Uber incident exposes a culture of irresponsibility

The rape of a 27-year-old woman by a Uber cab driver in Delhi, apparently a man with a history, has again ended up with our seeking bandaid responses rather than real cures. Real cures need commitment and stamina and a willingness to play for the long haul; bandaid is easy to offer as an instant solution so that we can all forget about it and get on with our lives.

The Home Minister seems to think a ban on radio cabs and catching the culprit brings his job to en end; others argue that bans don't work and, anyway, why should something be banned when customers were apparently happy with radio cabs, which gave them freedom from dependence on unreliable autos and wayward kaali-peeli cab services?

Yet others suggest that putting a GPS system on every cab and strict checks on drivers’ antecedents are keys to a solution.

We should, of course, do many of these things, but we are committing two fundamental errors in assuming that a problem is being solved.

Whatever we do, it is unlikely to make things more than marginally better for two simple reasons: the issue of women's safety is not only about cabs; and, two, no matter what rule you now impose or how good your regulatory efforts, the problem cannot be solved unless the community takes ownership of it. Providing safety may be the government's job , but it not only the government’s job. It is also the job of companies, NGOs and citizens themselves, among many other stakeholders.

To deal summarily with the first point, let's assume that with tough policies and strong implementation we are able to make cab rides safer for women. But can we be sure women will be safer in other web-based transactions – leave alone at home or in police stations? Thousands of people buy and sell stuff on sites like OLX and Quikr. If you are selling your old sofa-set for a song, you will have unknown people walking into your living room to examine it. Who can guarantee that the people who come are genuine buyers and not men looking to take advantage of the next defenceless woman?

Uber, OLX and Quikr are all technology platforms, and technology platforms take almost no responsibility for things that go beyond bringing buyer and seller together.

This brings me to the larger point I want to make: we can't really address any general problem, much less the problems of citizen safety, by adopting a culture of deniability and irresponsibility. We want power and wealth and profits and lower costs, but we also want to avoid responsibility for our choices at all costs. This applies as much to consumers as to producers, technology platforms, companies and their regulators.

Cn a government, however, dedicated and competent, protect every man, woman and child born within its territory all the time? Can parents leave the education and care of their children entirely to nannies, schools and coaching classes? Can governments just mandate schools to accept more students from the poorer sections.

(which is what the RTE is all about) and then ignore the 90 percent of schools it runs in the state sector? Some 10 percent of schools have to improve education when the 90 percent of schools directly under government control can't get the job done? How responsible is this?

Can companies think technology will provide all solutions, and that they have no responsibility for what happens to their customers and their employees? Can ordinary citizens think they have only rights and very few responsibilities?

The culture of irresponsibility is now deeply embedded in society.

Companies think they must work more with technology than employees in order to avoid labour laws or having to handle difficult "human" beings.

The only point of consensus seems to be this: technology will solve the problems that we don't want to be responsible for as human beings.

Technology cannot be a substitute for responsibility. The bottom line is this: all actors have to re-imbibe the spirit of responsibility that goes beyond disclaimers and duties that you cannot legally shirk. The key is a realisation among all actors - citizens, government, corporations and civil service organisations - that rights cannot be enforced without a greater sense of responsibility in all of us.

By: R Jagannathan