I thought the start of the year was the right time to voice this nagging assumption which has never been articulated or acknowledged. If the state appears slow, lethargic and perpetually “considering the matter”, perhaps it is expecting the citizens to compensate. Not protest. Not rebel. Just behave better. Act responsibly. Be mindful. Do the right thing.
It is an elegant, fantastical idea, a fragile one.
Osho once observed that society loves outcomes but avoids responsibility. Everyone wants order, harmony, and safety, but no one wants to own the systems that create them. Responsibility, he said, is fashionable only when someone else is carrying it. The moment it demands structure and discipline, the common man’s interest evaporates.
Today, governance is operating in a paused state. Announcements flow like the Brahmaputra in the rains, but the action is stuck in neutral. And in that pause, an unspoken hope arises: citizens will self-correct. They will not cut trees or create unauthorised structures. Neither will they overcrowd religious places nor bribe corrupt officials for personal gains. Oh, the enlightened citizens will not ever exploit climate, faith, or loopholes.
They will, somehow, be better than the system controlled by the people they have blindly entrusted to create.
Take agriculture. Year after year, distress claims farmers’ lives, and yet reform arrives in fragments, or the intended reforms are withdrawn on political grounds. The crisis is not seasonal; it is permanent. The response is seasonal support for the untimely end-of-life. The government expects farmers to manage climate risk, market volatility, policy uncertainty, and infrastructure gaps with resilience alone. ‘Jab zameen hi khisak rahi ho, toh sambhalna bhi jurm lagta hai’ (When the earth beneath is moving, balancing is a sin).
In all the major cities, monsoon water drainage collapses with ritualistic precision. Roads become rivers. Cars float. Lives are lost. Each time, the rain is “unexpected”, though it arrives on schedule. Water management remains a concept rather than a system. We, the duty-bound citizens, are told to adapt. To be patient. Remain indoors and work from home on these days, as if the city flooding were a personal inconvenience rather than an administrative failure.
Tourism and religious yatras present another paradox. We know that faith and footfall grow exponentially, yet planning lags behind. Crowd control is discussed after stampedes, not before. Capacity is discovered only once it has been exceeded. Devotion is encouraged; management is optional. And when tragedy strikes, hands fold, enquiries are ordered, and compensation is announced. Year after year, the drama repeats, and we continue to exploit the yatra for political and commercial gain. We attempt to create, at times, unwarranted infrastructure in the name of development and accessibility without understanding the long-term damage.
Animal welfare is a similar moral maze. Stray dogs, abandoned pets, sporadic sterilisation drives, emotional outrage, and policy confusion coexist comfortably. Pet ownership rises; accountability does not. Pet licensing is weak and rarely enforced, and pet insurance is rarer. Everyone feels strongly about the problem of human-animal conflict and issues, but no one owns the solution.
Road safety reveals the most profound contradiction. Lives are lost daily, yet laws remain unevenly applied across regions, enforcement is inconsistent, and accountability is inadequate. A centrally aligned, universal road safety framework that treats every life equally sounds obvious but in truth is ambitious. In its absence, we rely on awareness campaigns, posters, and hope. Apparently, Bhagwan Bharose governance is still governance.
And the pattern repeats. When systems hesitate, citizens are expected to fill the gap with virtue. If something doesn’t work, citizens are asked not to exploit it. If enforcement is weak, we are asked to self-regulate. If governance is slow, we are encouraged to file PILs, as if courts are customer care centres for administrative inertia.
But here lies the uncomfortable truth.
An average, well-meaning, overworked, status-quo-inclined citizen does not act ethically in a vacuum. Ethics needs scaffolding. Rules need clarity. Compliance needs ease. Complaints need resolution. Intent needs to be converted into visible action. Without these, morality becomes selective and responsibility optional.
We now know how this plays out. Nothing dramatic happens. We continue to write, and the media continue to cover such incidents. Debating. Arguing. Amplifying. Scrolling through horrifying videos and devastating reels on social media. We shake our heads, type angry comments, hit like, hit share, and move on.
The tragedy becomes content. Outrage becomes routine.
Osho would probably smile and say: awareness cannot be outsourced, but neither can governance. One without the other is an imbalance. So the question is not whether citizens should act responsibly. Of course they should. The real question is whether responsibility can survive without systems and whether governance can afford to keep waiting for ideal citizens.
And perhaps the final, quiet question belongs to you.
If your government were to act honestly and decisively on just one issue, what should it be? Asking them to take one thing at a time may work, though experience suggests that even such ambitious expectations will not be met.
Please specify the ONE ISSUE, AREA, or ACTION that your government must take.
Until action replaces announcements, we have learnt that silently adapting to government inaction and the new normal is our most efficient strategy. But then the question is: until when? Therefore, waiting until the start of the year to raise the subject is wrong. Keep raising it all the time—you can at least do that…
Sanjeev Kotnala is a brand and marketing consultant, writer, coach and mentor.
