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nouveau governance

जागरण संपादकीय ब्लॉग
जागरण संपादकीय ब्लॉग
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The Delhi chief minister must be elated. His odd/even formula has been lauded by a large number of people. The proof of the pudding as they say is in its eating. Well, Mr. Kejriwal during the course of the scheme has been able to win over more people to his side than when he started out.
If the support that Mr. Arvind Kejriwal has been able to garner over the last 15 days anything to go by, he has passed; perhaps not with distinction but certainly with first division, which in these times of fractious politics and our stratified society, is quite an accomplishment. That the scheme may not have achieved what it set out to is a minor issue and can be mentioned in footnote. Electoral politics is about numbers and those are swelling in his favor. So what if pollution level has not improved by much, at least the traffic on Delhi roads reduced considerably. That alone brought immense relief to the residents, which included not just Kejriwal’s supporters but also the naysayers who subsequently defected to his side.
Whatever delusions I for one had that the odd/even was a stopgap measure and the scheme would not be sustainable in the long run, were dispelled when we heard Arvind Kejriwal speak last night. Gloating in the success of his hitherto most ambitious administrative project, he hinted rolling out a new variant of the scheme in the near future. Prompted by the phenomenal success of this Aam Aadmi, I felt I could no longer be a passive observer and must contribute as a responsible citizen. Here are my tuppeny views that I wish to share:
In addition to odd numbered cars plying on odd dates and even numbered cars on other days, how about imposing a car curfew on one day of the week? Imagine Delhi with no cars on the roads. No gridlock, seamless movement and to top it much lesser incidents of road rage. The car owners might be jostling for parking spaces but that can be easily dealt with by the administration. It is the traffic management or rather the mismanagement, which is the bigger concern.
Should we ponder extending this weekly ban to two wheelers and rein in some types of public transport as well? After all it may not be an issue of life and death if people are restricted from commuting on one day of the week. We can always compile a list of exemptions and life and death issues will naturally be a part of that list. However, a blanket ban may entail a graver problem. The users of two wheelers and public transport are significantly larger in numbers. They form not just the vote bank but are also a hostile pressure group. They embody the plebeian class and the political class is better served to steer clear from any move that discomforts them. The selective application might result in modicum of relief but then so be it. It is not about the solution alone. It is also about striking the trade off with the adequate numbers; pressures of electoral politics.
What about pollution? Was it not the trigger for such a mammoth effort on the part of the Delhi state government? Now that we can safely conclude that four-wheelers are not the worst contributors to environment damage and reduction in their numbers alone may not yield dividend on pollution parameters, lets ruminate on measures to deliver on that count as well.
Lets start with save water campaign. Restrict water supply to residential colonies one day of the week. But people anyways are grappling for water and the demand for water far exceeds the supply. Lets then work on the demand side and bring that down. Restrict residents from bathing one day of the week. Ban washing clothes and of course vehicles, only four wheelers, on a weekly basis. Forbid sale of those fancy or any kind of showers, prohibit construction of swimming pools, and seal some of the existing ones. Bathing twice a day must attract heavy financial penalty. Minor adjustment in lifestyle but analyze the gains in terms of water saved, reduced usage of soaps and detergents. As always public convenience must be paramount and for that purpose a suitable exemptions list can be drawn. Sportsmen, manual workers, professionals required to sweat more than usual in carrying out their tasks and obviously medical exigencies can be exempted.
How do we implement such noble albeit impractical ideas? Take a leaf out of the shogunate model of governance in countries such as North Korea. There might not even be much resistance. Just ensure that the people impacted are the educated urban middle class. They are a political minority and cannot seek priority in matters of statecraft. Also in your words Mr. Kejriwal, Indians are first class people who have for years endured third class governance. Consequently they lap up second grade solutions. You have been considerate to propagate easy ways to cope with petty glitches one may stumble upon along the course. At the height of the odd/even drive, car pool was such an effective alternate. All that the regular office going individual had to do was to identify a like-minded person living in the neighborhood, whose work place was in close proximity to theirs and who had similar working hours. Of course he had to have an odd numbered car if yours was even and vice versa. We only had to identify and be friends with such a person. Over a period of time, one of the concomitant benefits would have been a strengthened bond amidst neighbors.
What about genuine, permanent solutions to issues? How about improving the public transport system, upgrading the infrastructure, borrowing measures adopted by some of the more efficient societies in London, Singapore? Can community integration ever be coercive? Should we not entice people to support rather than solicit cooperation perforce? I guess these are all sermons that make for a trite copy. By the time these long drawn processes show up development, it will be time to go to the hustings. Electoral politics haunts our politicians and at times, most times, being different supersedes being right.
Arvind Kejriwal has aptly understood that Indians, especially the educated urban middle class Indians have grappled with similar problems for decades. Today they care only for solutions, actual, on the ground. They are not parsimonious when it comes to paying the price. Infringement of liberty, intrusion into personal space does not evoke the sort of response one would expect from an evolved society. Let the state exceed its brief, let it act in a fashion that smacks of ultra vires conduct, we are prepared to bear private cost of public failure. We are result centric, driven by the end, even if the means to that end were impure. To top it, when the highest court of the land also imposes a restriction on the registration of a category of vehicles in Delhi and around for certain duration of time, the politically insignificant class, will have to rest its case my lord.

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