Opinion | Building a Better India: The Responsibility Starts with We, the People

Tara Kartha

It’s that time of year again, when India’s democratic process takes centre stage, dominating the airwaves. Accusations are being hurled, sparing no one, not even the Armed Forces, who have so far been studiously and deliberately kept out of any political churning. Every non-issue is being debated, while the real issues—like our filthy cities and even filthier air, or the severe climate crisis—are conspicuous by their complete absence from public debate. These are just a few of the many serious and alarming issues being overlooked.

But don’t blame the politicians. Look in the mirror. All of us want the ‘government’ to do this, that, or the other, but we won’t lift a finger to deal with it ourselves, often even making things worse.

VIOLENT POLITICIANS FROM A VIOLENT SOCIETY

The talk of the town is the number of politicians facing criminal charges, with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Shiv Sena topping the list. There is Kanhaiya Kumar, standing in northeast Delhi, with six cases against him, and a recent history of inflammatory remarks against the Indian Army. That he was once the president of a Students’ Union in Jawaharlal Nehru University, speaks volumes about the support he enjoys. A politician is a highly astute organism. If he’s spewing hate and corrosion, it’s because he knows it resonates with a segment of the electorate.

It’s no surprise then that many of us—especially in urban India—resort to bribes, theft, and cheating to gain our status and bank balance. We break traffic laws, building laws, and financial regulations, and then pay our way out of it. If you want clean politics, start by cleaning up your own act. And a little less violence at home and in public wouldn’t hurt either. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari observed that the total number of road rage and rash driving cases rose from 1.55 lakh in 2019 to 2.15 lakh in 2021. We’re a violent lot. Expect a violent politician.

DIRTY AIR AND DIRTIER PEOPLE

It is now widely known that 83 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities are in India, with Delhi ranking as the second most polluted globally. Before anyone accuses this of being manipulated data, link this to other statistics. According to specialists from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), lung cancer cases in India are likely to increase more than sevenfold by 2025 compared to a decade ago. What is shocking is that the types of lung cancer least associated with smoking are rising the fastest, with experts observing a 30-40 per cent increase.

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The most common variable is air pollution. This is especially concerning given that India’s air quality standards fall significantly short of the World Health Organisation’s guidelines. Everyone dreads the winter for the crop burning that blankets cities in smoke, but this is now practically a year-round issue. Around Delhi-NCR alone, waste is being burned in hundreds of locations. Waste management has collapsed, with the country generating 62 million tonnes of waste in a day. This is a crisis, and yet, no one seems to care. Again, don’t just blame municipal authorities, admittedly sometimes complicit.

When did you last segregate your waste or dispose of it responsibly? The government rolled out ‘Swachh Bharat 2.0’ in 2021, which envisages a complete cycle of collection, segregation, and management. While the initiative has faced criticism and spawned memes on social media, the more pertinent question is: what concrete steps have citizens taken to support its implementation? Instead of online commentary, perhaps it’s time to hold our local councillors and Resident Welfare Associations accountable for ensuring proper waste collection.

The irony is that residents in Gurugram, Faridabad and Gwalior are paying Ecogreen—a subsidiary of the Chinese company, Jinjiang Environment Holding Company Limited (CJE)—to handle their waste, when startups are offering similar services for free. Everyone knows that. But public indifference is not unlike that huge mountain of waste. It is immovable and it stinks.

GOVERNMENT BANS PLASTIC AND THE PUBLIC USES IT

That segues directly to the massive problem of plastic waste, with India generating approximately 26,000 tonnes daily. The Modi government in 2022 brought in initiatives like EPR (Extended Producer Responsivity), which mandates that producers, importers, and brand owners adhere to recycling regulations. While India produces less plastic waste per capita than Europe or the United States, it is projected to become the world’s second leading polluter of water bodies, trailing only China.

That’s ominous. It means there’s plastic in the water, and plastic on earth. That then gets into your vegetables, especially those nice raw salads that the trendsetters love. Not to mention cows feasting on plastic, that the ‘gau rakshaks’ don’t bother about. That’s going into your tea.

