The Great Indian Civic Sense

This, dear reader, isn’t just a close call with a holy cow, it’s a picture of India’s big problem: a country that dreams of high-speed trains and shiny cities like America or Japan but stumbles over its lack of civic sense.

We want to be Japan, with its clean streets and orderly lines, or America, with its wide roads and neat suburbs. But when it comes to acting like a developed country, we’d rather spit on the new flyover first and call it a win.

Let’s talk about civic sense or the lack of it. In India, rules are like New Year’s goals: made with excitement, broken by noon. The guy who speeds through a red light isn’t just a rule-breaker; he’s a local hero, dodging traffic like it’s a game. Meanwhile, the person waiting patiently at the signal is seen as a loser, probably laughed at for not being clever enough to cheat the system.

We’ve perfected treating public spaces like they’re someone else’s mess. The street beyond our front gate? Not my problem. The park? A great spot to toss that empty chai cup. The new metro station? Perfect for a paan-spitting contest.

Compare this to Japan, where people respect trains and clean up stadiums after games. Or even Bhutan, our neighbour with less schooling but a master’s degree in civic duty. They don’t need a cop waving a fine to pick up their trash.

In India, we only follow rules if there’s a camera or a traffic cop with a scary eye, waiting to click picture and give a challan. Alone on an empty street? That’s when the plastic wrapper gets tossed onto the road. It’s not that we’re naturally messy, we’re perfectly capable of lining up for a sale in Dubai or keeping our trash in check at Singapore’s airport. But back home? Rules are for fools.

The Great Indian Civic Sense — Image : Powershift

In India, the car horn isn’t just for safety; it’s a musical instrument, a cry for attention, a way to say, “I’m here!” We honk because the light is red, we honk because it’s green, we honk because a dog crossed the road. The rest of the world waits calmly in traffic, but only we act like we’re all late. Are we really the busiest people on Earth? Or is our impatience just a way to show off, like saying, “I’m too important to wait”?

Then there’s the power game. We boss around the weak, yelling at the street vendor for charging two extra rupees but turn silent before anyone with a bit of clout. A politician cuts the line? “Sir, please, go ahead!”

We Indians always follow trends. Our protests are just as short-lived. We light candles and post hashtags for the latest injustice, but by the next big news, we’re back to arguing about cricket or the latest drama fed to us by loud news anchors. Speaking of which, our opinions? Less ours, more shaped by the media. The same folks who pray to Durga during Navratri will harass a woman on the street without blinking.

We dream of a developed India, but development isn’t just about tall buildings and wide roads. It’s about a mindset, a shared effort to care about public spaces as much as our own homes. Bhutan gets it. Japan lives it. But us? We’re too busy cutting lines, ignoring rules, and treating public spaces like a giant dump.

Education isn’t the problem; plenty of less-educated folks in India have better civic sense than our degree-holding, paan-chewing elite. It’s about attitude. We don’t need a Tesla’s autopilot to navigate India’s chaos, we need a civic compass to guide us toward responsibility.

Maybe it’s time we swapped some of our “whatever works” attitude for a bit of civic pride. Until then, you should keep your Tesla on manual mode, because in India, even autopilot isn’t ready for the cow-shaped surprises.

Mahabahu.com is an Online Magazine with collection of premium Assamese and English articles and posts with cultural base and modern thinking. You can send your articles to editor@mahabahu.com / editor@mahabahoo.com (For Assamese article, Unicode font is necessary) Images from different sources.