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Belt up
ONGOING EFFORTS BY the Supreme Court aimed at tightening road safety measures across the country deserve unqualified public support considering what a nuisance driving has become these days. But while its order of last week on the mandatory requirement hence forward for drivers and occupants of front seats in cars to wear seat-belts is timely, the apex court seems to have rather conveniently left out issues more fundamental to overall safety on the roads. No one could, for instance, reasonably disagree with the notification considering how much this small precaution can help avert fatal head injuries and prevent passengers from being flung out of vehicles on impact of collision. Many countries have already put similar laws in place and it is an appropriate follow-up measure in our own where the market in motor vehicles has witnessed a significant growth. But it would plainly be over-exaggerating the case for seat-belts in our context unless and until a whole range of more fundamental mechanisms are put in place and their real efficacy made more demonstrable. Interestingly, these have very little to do with our current fixation with finding technological solutions, but with basic adherence to civic and democratic norms.
Reckless driving, ill-equipped roads and, above all, poor enforcement of traffic rules have for long been the bane of Indian roads. The impunity with which VIPs break traffic regulations and the complicity of the police contribute in no small measure to the daily ordeal of ordinary Indians. These are not the woes of an over-grown middle class, but the nightmarish experiences of millions who constitute the backbone of our economy.
While the general direction in which the apex court has proceeded in relation to Public Interest Litigation in recent years is welcome, there is this growing feeling - whether it is regarding the ban on smoking in public places or the requirement to wear seat-belts - that the courts are simply clamping down. Such an impression further deepens owing to the arbitrary manner in which judicial orders are enforced, steadily eroding public faith in the rule of law. On the contrary, if there is greater respect for the law in many societies around the world, this is only because adherence to its tenets is perceived to be in everyone's interest and, accordingly, it is applied even-handedly to the mighty and the meek. Sadly, however, there is a pervasive tendency in our society to impute an unfounded connection, on the one hand, between efficacy and, authoritarianism and, on the other, between democracy and disorder. Thus, very often, the South East Asian countries are held out as the model for Indians to emulate, conveniently ignoring the fruitful experience with the law in West European and North American democracies. As a consequence, we not only fail to identify the real causes behind our own shortcomings and consolidate upon the gains of our democracy, but at the same time ascribe all the wrong reasons for the successes of others. These are some of the premises the apex court must question effectively through its periodic pronouncements on matters that are essentially of a civic nature. The confidence that the Judiciary could instill in the working of democratic institutions broadly is an important prerequisite for any of its measures in specific areas to carry conviction with the end-users, say of civic amenities.
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