How I lost 15 precious days of my life to Kejriwal's #OddEven2
Once upon a time there was a king, who wanted to shift his capital. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with his plan: the new capital was equidistant from all corners of his kingdom, far away from routes of invasion and close to lucrative trade hubs.
So the king wanted his citizens to move with him for their own good (or face the full brunt of the law). To make the journey comfortable, he planted shade trees, proffered free food, water and transport, made good loss of property, lined up free housing.
And, then he moved thousands of people - rich and poor, men and women, young and old, infirm and sick - seriously inconvenienced at losing their settled way of life and property, hugely resentful of the diktat from above.
History doesn't record what exactly happened to them on the 40-day march, just that thousands perished. By the time the king woke up and smelt the coffee, the new capital had turned into a graveyard and the old, a deserted ghost town.
I wonder if there was anyone in that kingdom who woke up to a new day ever with the same sense of liberation I felt when the odd-even scheme on Delhi streets came to an end?
Tch tch. Why did I think of Muhammad bin Tughlaq and his distressed citizens, some 689 years ago, just as Delhi finished its odd-even phase two? No, Delhi did not seem deserted (hey, wasn't it supposed to be?) through the last 15 days of April.
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Neither did Arvind Kejriwal want us to migrate anywhere with him (so what if many did trot over to Noida to buy an extra car?). And nobody died (well, hospitals did report a surge in heat strokes, but let us not blame the odd-even for it.)
Yet the image of the moustachioed sultan refuses to fade. Like his plan, there was also nothing fundamentally wrong with Kejriwal's scheme: he wanted clean air and congestion-free roads for his citizens. And if Beijing could do it, why couldn't Delhi? (Let's not think about the 600km subway in the Chinese capital or that odd-even cars are limited only one day a week).
So Kejriwal and his ministers carpooled or cycled to office, while 2,000 cops slapped violators with a fine of Rs 2,000. Extra trains and buses were announced (so what if 400 DTC buses break down every day during summer in Delhi?) Nearly 20 categories of vehicles and people were exempt. Kejriwal fought every day with rapacious auto-drivers and app-cabbies and spoke on FM every hour.
Yet he couldn't please snobbish-selfish Delhi. To begin with, there was no sign of the promised clean air. Instead, dangerous particles zoomed by 23 per cent, compared to the first fortnight of April, when the scheme was not in force. On April 24, harmful ozone levels hit a new high: 75 part rise per billion.
Meantime, Delhi citizens, famous for their jugaad enterprise, cheated big time: cars with fake and "reversible" number plates ran rife. Even the not-so-rich brought out two cars (how?) while many discovered "friends" with three-four cars, some of which they could use.
A spontaneous class war broke out between the "car-haves" and "car have-nots": "Thank God, there will be no morning traffic jams," some said. "How will we come to office?" others cried, while autos and app-based taxis surged prices and fleeced customers.
Hardest hit were the elderly. In a city with more than 12 lakh senior citizens, 80 per cent of whom feel "isolated," 56 per cent "insecure" and 40 per cent have problems with mobility - the odd-even scheme meant 15 days of home confinement.
Some had their cars poached upon by their children, some could not arrange for transport while some - suffering from arthritis, diabetes, varicose veins, hearing and vision impairment, not to mention depression - dared not step out of home.
Every life has its own story to tell. And my odd-even experience was particularly unhappy. Like the elderly, I fell in that category that Kejriwal did not have the time to think about: I am a female who cannot drive, thanks to high astigmatism in both eyes. My driver, an aam aadmi, took off for 15 days to attend a wedding in his village the moment Mr Kejriwal announced his scheme.
Surrounded by rampant constructions and blocked roads on all sides, I was refused by app-cabs repeatedly. My Delhi Metro experience was traumatic, what with over-friendly young male co-passengers. In my locality, autowalas ferried only shared passengers.
The nearby kali-peeli taxi-stand was doing such a brisk business that they could never provide me with cabs when I needed one. The only option I had was hiring a cycle rickshaw for Rs 100 for a 15min-ride over a highway, heart-in-mouth each time a Volvo bus zoomed past our rickety ride.
Can Kejriwal expect me to support his scheme ever? Does he mind if I compare him to Muhammad bin Tughlaq? My humble suggestion to my chief minister is to read up on a bit of history and understand its classic lesson: a king, a state, a government cannot interfere too much in people's lives.
It's what Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, wrote as early as sixth century BC (People are satisfied no matter who is on the throne, so long their private affairs were not interfered with). It's what Kautilya, the canny Mauryan minister, wrote in his Arthashastra. It's what Niccolò Machiavelli warned the "Prince" about in 1513 ("Avoid the hatred of the people by not disturbing them in their private lives"). It's what English philosopher and father of democracy, John Locke, wrote in 1689 ("Citizens are free to pursue virtually whatever course of action and whatever lifestyle they choose").
We really don't need an Orwellian Big Brother for a state.
And, what's more, we have the support of our Constitution fully with us.