In 2019, the government issued a ban on single-use plastics. But it’s nowhere in practical use. Businesses successfully lobbied against the ban, arguing that the post-Covid economic downturn made compliance financially unfeasible. Years have passed, yet this resistance to change persists, while the public continues to disregard the ban altogether.

Take responsibility. When you throw that plastic wrap out of the car window, you’ve already lost the game. It will find its way back to you, perhaps even in your burger. Join the worldwide movement against plastic, and instead of criticising those making an effort, offer your support. In the G20 Chairman’s report on plastics, a table indicates how India has tickboxed all areas, unlike the US and major economies. The challenge as always is implementation, and that rests with us.

YOUR BUILDING PLANS ARE KILLING YOU

Similarly, there is construction waste spread across thousands of hectares in much of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, raising fine dust that infiltrates our lungs. It’s a sea of debris. One can blame rapacious ‘builders’, but it’s ultimately the public who chose to build four floors in place of one. And entirely turned a blind eye to where the waste is being dumped. Meanwhile, this massive quadrupling of housing has led directly to complete power failure and a breakdown of basic amenities, including water supply.

Certainly, local Town Planning divisions need to be taken to task for increasing the FAR (floor-to-area ratio) in the past. Yet, even now, Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) are petitioning the government—which is wisely reviewing the matter—to allow four-story constructions, despite the evident strain on infrastructure. That’s pure greed over reason. And then you expect principles from local councillors and politicians.

CITIES ARE BREAKING DOWN

All of this is particularly alarming as the country grapples with a heatwave of unprecedented proportions. Almost every city is losing its green cover, and parks. Chandigarh’s open spaces have declined by 39 per cent, and its agricultural and shrubland areas by 37 per cent, while its built-up area has more than doubled, increasing by 104 per cent. The Indian Institute of Science estimated that a staggering 93 per cent of Bengaluru has lost its lake and forest cover to concrete and construction. There has been a 79 per cent loss in water cover while constructions have increased by over 1,000 per cent. Today, Bengaluru faces an unprecedented water crisis, yet there’s no significant grassroots movement to restore its “Garden City” status.

What is evident is complete indifference, both in Bengaluru and other megacities, where residents will demand ‘pruning’ of trees till they die. Well-heeled Indians will run to forest shades to escape the heat but won’t hesitate to knock down trees in front of them, despite laws that prohibit it. The prevailing attitude seems to be: pay the price and evade any real accountability.

WE HAVE THE VALUES, NOW IMPLEMENT THEM BOTTOM-UP

At the heart of the matter lies a complete erosion of values and sheer hypocrisy. What values does the growing middle class now uphold? It appears to be profit at all costs, even at the expense of urban and rural environments, all while espousing a fervent nationalism that often contradicts genuine loyalty to the nation. And that is what is being taught to their children: a disregard for respecting elders, teachers, and the learned. As a result, the status of these esteemed figures has gone down the drain, barring a group of fraudulent “godmen” who leverage their popular appeal to gain access to the corridors of power. The recent backlash against a court ruling concerning one such figure makes it clear that deception reigns supreme.

It’s not that this country lacks guiding principles. The constitutional values include liberty, equality and fraternity. Lacking (since no one reads the Constitution) are the principles of Hinduism enshrined in the Vedas, where the concept of dharma is not only confined to human pursuits but includes nature in totality. Everything that exists on Earth, other planets, the solar system, galaxies and the entire universe is governed and sustained by the laws of dharma. The Rig Veda recognised Mitra, Varuna and other deities as symbolising the vital balance in nature that is essential to the survival of humans And don’t forget, these concepts were encapsulated for children in the Panchatantra, among other texts.

It is within this complete abandonment of our core values – which still exist in our consciousness – that the political noise and clamour arise.

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To clean up politics, start from the bottom up. Vote for the humane, not for your caste. Demand the best from your local government. You have the right. And most of all, regain the true principles from which we trace our roots and watch the earth right itself again. The end result resides with ‘We, the People’. And you may yet survive.

The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. She tweets @kartha_tara. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author.