Where are Indians going wrong? Experts say good design, a reward system, education and awareness could tackle the rampant problem
Clean up marshals fine a man for spitting and throwing cigarette buds at Ghatkopar Station in 2018. FILE PIC
Actions don’t have consequences in India. Or so many believed until a 17-year-old, without a licence, allegedly driving as he shot a Reel, killed a 23-year-old man on February 3. Is this an aberration or a symptom of a culture where public rules feel optional? Civic sense reveals itself in smaller, not-so-subtle ways. The blaring phone in a train compartment. The paan stain blooming on a freshly painted wall. Each act forms the texture of daily life.
Journalist and writer Manu Joseph sees this as a deeper cultural tension. “I look at our society as a battle between the village and the city,” he says. By “city,” he means people who “believe in order and rules as a form of wisdom” and are “very serious about civic order.” The “village mindset”, in his formulation, enforces strict social codes inside the home but treats public space as loosely governed. “The problem with India is that we were always villagers. Some of the most influential people like Gandhi, who were from the privileged class, romanticised the village because villagers were simple people who would worship them,” he explains.
A pile of garbage at Matunga Z Bridge. PIC/SHADAB KHAN
“Thailand has a lot of our problems, but their traffic is so human. It has a certain human intelligence about it. We have no intelligence on the road. We are a stupid country, as a crowd, we are stupid. There is no other way to describe this whole act of great individual smartness where you break this rule, that rule, and you can get somewhere,” he says, “The idea that your behaviour is connected to someone else’s comfort is alien to Indians.”
But Joseph also points to the state. “When nothing is laid out clearly, people don’t take rules seriously,” he argues. Indians, he notes, rarely spit inside airports. Infrastructure, aesthetics, and enforcement shape behaviour more than moral lectures do.
Manu Joseph
At the TATA Mumbai Marathon this year, 36-year-old life coach-in-training Jaya Ammin witnessed the contradiction firsthand. Despite bins lining the route, medal pouches and plastic bottles were strewn across the road. Men urinated beside temporary toilets. “It comes from knowing that somebody else is going to clean up after you,” she says, “It’s not just a certain type of people. It is everybody from lower to upper classes.” She recalls commuters in Mumbai locals casually throwing waste out of moving trains. “Education does not automatically produce accountability,” she says.
Civic sense is not an abstract virtue. It is the everyday discipline of imagining the stranger beside you. The tragedy is not only in spectacular accidents, but in the normalisation of disorder that precedes them.
Restaurants
‘Some guests scream if food is 15 minutes late’
At Cray Craft Kitchen & Bar, owner Akshay Shetty says the fault lines are clearest once alcohol enters the room. “When people drink, they sometimes misbehave, like being rude, raising their voice,” he says. Hospitality, he points out, is not a factory line. “A restaurant business is a judgement-based business. It’s not like a factory product where everything will be the same. We have a lot of human errors.”
Akshay Shetty
But error is often met with aggression. “I have seen guests scream if the food is 15 minutes late,” he says.,“People should not take their personal frustrations out at restaurants. We are humans too.” In one recent incident, a billing mistake — an extra papad added by accident — spiralled. “The guest swore at our server and screamed at him,” Shetty recalls. The server in question had worked there five years. “This particular server had built a very good rapport with guests.”
“Cussing at someone for mistakes is just not okay.” Yet reputation anxiety complicates enforcement. “The fear of bad reviews does make us pay attention,” he admits. His staff are trained in restraint. “If something is wrong, just rectify it,” he tells them. But repeat offenders are banned. “In some cases a sense of entitlement can lead customers to diregard professional boundaries and well being of service staff.” In the end, he says, “For a restaurant, reputation is everything.” Civic failure, here, is not litter but humiliation.
Concerts
‘Create reward systems for good public etiquette’
Music concerts and public festivals are prone to messy situations. For Nishant Gadhok, founder of Gently Altered, the problem is neither new nor entirely about alcohol. “Our society definitely faces a lack of civic sense and that reflects at events as well,” he says. Over a decade in youth culture, he has seen nightclub floors “completely littered” with cups even when dustbins were steps away. Early music festivals were no different with trash underfoot, queues dissolving, and personal space ignored.
He traces it to something deeper. “It stems from the segregation in society,” he says, “We have people who look after our waste and it’s a result of that reality.” When certain classes and castes grow up insulated from their own mess, entitlement travels with them into public spaces.
Queuing, he admits, has improved. “People have gotten used to it,” he says, though “things are definitely getting better but there’s still a very long way to go”. “The more educated the audience, the less the garbage on the ground.” Larger, mass gatherings require heavy barricading to enforce flow because voluntary order rarely holds.
Nishant Gadhok
His solutions are pragmatic. Design crowds so they cannot break lines. Separate entry and exit lanes. Place visible housekeeping staff. And crucially, introduce incentives. Reusable cup systems where attendees pay a deposit and get money back in return often work because “there’s some sort of gratification”. Civic sense, he suggests, may need both enforcement and reward. “Right now it is limited to reusable cups at festivals but creating a reward system for good public etiquette could perhaps change things.”
Museums
‘Respectful engagement enhances visitor experience’
At Mumbai’s Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, director Tasneem Mehta and her curatorial team offer a measured view. “As a public museum, we welcome a diverse range of audiences every day, including many first-time visitors,” they say. While staff occasionally remind visitors “particularly school groups” to maintain viewing distance, “the overall response has been respectful and cooperative”.
Tasneem Mehta
Importantly, they add, “We have not experienced any adverse incidents that could damage the displays or the museum building.” In an age of Reels and constant documentation, one might expect friction between preservation and performance. But the museum does not see it that way. For Mehta’s team, the issue is not decay but education. “Museums are learning spaces, and respectful engagement greatly enhances the overall visitor experience,” they say.
Safeguards remain robust. “The museum adheres to standard ICOM conservation and display guidelines,” they note. Objects are placed in “protective showcases, supported by barriers and clear signage”. Staff and security personnel are present at all times. “Museum rules and guidelines are also communicated at the entrance in both Marathi and English.” Their final insistence is, “It is not correct to present audience enthusiasm as negative. Most sites that are properly monitored do not experience bad behaviour and most audiences are well behaved.”
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