Billion, there are not enough people to take responsibility and work towards a better society. 

Population is a factor which has its own seat in this discussion, probably a sofa of its own. Every year the growing school goers and youth who could be our role models in a newer society, instead learn the lack of civic sense from their spoilt elders effortlessly and continue to keep the torch burning with their spoils. How can we teach such a population the importance of civic sense on priority? How can we tell them, waiting in queue even in a coffee shop than walking straight up and making your order really not civil? This comes with certain risk, but we need to form NGOs or associations whose only focus is to confront the wrong doers and train them with patience the importance of civic sense. Yes, it’s more like missionary work to convert religions, you should be ready to get beaten up by the hooligans of our areas. The toughest to teach are the once who had completed 30+ years or nonsense in this country, so better to focus on everyone under 30 irrespective of any political or religious boundaries.

Maybe it’s because a large portion of people really don’t pay tax, which makes them not understand the pain a tax payer gets when a government property is vandalised or destroyed. We hardly see any tax payer come on streets and stop these vandals for the fear of life but it is high time that it starts. Every rupee spend on rebuilding any government asset is a setback for India’s growth which moves back the growth clock minimum by a day. It’s high time, the tax payers challenge the government as well to show how their money is employed for growth of the nation and seek returns than just being duty bound.

Civics text books should contain a chapter on every aspect of civic sense this country needs based on the real world challenges seen around us and have signification grading of the students until they complete their college which should be decider in job seeking and later other aspects of life in country. A civic score of a family could be another measure to come up with which might decide on the interest rates of loans, passport issuance, and many more. Again a non corrupt civic body is a mandate to establish such measures. There need to be a transparent civic system which allows the citizens to challenge the bodies when not performing duties and also allow crowd sourced rewards too for the workers when things are perfect. 

Teaching to respect private space in public areas is something which we might struggle with considering the amount of people who won’t but a earphone but play their favourite music on speakers in a park where people walk and meditate. Everyone assumes it is a public space so they can do anything, neglecting that it’s public space so let’s keep it less noisy and friendly for all. Our habit of being a nosy neighbour doesn’t allow us to refrain from such acts. Of course it’s not possible to gift everyone an earphone but we should start speaking up and requesting people to change for our nation. Not for themselves but for this country and upholding its name in the world. 

People, civic bodies and us changing all at same time, this is impossible. But fortunately it’s possible, because it doesn’t need a lot but just us to start the change around us and see how it grows as a wild fire!

“We are not just responsible for ourselves, but for our societies and future generations.”

— Unknown