Jasdeep Kamra
If you are determined enough, you can move mountains. The old saying can be seen taking shape in Jammu these days.
From jostling in the midst of thick vehicular traffic, moving at a snail’s pace, to, being able to cruise freely, we have come a long way in a matter of just under a fortnight. And the repair has just begun.
They say India moves like a tortoise- slow but steady. Reform happens but occasionally. Things change but rarely. As a result of which, we stand today where we were a quarter century ago. And would be there into the next century as it is. Sure, an inch further in both cases. Just an inch. Just like time travel, where time passes for us much slower relative to, say, the western nations.
But not with Basant Rath – the new Inspector General of Traffic for J&K who, has transformed our city’s roads magically, winning people’s hearts all the way. His charisma, dedication and what he himself calls ‘Hurry’ combined with his witty and crisp fb posts has catched Jammuites by a sudden rush of aderline, escalating his fan following every passing day by thousands.
Just under a fortnight, the man, seen routinely in black casuals with a plaster on his fractured left arm, controls the traffic himself on the busy roads or simply sits on the pavement ‘supervising’ the cops. This miraculous sight has not been observed before in our city ever.The roads of our city which could not be more messy thanks to complete lack of traffic sense and discipline among the commuters and the total indifference of the traffic management.
People’s excitement levels reached peak levels, the other day when hundreds of them were seen gathered around him, when he challaned a police gypsy with a missing number plate. Slogans of Basant Rath Zindabad could be heard all around and the entire atmosphere sang of never heard before murmers ‘aisa sade Jammu wich pehli wari hoada hai’ – this has been happening for the first time in our city Jammu. The shock and awe of the man is growing by the day encompassing more and more people in his fan following to experience the magic.
Wherever he goes, hundreds of people watch him, click pictures of him, make videos of him. Not only this, media persons are also thronging him, not missing a chance to catch him in their cameras. Although he refuses to talk to anybody including the media, but his love and affection towards children is apparent. He is often seen gifting them chocolates to them and encouraging them to study hard. There was a huge appalause from the public when he gave few hundred rupee notes to a small girl telling her – padhai karna padhai – please study hard. He has become pied piper of Jammu.
Streets of Jammu have a never seen before look. Vehicles, irrespective of their number of wheels, are aligned properly by the side of the road; two wheeler riders have started wearing a helmet without a miss; drivers have started halting at red lights; the doors of mini-buses,- considered to be as the biggest culprits of traffic chaos,- are seen closed now and they have started stopping at allocated stops only…the list goes on and on. In totality we can say that traffic situation which was everybody’s nightmare earlier has clandestinely improved.
The irony is that why it is so that if just one officer can bring such a massive overhaul in the system, what wonder can it make if all the civil servants start performing the job at hand in the same manner.
It remains an irony that despite getting independence from Great Britain seventy long years ago, we still count as a third world country. We still possess millions of poor, homeless, disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, misgovernance, mal governance, high rate of corruption, red tapism, babudom, messy roads and what not. Why we have lagged behind despite our high aspirations of development is a question to ponder over.
And the answer is not too far. That our civil servants have failed us miserably, rather than the generally accepted notion of political bosses, is apparent, given the fact that despite having enormous power at their disposal, the same is never excercised by the civil servants for reasons best known to them.
We are a democracy and in a democracy the public representative, being a layman himself, depends solely and totally upon the civil servant for both policy advise and its implementation. Alas we have seen nothing happening despite having a monumental structure of civil service which is thought to be selected through a gruesome recruitment process .
Why the civil service is not providing a fruitful result is a million dollar question. Whether the fault lies with the recruitment process or their approach becomes stagnant with time needs to be answered.
But as they say that every cloud has a silver lining, it holds true for our civil service as well. If not daily but after a while we keep on encountering icons like Kiran Bedi, Vinod Rai, Ashok Khemka, and our own Singham- Basant Rath.
(The author is Director of VJ IAS Academy Jammu.)
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