Boom time bravado: Doom for decency?

Why should prosperity make us uncivil?

What happens to a society when industrial and economic development takes place at a feverish pace? What are the dynamics of socio-cultural and socio-political developments when a people realise that so far, they had only themselves to be blamed for their hardships and ill-fortune?

These and many other similar questions have gained an importance in view of the overspeeding, overheated economic growth in Indian society today. All around there is frenetic activity in almost all sectors of industry, service and manufacturing sector. People’s purchasing power is steadily going up. Amassing of wealth is no longer wise; spending it in different forms (consumption, luxury, investment, and enterprise) is the intelligent thing to do. Surplus income is the norm rather than exception, and moving up the socio-economic ladder is the sole purpose in life for a majority of the multitudes.

The last ten years have been amazing in India. In 1995, the early results of liberalization and privatization started to show. In sectors like banking, insurance and telecom, these changes were first to take root and their impact on general society was tremendous. The transformation in the telecom industry, especially, changed the entire attitude of people towards communication, connectivity, spending patterns and inter-personal relationships.

Today, it has become so common to see grown-ups, teenagers and even children violating traffic rules, breaking a queue, behaving indecently, using abusive language, shoving around and indulging in other kinds of unruly behaviour. It shows their least concern for others and public decency.

(I would keep public display of affection (PDA) also in the same category, since those indulging in PDA are more likely to be men and women who are armed with the triple weaponry.)

Other examples of such unacceptable but increasingly brazen behaviour are: uncontrolled romp by children in public places such as malls, restaurants, parks, cinema halls etc., caring two hoots for others (in fact if someone tries to object or intervene, he is sure enough targeted by the guardians of the errant child who’d like to justify the mishaps caused by the children as innocent child’s play.)

Similarly, brazen behaviour by such armed people in passenger trains, flights (both domestic and international, probably more in latter) and even hospitals is mainly because of their alacrity in brandishing money or calling up a “baap” or “bhai” on the mobile phone.

What I feel is this:

As a society progresses economically, as people become more empowered with money, connectivity and contacts in higher places, their attitude towards one another and towards the establishment changes drastically.

The enforcement arms of the State – especially police and law-enforcement agencies – lose their grip and awe among the people because of precisely the above mentioned three factors – a people more empowered with money in their pockets, a mobile phone in hand and an address book containing contact numbers of influential people.

In case of an offence or infringement of law, the offender is much more likely to try to get away with: a) giving money as bribe, b) threatening to call up a higher-up in government or the enforcing agency itself, or c) actually calling up someone who is allegedly influential, to get instant, or at least timely, reprieve.

Through such acts, now repeatedly becoming common not only in metros but in small towns as well, the impact on law-enforcers is deep-rooted and serious. On one hand, they lose all motivation and reason to apprehend any offender, for almost everyone is well-armed with the triple weaponry (money-mobile-contacts). Secondly, even if they do, they stand a better chance of being punished themselves for their superiors are more likely to reprimand them for nabbing such an influential guy in the first place.

The disorder in our cities and towns, the littering of public places, the utter failure of the administration to enforce even humble regulations and the growing influence of privately-organized public service can be traced to this tendency of economic boom blasting away the fear of the law and orderliness.

Prominent among the privately-managed public services are in the utility compartment, such as parking, telecom service, investment advisory services, security, technical education, media, entertainment and medical care. Needless to say, the response of the user public/customers to those services of the above that were earlier managed by public sector has been tremendous mainly because of the inefficient and lackluster attitude of the erstwhile providers.

All this has happened while we as a nation have been recording high economic growth, inching towards a superpower status and our arrogance in the global arena is being talked about.

(Originally written on June 21, 2007)