Small little towns on the country’s map, like that of India, a country with great vastness and diversity, frequently miss out on the importance they deserve from the government as well as the masses. Musing with my thoughts regarding the problems that the residents of the small little town of Jorhat, the city of my academics, face in their daily sustenance, I came up with many issues, issues ranging from social to political, from cultural to environmental. But a small problem, which deserved better attention, caught my mind. And that was the problem of irresponsible and whimsical traffic management by the town authorities. The residents and students of Jorhat have been facing grave difficulties in transportation and the authorities, so far, have turned on their famous mute button on the issue. However, this issue is not exclusive to Jorhat only, but has spread its wings all over in India’s towns, towns which lay neglected in some corner of the country. I request the readers from little nudged towns to generalize the topic in context of their own towns.
With the financial capabilities of a section of the population increasing at a Hamiltonian pace, the society around us has seen a steep rise in the number of motor vehicles trotting the country’s roads. The increase in the number of motor vehicles is not a bad thing, but the feigning that it is a signature of “India Shining” is a shame. The increasing vehicular traffic in the country, which has been a major force in the disruption of the regularity of the traffic scenario, needs to be addressed on an urgent notice. Alongside, the future of people dislodged from their occupation as rickshaw and auto drivers also need to be put on an agenda. The future of public transport is also facing a daunting task in front of it to maintain its reason of existence along with the thousands employed in it.
In small towns, this increase has been a major cause of concern for the rickshaw and cart pullers. The scaling down of prices of cars and with the introduction of petty bourgeoisie systems like EMI and car loan, the sale is going up by the second. The system is so much in favor of people to buy cars that the amount of interest for car loans is lesser than education loans. The private sectors are in a constant search to introduce lesser priced cars to infringe into the middle and lower classes. With the reduction of interests and EMI, they are trying in an indefatigable approach, that it is not important that a child gets its education, but it is necessary to buy a car to maintain one’s social status. This incessant and unregulated increase in the number of cars has taken its toll on the huge mass self employed as rickshaw and cart pullers, whose only living was the general and mass usage of public and commodity transport. It is frequently reported that drivers are relocating their occupation from the roads to the factories, where they are not employed as permanent workforce, but rather as contract laborers. And with the degradation of contract labor laws under the present government, this marginalized section of the society has been facing inhuman hardships concluding in the violation of their human rights. In some cases, they have to work for 10 to 12 hours a day to maintain the same day’s wage, necessary to maintain the basic needs of their families, which they used to earn before.
In India’s economy, where the rich are getting richer by the day and the poor is getting more hunger stricken day by day, the growth of sales of motor cars has pushed the system of “Public Transport” way back in time. The lessening tendency of the people to use public transport has resulted in the indigence of money allocated to them from the government, thus causing their degradation both in technology and maintenance. It is the government’s own wish that the sale of cars should, at one time, totally overlap the public transport system so that the need of expenditure on it totally diminishes. Already, a huge section of such transport systems has been privatized, causing an increase in prices and decrease in their number. Today, we can find more private cars plying than buses on our roads. A huge section of the population employed as conductors, drivers and mechanics, have faced the cut in this regard.
The masses are struck by an indomitable force by the virus of social strata and status maintenance, where a car is viewed, not as a necessity for the family but as a symbol of their financial capabilities. The working classes inherent endeavor to match the upper class has made them an ineluctable victim of the “BUY MORE CARS” drive. Even, in towns, where at one time, autos were the symbol of the town’s life, the autos have been forced to shift their routes due to the problems faced by the car-driving population. They are forced to ply on a less profitable route so that a free parking zone is available to the cars. The auto drivers are found in constant wining in the reduction of their daily earnings.
