The recent sporadic incidents of mob attacks on ‘Traffic Sentinels’ in various parts of Goa has triggered a public debate in social media. As usual, similar to other social conflicts, the debate over the use of the traffic sentinels in Goa suffers from the same skewed thinking of a privileged class versus the not-so-privileged. The larger long-term implications of such a scheme are deliberately being drowned in arguments as to whether the public fury and resistance is right or wrong. As usual, the fuss over the violence seems more about diverting attention from deeper issues involved in this Police-Government-Corporate experiment. The Police Chief’s obsession or fixation with selectively enforcing the safety laws applicable to two-wheeler riders stinks of the ancient ‘sanskruti’ of exclusiveness and discrimination which plagues Indian society.
Any reasoning citizen will agree that violence as a means for conflict resolution in community issues should have no place in a civilised society. It also cannot be denied that the operators of any apparatus have a moral duty to use the prescribed safety gear for their protection from accidents. The question which the public seems to be asking the Goa Police is, why are only two-wheelers and the under privileged being singled out and discriminated when it comes to law enforcement?
A two-wheeler rider who does not wear the helmet may harm himself but surely does not pose as much a danger to public as a vehicle which is mechanically unfit and being driven on the road, a speeding vehicle, a driver accessing GPS and talking on the mobile phone while driving and not respecting traffic signals and pedestrian crossings. The two-wheeler rider not wearing a helmet does not pose a greater security risk than the vehicles with missing or illegible number plates and dark tinted glasses. Not wearing a helmet is no threat to society when compared to the drug pusher or the pimp in the sex trade.
The helmetless rider is no greater nuisance to public than the chaos caused by vehicles obstructing the traffic flow outside casinos and shopping malls, or the noisy bikes with modified silencers zooming in the dead of the night and the blinding halogen headlights of vehicles. And therefore, the reason for opposition to the traffic sentinel goes much deeper than merely the reluctance of two-wheeler riders to use helmets.
Goans have always been law abiding citizens, and if at all the public has started defying and taking law into its own hands, it is a sign that law enforcement agencies have lost credibility. Goans are in no mood for taunts from the Police Chief about the ‘Flat Earth Society’ and ‘helmet is useless society’. The public would like to hear about the ‘Underworld Society’ which is believed to be flourishing in Goa right under the nose of the police.
The traffic sentinel gets viewed with greater suspicion because of a prevailing atmosphere in the country wherein the Government is increasingly attempting to peep into private affairs of citizens. Before blindly cheering novel governance ideas, one needs to be mindful of an aphorism that, ‘the road to hell is often paved with good intentions’.
Can anyone guarantee that the sentinel scheme will not evolve into a tool to spy on citizens in other areas of life?
Neither the Goa Police nor the Government appears to be serious in minimising traffic violations, considering their boasts about the high detection rates of traffic offences and its related revenue collection for the State.
With 70 per cent of the registered vehicles on Goa’s roads said to comprise of two-wheelers, taking a fanatic stance in enforcing petty penal laws which citizens are more likely to violate seems more about generating revenue for the empty government treasury.
The public is very much aware as to how the play with erecting ‘no stopping’, ‘no parking’ and ‘no entry’ signages in the vicinity of casinos, shopping malls and other commercial complexes is actually about harassment and extortion. So the question being asked by the public is, why is the Police Chief not fanatic or fixated on penalising vehicles which park on footpaths, refuse to stop at pedestrian crossings and at traffic signals and the nuisance at casinos and shopping malls?
The State Government should stop its pretense about saving lives of the two-wheeler riders on roads when most of the roads do not meet the prescribed safety standards. It would be far safer if the Government declares Goa’s roads to be unfit for two-wheelers. Even the traffic violations are nothing but part of the larger rowdy ‘sanskruti’ prevailing across the country.
People beating up traffic sentinels and defying road rules in Goa is no different from a mob lynching the police in the name of cow, lawyers in black robes attacking those merely accused of sedition within the court premises or, ‘gavrakshaks’ budging into people’s houses to search for beef in fridges with, what appears to be, tacit support from cops in many parts of the country.
In a State with a meagre 15 lakh population, the compulsion to introduce a Traffic Sentinel Scheme is either a sign of a failed policing, or the result from deployment of the police for purposes other than maintaining law and order.
And perhaps, at times stepping up the traffic sentinel activity could help to distract the public from other political problems and the rapists who escape from police custody.
(The author is a Social Activist who has been a member of the Panchayat.)
https://www.heraldgoa.in/Edit/Opinions/Traffic-Sentinels-or-incentivised-sneaks/143146.html
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