The Assam Tribune
Guwahati, Sunday, November 21, 2004
EDITORIAL
Habits form character
— HN Das
mong the big cities I have visited there are two – New York and Beijing where majority of the adults, including women, appear to be smoking most of the time. In Beijing there is no statutory warning either in billboards or in cigarette packets about smoking being injurious to health. But no one throws a cigarette butt on the street nor any one litters the side walks with ash in either of the cities. In New York advertising is also not there now. Cigarette companies used to advertise in the Times Square of New York which happens to be the expensive and lucrative advertising site in the world. This has become a thing of the past.However, it is quite different in Kolkata where also very large number of people appear to be smokers. Streets are dirtied and the drains are clogged with cigarette butts. “Pan-biri” shops abound not only in the market areas but also in the ‘para’ lanes. In any Bengalee film smoking appears to be the predominant activity next only to eating. Here in Guwahati the percentage of smokers appears to be much less today than during our youth – fifty years ago, when a majority of college students used to smoke. But the littering goes on all the same. Unlike New York or Beijing the city governments have not provided any roadside bins to throw the waste materials nor is there any training to motivate and inspire so that waste materials are properly disposed of. I have chosen this example to bring home the fact that we have failed to inculcate civic sense in our youth specially and citizens generally.
Another example may be that of garbage disposal. We would hold big banquets and entertain hundreds of people. Then throw the plates and the left over food on the roadside. The plastic plates would float around for days together. These would not only create problems for padestrians but carried by crows, and sometimes by the wind, litter the compounds and houses of neighbours. In Guwahati garbage disposal has become the most important problem today. Similar is the problem of cleaning the streets. In Australia, where manpower is short, each house holder is expected to clean and wash the road and footpath in front of his/her house. During our two and a half years’ stay in Adelaide myself and my son used to enjoy performing this task every morning. Only for major thoroughfares in the areas containing business, institutional and government buildings, municipal arrangements are made for such tasks. In all major cities of the developed world garbage compression and disposal is elaborately organised. In the suburbs and country sides of the United States, Australia, Canada and similar big countries, where land is plentiful residents are encouraged to burn most of their waste materials in incinerators conveniently placed in corners of their own residential compounds. Everywhere in the advanced countries solid waste disposal is taken up very seriously in order to eliminate any possibility of pollution and spread of disease.Mahatma Gandhi used to lay great stress on sanitary latrines and proper disposal of human and animal excreta. He had even prescribed alternative uses for such waste. After him we seem to have forgotten the urgency of such action in India. However, in Mumbai and a few other big cities some attempts have been made to set up ‘Sulabh’ latrines which are easily accessible to the poor. These may not be able to compare with the public conveniences which exist in the cities of the advanced countries. But such attempts, however feeble, do avoid public nuisance.
There is a general impression that we Indians excel in avoiding and breaking rules. If there is a “no entry” sign for traffic regulation in a particular road, we would take our cars that way and boast about it. We avoid the cardinal rule of walking only on footpaths to our left. If this is pointed out the prompt response would be that most of these footpaths have holes and are encroached by hawkers of all kinds. It is true that poverty, corruption and inefficiency often prevent strict adherence to some of the rules. But cases of intentional avoidance and deliberate breaking of rules are also many.Sometimes we do not know the rules. Since the elders are not themselves aware, how can they teach the children how to behave themselves in public? Schools also do not inculcate such values in young children. This is due to the fact that our educational system is rather bookish and lack the essential training of children to grow up as good citizens. In spite of constant hammering by the media, concerned seniors and intellectuals, not much seems to have been done by those at the helm of affairs. It is in this context that it has to be emphasised that different aspects of our civic life need to be highlighted in our school curriculum so that children imbibe the ethics and learn to follow the rules of good civic behaviour while growing up. As far as the colleges are concerned, lectures, seminar and workshops should be organised on conduct and behaviour as well as the duties and responsibilities of a good citizen.
As rightly remarked by Ataur Rahman, former Assam Inspector General of Police and one time Member of Parliament, “Habit forms character, character forms society, society forms nation”. We have to become a nation duly respected all over the world. We have to improve our image. And we can achieve this by improving our civic behaviour and performing our responsibilities scrupulously. Rahman has done very well by bringing together all his experience and learning on the subject in one place in his excellent and useful book entitled “Civic Virtues by the Rule of Law – Improving Mindset”. In its eleven well organised chapters he has deliberated upon and explained almost everything about civic behaviour and knowledge on human rights as well as the rules and the statutory provisions in respect of these matters along with drawings and pictures which will be found useful for teaching young people.Economic growth and higher income alone cannot take the country towards progress. There has to be a simultaneous social change in respect of our clearliness, hygiene, sanitation and a general improvement in the way we live. It is useless to criticise or sulk. We have to ourselves start working towards an improvement of our conduct and behaviour.
(The writer was Chief Secretary, Assam, during 1990-95).MSN Premium gives you PC protection, junk-mail filters, advanced communication tools and great software like MSN Encarta® Premium. Click here for a FREE trial!
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