The problem is not only restricted to them, but also faced by the large masses, unable to buy cars. It has been seen quite regularly, that large chunks of people are made to walk on the busy road, unfiltered by cars, which earlier, they could have easily traversed by an auto or rickshaw. With the autos refusing to ply for shorter distances, and the irregularity of the public transport, they are forced to either walk or wait for long durations of time causing problems to their daily life and schedule. This is nothing but the result of an iniquitous nexus between the bourgeoise government and the private companies that the common people should be left with no other option but to buy cars, putting money in the mouths of those private money mongers, which the government is totally in love with. The growing number of cars is also a problem for the pedestrians. Faced by the profuse sound of horns and the smoke from the cars, walking on a busy road becomes a living nightmare for them.
The government of India needs to urgently address this issue of traffic deregulation. The auto drivers, already facing a deep crisis with the fluctuating price of oils, will soon have to shift their occupation; the government needs to ensure that they get jobs because it is the government’s neo-liberal policies, causing deregulation in the manufacture of cars, which will have forced them out of their only means of subsistence. The government’s free hit given to the manufacturers is a major cause for this increase in the number of cars, hitting the stomachs of poor people employed in public and private transport systems.
Another issue in question is the intractable system of “Parking”. This is not as big a problem in metros as it is in small towns, where it is a common sight to see cars parked by the road, reducing the breadth and space for both the pedestrians and the traffic. The system of Parking Spaces seems like a distant dream and murmurs such as “These cars, making walking difficult” are rising. Most towns have developed road systems, which are dangerous for walking and also for using bicycles, causing an increase in the number of deaths by accidents. Lane for cyclists, which is a common site abroad, is missing altogether in our country, where over half of the population use a bicycle.
The government needs to understand that, however lower the prices of cars fall, the poor are still poor, they don’t have enough money to buy food, forget cars. For the masses, 70 percent of which live under twenty rupees a day, a bicycle is similar to what an ‘Audi’ is to the middle classes. So, a dedicated cycling lane should be put on priority. Incidents such as 2008-09, where there arose an acute shortage of jobs, provide a pristine picture of the government’s intentions, where in the wake of recession, it issued subsidies to many industries, and the first one to receive tax rebates and subsidies was the private automobile industries. Where, it should have taken steps to subsidize and sell the rotting grains in the FCI’s godowns to people suffering in dearth of food at cheaper prices, instead the government brought down the rates of cars. This drive of the government to push more and more people into owning private vehicles should be halted.
The use of bicycles will not only be a breath of air for the innumerable masses travelling through it, but if properly promoted will also cause a decrease in pollution. The regulation in the number of cars is a quintessential requirement in India, which has 13 of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world. A steep percent of urban pollution comes from vehicles. According to the WHO, India ranks 5th and 7th in air pollution in the world in terms of mortality impacts health burden respectively. The Indian car industry runs on BHARAT III standards, which result in more emissions. The Indian automobiles rely on diesel mostly, which cause black carbon aerosol, causing air pollution to a deadly level. Along with air pollution, sound pollution too is on the rise with the increase of cars. If such increase in pollution persists, it is not far when a majority of the population will be found suffering from respiratory problems and fatal heart diseases. The most awkwardly struck, in this scenario, would be the poor section, whose places of occupation, expose them to unwanted and hazardous levels of pollution and with the privatizing health scenario of the country, their affordability of health services is going down at an alarming rate. But that rarely troubles the government, which is bent on not eradicating poverty but the poor.
The situation demands an urgent and effective step from the masses to counter the evil forces of capitalism, ably assisted by the agents of imperialism, creating unemployment as well as pollution. However, if the government cannot get out of its endemic attitude of favoring those private car manufacturers, it should try enacting an effective system of employment for those occupationally dislodged masses. The masses must, through their relentless effort, force the government to put a strong hold over the public transport system and invest more money in it rather than trying in desperation to privatize it. The government must stop its obnoxious drive to push more people into buying new and used cars to address the, now fatal, pollution problem of the country. The masses, aided by the progressive forces, should begin an insurgent march to break the shackles caused by the pertinent society to save itself and the progeny from the evil clutches of pollution, unemployment and bad governance.
Note: This post is a part of our #MyCityMyStory series. To check out more posts from this series, please click here.
