Pakistanis have a remarkable ability to adopt practices that they approve of. However, the approval is generally on an individual level and the follow up is personal, unless the state intervenes. Occasionally individuals may approach and involve a community in a venture of this kind by using a socio-political undercurrent. If the political aspirations of such an individual find approval within the community or society, development work takes root. During the three quarters of a century of national existence we covered a lot of ground in material terms, though we could perhaps have done much more with sincere leadership. Yet we have been unable to build a consensus on political/administrative procedures.
The problem lies in the fixation in the minds of our elite [establishment & ‘civil society’] that a consensus must be a common one-point agenda. That is exactly contrary to national perceptions of our socio-communal fabric. The contract of “live and let live” among our communities rests on the foundation of diverse dispensations to suit each occupation, life pattern, ethnic classification, and cultural watershed. Obviously an administration, be it a municipal or provincial or national one, cannot make different traffic laws for each urban category. However a good administrator would take stock of road users in his jurisdiction to make bylaws and construct traffic facilities which are easy to enforce and maintain.
Over the years, cycle rickshaws, tongas and bullock-carts have been virtually eliminated from urban traffic in cities and major towns, though they still ply in suburbs and the rural areas adjacent to towns. Their place has generally been taken by motorcycle rickshaws or small vans and tractor-trolleys. However, vendors using hand-carts tend to move about in the commercial and residential areas, sometimes blocking traffic, at others crossing major roads with fast moving traffic and create a lethal traffic hazard. To this may be added the nonchalant driver who, in trying to save a detour to a u-turn, decides to treat the left lane of a road as a service road and merrily drives against the correct flow of traffic. We must realize that most of the drivers, who are affected by it, sympathize with the violator, since they can see themselves in the shoes of the law breaker avoiding the u-turn.
An extensive list of all such traffic problems is neither germane to this discourse nor is it possible for this scribe. What is relevant in that a non-existent service-road, the overhead bridge in place of an underpass, a u-turn so far from the entrance to a side lane, and many other such ‘inconsiderate’ practices that facilitate a small elite rather than the majority of road-users are the cause of our troubles. Over the years, this has not only led to a mindset of ‘we need not care for the laws of the elite’. The willingness of the executive arm of the administration to turn a blind eye because they are also ‘not quite part of the elite’ during most of their lives, has cemented this attitude. More to the point, the lower echelons don’t often realize that they are violating the law, assuming it to be a discretionary prerogative.
Personally, I believe that a “big push and model locality” approach is needed in this case. In the new elite localities such as the Defence and Behria towns, these requirements can be made mandatory and enforcement can be strict. Imitations of such ‘colonies/societies’ will soon pick up on them; the government can selectively begin to enforce laws with the help of local communities in cities where the elite is not so active.