The other day I parked for the security check at a shopping mall. The burly security man told me three separate times that my driving lamps were on. This wasn’t a remarkable example of his paranormal abilities, my driving lights are always on. It discourages fickle-minded pedestrians.
Then, I stopped at the automated parking ticket meter, which had another uniformed gent leaning on it. He pressed the button, extracted the ticket and gave it to me. And added, “Sir, it’s paid parking.” Now, there’s a board just ten feet before the stand that says so clearly and even throws in the rates for good measure. And pressing a button and taking the ticket isn’t rocket science either. But the mall owners wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the same way, our government tells us obvious things. Like wash your hands before and after grub. Like stay in one lane. Like stop before the, duh, stop line. Like go when it’s green. And like wear a helmet. In an ideal world, all of this would be unnecessary. You would automatically understand that lane discipline helps everyone get there earlier. That running a red light is simply not a risk worth taking. That you wear a helmet for reasons other than protecting your hairdo from rain. That isn’t how it is, right?
The international term - derogatory - for governments that interfere with citizens’ lives’ minutiae is nanny state - a nation that’s overtly protective and in the process intrusive, sort of like well-meaning parents when you hit your teens. You know, the age when the hormones want you to break out, and all that really does, thanks to the parents, is acne.
Today, citizens in many countries abroad are protesting the interference in daily life. Debates range from ‘why make helmets compulsory’ to a gamut of non-automotive issues. The rationale is simple and hard to argue against. Helmet law haters - who are not all helmet haters - say that you don’t have to force it down their throats. That they’re adults - capable of making the decision to wear (or otherwise) a helmet. And that they’re willing to accept the consequences that come with their decision. This is a view that I privately support. I’ve long been a promoter of personal freedom. You should be free to do as you please in every respect as long as it doesn’t conflict with my, or anyone else’s, personal freedom to whatever it is that pleases them.
But freedom comes with responsibility. The nanny state is needed when citizens cannot be trusted with behaving responsibly. If you can’t trust the biker to not jump the light and endanger others, then to protect them, you need a law. And then someone to enforce it. At the very least, the nanny state offers employment. India has more laws than anyone else but they are hardly ever enforced. For instance, in Chandigarh, my driving lamp habit is challan-able - and challaned. Why running lights in the day should take up the time of the authorities - who I’m sure have far more pressing problems to sort out - beats me.
I don’t like the nanny state. I think we should be free to make our own decisions, imperil ourselves if we like - the only condition being that these choices affect only our lives and at best, of those who choose to accept the inevitable fallout. If you choose to leap off a mountain sans parachute - you should be free to as long as your family is also okay with it. This freedom presumes that you’re responsible enough to realise that this will probably kill you.
But there’s a reason why that kind of a nation simply doesn’t exist. Human beings are remarkably willing to endanger themselves and others by nature. We have a blood-splattered history going back all the way back to prove it. Even in Japan and Germany, where citizens are educated and the obsessively rule-following type, the rules and their enforcement approach the nanny state. In the UK, despite widespread protests, nothing will change. In France, the government presumes to limit all bikes to 100PS - c’est beaucoup, non? (Er, that’s plenty, no?). And so forth.
And what about India? As much as I’d like to be treated as an adult, it simply isn’t a good idea. Most of us simply aren’t ready for that kind of freedom. You see responsible decisions need to based to good information. Good information, again, presumes your ability to understand it - as in education - and to reach the right (obvious?) conclusions. But when a majority of your citizens wear helmets to escape prosecution and then worry about the loss of hair - you just aren’t ready.
Decades later, perhaps, when the education system is firing on all cylinders, when the government does its job earnestly and conscientiously - including but not limited to giving driving licenses to trained drivers - perhaps then, we will be ready to see the nanny state backed off a little bit. Until then, much as I hate it, I stand in its support. It’d be carnage otherwise. Oh wait, it’s already that.
