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India’s Civic Collapse- A Crisis Everyone Sees, But No One Owns

· 5 min read
PSVNL SAI KUMAR
PSVNL SAI KUMAR
SDE 3 @ Oracle

Introduction​

Across India's cities and towns, a quiet, pervasive breakdown unfolds daily — not of power or infrastructure, but of civic responsibility. From traffic indiscipline to littered streets, from defaced walls to urinated alleyways, the story is familiar and repetitive. What’s worse: nobody seems to care anymore — not the citizens, not the enforcement agencies, not the government.

Despite a decade of ambitious missions and grand narratives around cleanliness and modernization, India’s civic culture remains broken — a gaping wound that no policy has managed to heal.

Civic Sense: The Collapse No One Talks About​

It’s not that civic sense doesn’t exist in India. It does — in gated societies, air-conditioned offices, and temples during festivals. But step into a public road, railway station, or bus depot, and the truth hits you like a wall of stench.

The civic crisis manifests everywhere:

  • Garbage strewn across roads, even where dustbins are provided.
  • Spitting and urination in public, often near public toilets.
  • Honking, signal-jumping, wrong-side driving — daily acts of normalized lawlessness.
  • Footpaths turned into shop fronts, forcing pedestrians onto dangerous roads.
  • Complete apathy toward cleanliness in government offices, hospitals, and markets.

This is not just the failure of a few people. It is the result of a cultural shrug — a collective collapse in public behavior, civic education, and governance.

Why Is This Happening?​

1. Because Nobody is Teaching It​

Civic behavior is not instinctive — it’s learned. But in India, children go through 12+ years of schooling without ever being taught the basics of public behavior:

  • How to respect common property.
  • Why following rules is not optional.
  • Why throwing garbage outside your home doesn’t make you clean.

There is no nationwide civic curriculum, no experiential learning in cleanliness, traffic discipline, or environmental hygiene. Instead, students memorize theories while growing up around adults who break rules with impunity.

2. Because There’s No Real Enforcement​

Laws exist — but who enforces them?

  • You can spit on a wall and walk away.
  • Park on footpaths without consequence.
  • Run a red light and pay a bribe.
  • Deface public property and even be rewarded during elections.

Enforcement in India is selective, weak, and often corrupt. Municipal workers and traffic cops are underpaid, demoralized, or themselves complicit. Even when action is taken, it is sporadic — a few fines during Swachh Bharat week, some banners cleaned before a VIP visit. Beyond that? Business as usual.

3. Because Politicians Don’t Want to Touch It​

Civic enforcement is politically risky. No one wants to be seen policing the “common man”.

  • Crack down on illegal vendors, and you’re accused of being anti-poor.
  • Enforce traffic rules, and the backlash is immediate — from auto unions, cab drivers, vote banks.
  • Penalize encroachments, and local MLAs themselves intervene to stop the action.

So the solution is to look away. Ignore the problem. Let people do what they want. Why fix what no one is demanding to be fixed?

4. Because the Government Focuses on Optics, Not Outcomes​

Swachh Bharat, Smart Cities, AMRUT — all well-intentioned, but reduced to photo opportunities.

  • Toilets built but left unmaintained.
  • Urban projects inaugurated but not monitored.
  • Cleanliness drives launched without sustained behavior change campaigns.

Even today, most Swachh Bharat dashboards track infrastructure, not behavior. No city is ranked on whether its people follow rules — only on whether it has waste processing plants or digital sensors.

We’ve invested in concrete, not character.

5. Because Apathy Has Become Normal​

Ask someone why they throw garbage on the road, and they’ll say: “Everyone does it.”
Ask someone why they park illegally: “There’s no space.”
Ask someone why they honk in traffic: “How else will people move?”

Over time, rule-breaking becomes the rule. Even those who want to behave responsibly feel foolish doing so in a sea of indifference. In India, being civic-minded feels like a waste of time, not a mark of integrity.

Where Is the Accountability?​

  • Which ministry is responsible for civic behavior? None.
  • Which government body audits civic compliance? None.
  • Which politician runs on a platform of civic reform? None.

The problem is everyone’s responsibility — which is to say, no one’s.

What This Costs Us​

  • Lives: Traffic deaths. Garbage-related illnesses. Unsafe pedestrian environments.
  • Dignity: Tourists returning home with stories of filth and disorder.
  • Public Trust: Citizens don’t trust the state to keep spaces clean or safe.
  • National Pride: What good are bullet trains if you step in urine outside the station?

We are modernizing the surface while the foundation remains rotten. A society that cannot respect shared spaces cannot call itself developed, no matter how tall its towers or how fast its internet.

Conclusion: A Nation That Doesn’t Care​

India’s civic failure is not due to a lack of ideas or funds — but a lack of will.

Until we stop treating civic sense as a personal favor rather than a shared duty…

Until we stop relying on campaigns and start building systems…

Until we hold ourselves and our governments accountable, this rot will continue to define who we are.

And the truth is — India’s biggest crisis is not corruption, not unemployment, not inflation. It is indifference.

We have normalized the collapse of civic order — and that may be the most dangerous failure of all.

Tags: civic sense, India, public apathy, government inaction, traffic law, civic education, Swachh Bharat, accountability