When drivers could not care less

Nilratan Halder The picture of her blank look says it all. She is Nusrat Samia aged five, a nursery student of a school at Shantinagar. The little one has become speechless. When her two elder brothers and other near and dear ones are inconsolably weeping for the demise of their mother, Nusrat seems to be staring into endless void or pitched darkness. She has simply lost the ability to weep or cry. All because she has seen from close quarters how her mummy was crushed under the wheels of a bus while she survived the accident involving the rickshaw the mother and daughter were riding on way home from her school. She is too young to absorb the shock. Her world has changed forever with the loss of her mother. One would like to know what the home minister has to say to Nusrat. The picture shows the girl on the lap of her father, resting her head on his back shoulder. But there is no tear in her eyes. In fact, she is in a helpless stupor. Even the kindest words in the world would sound meaningless to her. To an impressionable mind it was too terrible to believe. Both her mother and she were hurled out of the rickshaw when the bus hit it violently. The woman was run over but little Nusrat fell on the left side away from bus wheels. Let's assume that men in power have to rise beyond emotion and passion but this should not be reason enough for a minister to have no idea of the trauma Nusrat has been going through. No one can complain that the home minister's recent statement that no case under the section 302 can be instituted straightway against drivers of motor vehicles for deaths in road accidents has prompted the driver to go for rash driving. This essentially is a negation of a charge of murder. However, the minister is in favour of filing a murder case if initial inquiries make the driver responsible for the fatalities but at first the case has to be filed under section 304. It is not for the first time that a bus or truck driver has knocked down smaller vehicles or people. Within the city limit, if drivers are careful and there is no mechanical trouble, such accidents should not usually happen. Speed is a factor here and then the question of braking the bus well in time. If a driver faults on both counts, should it not be considered a case of murder? The home minister has given in to pressure from leaders of transport workers, including another minister who happens to be an influential colleague of the former, holding the portfolio of the shipping ministry. Thank God, the home minister has not as yet come up with any comment that remotely resembles or echoes the sentiment of one of the incumbent's predecessors who bluntly put, "Allah has taken away what legitimately belongs to Him" (translated from the infamous Bangla statement, " Allahr maal Allah nie gechey". If the home minister's move to appease the transport workers in the face of a threat from the latter to take public buses and trucks off the road and bring life to a standstill has no direct bearing on the rash driving by the driver involving the road accident that took away the life of Nusrat's mother, it can be said that drivers in general now have reasons to be more care-free. Not that the legal deterrent was in force but if the threat of section 302 looms large, the psychological pressure would have acted at the back of the drivers' minds not to be indulgent in abhorrent carelessness. The extent of appeasement has gone an extra length with further compromise on conditions for renewal of licences: drivers will be given licences on examination of their eyes only. This brings the issue to the shipping minister's earlier statement that drivers should qualify for licences if they can distinguish between man and other animals. Certainly the attitudes as exhibited by the home minister and the shipping minister do not help the cause. When it comes to issues related to road accidents or issuance of driving licences, the man at the centre of attention ought to be the communication minister. He is the right person to deal with matters involving such issues. But overlapping spheres of influence seem to have given a wrong signal to the people who actually have to bear the brunt of arms-twisting tactics that mostly put things on the reverse gear. At the same time, it exposes lack of coordination and cooperation between and among ministries. The overall governance issue thus suffers with organised group taking undue advantage from the administration. In the process, the common people are held hostage to irrational demands. Thus the rule of law can never claim its rightful place in the life of people. There is always a tendency to skirt around the law. This breeds illicit dealings and corruption. Not a very enviable way of fostering democratic values in the collective body of society. Civilised administrations the world over are so because they are caring enough and accountable to its citizens. The administration here too needs to learn how to be accountable to little souls like Nusrat. In a country where 5-10 people are killed and 10-15 are left injured on an average everyday, giving a free hand to the drivers is a mockery with this serious issue. [email protected]