Are we concerned about our city? Just take a look at the piles of garbage thrown carelessly onto the road. Or how some people, both the uneducated and those who should know better, blatantly disregard traffic rules, vandalise public property, spit, relieve themselves and even defecate in public, cut queues…
Mohit Amit, a second year student at Trinity College of Engineering, Naruvamoodu, and Dony Alex and Subin Babu, both final year students, blame society for this lack of civic sense. “I think it’s because society (that is you and me) simply turns a blind eye. Most people are so involved in their own lives that there are just not bothered about other people, the community or the environment. Take the case of waste disposal. We would never litter our own homes with garbage because we ourselves would be responsible for cleaning up the mess. Throw it on the road and it becomes someone else’s problem. Maybe the lack of civic sense is because they don’t care or it’s because of ignorance but society doesn’t stand up and say, what you’re doing is wrong,” says Dony. The other two add: “Also, the lack of infrastructure is partly to blame for the lack of civic sense. Where are the garbage bins when you need them? Even if they are there, there seems to be no efficient mechanism to collect the garbage and dispose it off. Where are the clean public toilets…?”
Suvarna L.S., Snehan D’ Cruz and Reuban P, all three of them first year students, seem to agree with their seniors. “That and the lack of retribution. Even if there is infrastructure in place, there is no one to catch or penalise those who commit civic offenses. People behave like that because they are allowed to get away with it. In most foreign countries civic offenders have to pay steep fines. We need such a system here too,” say the youngsters. “On that note, it could also be cause of fear of retribution,” adds Snehan, recounting an incident where his father found himself in the dock for being a good Samaritan and helping a road accident victim get medical attention. “My father faced a lot of harassment from the authorities and had to prove that he had not caused the accident. While the incident has not put me off, it does make me proceed with caution,” he says.
A bunch of feisty first and fourth year girls, namely, Reshma Ravikumar, Bhadrapriya S.S., Divya S. Nair, Saranya M.S., Aswathy V.H., Teena G.M., and Aswini R. Das, of electronic and communication engineering and Anushka J.S., a fourth year student of electronic and electrical engineering, take over the conversation. “Most of the time people and the authorities take civic offenses lightly. Every day when I drive, I encounter instances of people cutting lanes and traffic signals, excessive honking and some even stop on the middle of the road to converse with someone/people in an other car! When out and about, we’ve always got to think that we are citizens first and individuals second,” says Reshma. Teena picks up where her classmate left off. “To move forward as a nation we each have to think and act as responsible citizens rather than the blind imitation that we tend to do these days,” she says. Saranya, meanwhile, feels that lack of civic sense in the country has a lot to do with the education system. “Civic sense is something that has to be taught and inculcated from childhood onwards and the education system doesn’t give it much weightage. The academic challenges are tough and the expectation on the students so high that neither the teachers or parents have the leisure to educate children about the importance of civic sense and how it could make a difference to the nation,” says Saranya, as the others nod in agreement, before scattering for break time.
Second year civil engineering students Bharath R.S., Jinoj J.J, Saritha A., Aparna A.V. and Sukanya I.S. sum up the ideas of their college mates. “There definitely needs to be a change. We need strict laws against civic offenses and stringent methods of implementing laws and nabbing offenders. The government needs to do its part the citizens too, for the only way forward is a concerted effort.”
(A monthly column on views from the campus)
