There is a message in my in-box today from the Transform India with Modi campaign team. I am not quite sure whether it is an initiative by the Government of India, or by the BJP or just another social networking site trying to add members rapidly. Whatever the case, the message is intriguing. It invites people like you and me to suggest ideas that would help make India a better, cleaner, business friendly place.
Such initiatives are incredibly hard to implement. Getting traction around the idea, both in the minds of the public and the bureaucracy. Then there needs to be alignment on priorities in the minds of the public, the bureaucracy and the enforcement mechanism.
Granting however, that change needs to start with us, the citizenry, I would like to refer your attention to the Broken Window Theory in criminology. Those of you who have read Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell will be familiar with this theory. In short, the theory suggests that curbing small crimes, like vandalism and ticket-less travel on the trains, can curb criminal intentions and solve larger problems later. Petty criminals who learn to get away with small crimes are emboldened to try bigger ones.
What are your ideas on the small crimes that need to be nipped in the bud? My first inclination is to go after traffic violations. In a country where spray-paint cans are expensive and vandalism of the scarred walls kind is fortunately not an epidemic, it is the youth on motorcycles who brag about getting to college without heed to traffic lights that need to be educated. Traffic violations are my first choice for another reason. We do not need to put in place a new mechanism to trap this culprits. We only need to make the punishment unaffordable. Rather than increasing the monetary penalty, it might be far more effective to impose the fine in terms of time. If the cop who stops a traffic offender is given instructions to simply hold the culprit there for a few hours before letting him go or charging him with a crime, the deterrent would be far higher.
1 comment:
I also received a similar mail, but the sender name was 'BJP'. And it asked me to register at a website https://www.localcircles.com as the first step.
I haven't done that, but it looked like a forum to discuss local issues rather than ones at national level. As you said, it would be very hard to implement, and at the time i got the mail, they said it had around 2 lakh members.
Do you think there is anyway they can make this work ? Assuming that it was started with right intentions, who should be the target audience for such initiatives ?
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