Tossing Safety Aside

 Exactly two years ago, my friends – Sudesh Verma and Renu Kaul Verma – lost their younger son, 18-year-old Advaitha, in a drowning accident in Pawna Lake near Lonavala. In the aftermath of that tragedy, they realised that they were a miniscule percentage of families dealing with this anguish – drowning claims well over 35,000 deaths a year, and nearly 70 per cent are accidental.

The Vermas are now helming a campaign against death by drowning, through the Hemant Bala Advaitha Foundation, to raise awareness about drowning tragedies. They have drawn attention to the structural and institutional failures like lack of safety gear, safety systems/protocols and even rescue teams the day Advaitha drowned.

One and a half years later, the family of Yuvraj Mehta, the young software engineer whose car fell into a water-filled ditch in Noida in January this year, saw this being repeated. The rescue teams had five hours to save Yuvraj. They couldn’t. Another young life was lost to overall cluelessness and lack of preparation.

Sometime in 2016, after a spate of selfie deaths, the Maharashtra state tourism department and the Mumbai police had announced they would set up 16 no-selfie zones. However, according to this The Times of India report, things never moved beyond the discussion stage. A list was not even put together.

But is everything always about the authorities? Don’t we, as individuals, need to value and ensure our personal safety? The question does appear callous, but it needs to be asked.

And this needs to be said: being cavalier about safety has become part of Indian culture; it starts with individual actions and gradually gets collectivised. So even the authorities do little more than making the right noises. They know no one will demand accountability. Until tragedy strikes. And some time later, the outrage will die down and everyone will forget about it about the systemic issues.

An oft-trotted explanation is that India is a developing country, lacking the resources to invest in the necessary infrastructure and systems. But why does this not hold true for other countries with similar levels of development?

Related to this, is the argument that given the low education and high poverty levels, people lack awareness and are so caught up with basic survival that safety is an indulgence, if not luxury.

Even if one concedes this bizarre logic, it can only be in the context of overcrowded low income areas and slums. How does this explain the complete disdain for safety measures in middle class and upper middle class neighbourhoods, by people who have three or four generations of education  behind them?

When such people remodel their flats in which builders (government and private) have given three exits in a way that leaves only one exit, is it any surprise that a hotel in Hauz Rani in Delhi or a residential building in Lucknow had only one exit, trapping people during a blaze?

What can explain people dangling helmets from the crook of their elbows, to be donned only when a traffic constable is in sight? Or not donning the seat belt because, hey, I’m just driving to the neighbourhood market? Many car models now beep if the driver is not wearing a seat belt. So a market has emerged for buckles that can be inserted into the seat belt slot in order to stop the beeping. The mind boggles at things people will do – at additional expense – to avoid being safe.

This study by scholars from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and IIT Kanpur says India accounts for the highest number of selfie accidents and deaths. Another study  puts  a number to this: 59.8 per cent of selfie deaths are from India. People have fallen into rivers or waterfalls while taking selfies or pictures despite warnings from locals, been run over by trains, electrocuted while standing on top of trains and burnt when posing in front of burning buildings. Can authorities patrol every stretch of water bodies and train tracks? Will policemen and fire fighters have the bandwidth to notice and chase away someone who is taking a selfie before a burning building? Pilots of private aircraft often complain about politicians forcing them to fly in adverse weather conditions because the public cannot be kept waiting.As I said earlier, the mind boggles. 

After every tragedy, fingers are pointed at officials for taking bribes to turn a blind eye to various violations – from traffic rules to far more serious offences like flouting construction and fire safety norms. But it is always the offender who initiates the bribe, pleading for leniency. A neighbour who complains about a building violation is mocked and ignored (if not browbeaten); RWAs turn a blind eye. And then everyone outrages when some disaster happens.

Laws and the judicial system are blamed for cases dragging on for years on end, and for offenders and complicit officials coming out on bail. But there's no getting away from the fact that the initial offence was committed by the individual who offered a bribe to bypass a rule.

The Vermas have decided not to forget, but to work towards change. Apart from making authorities accountable, they are also working with schools and sensitising students about drowning accidents. Starting young is perhaps the right way. Because we need to change the safety culture in the country.

It is not going to be easy. Children learn something in school and go home and see their parents doing the exact opposite. Religious organisations can be effective in spreading the message, but public religious events flout every safety regulation that is there on the books. Authorities handle them with kid gloves to avoid the charge of `hurting religious sentiments’.

But we have to keep at it. Others need to take up similar initiatives, relating to traffic rules, building rules, fire safety rules. The change may come perhaps only in the next generation or the one after that. Better late than never.