Shirking responsibility?
Heartrending scenes from the site of the bus crash near Kallarkahar the other day. Though nothing can bring back the poor souls who lost their lives in the gruesome accident, certain questions, as always, need to be asked. Such are the requirements of justice, closure and the law of the land.
With the evolution of the nation-state taking the course it has, governments the world over are looked at as distinctly paternal entities responsible for just about everything that befalls their populace. However, as fundamental a democratic duty as holding a state accountable might be, to ascribe every responsibility to the state alone is folly. As far as public discourse is concerned, the odds are always stacked against the state – the term being used here to denote the positive framework of governance itself, not just an incumbent ruling party – but it would do us well to realise the responsibility of citizens.
The Faisalabad school organising this particular study tour is clearly at fault here. By packing like sardines more than a hundred passengers, students mostly, on to a bus that was designed to carry a mere 72, the school displayed criminally lax standards. Moving on, the transport company and yes, the state regulatory bodies that are to issue fitness certificates to road-legal vehicles are to be blamed as well. Though it would still remain to be determined by forensics whether the brake fail of the bus was not compounded beyond control by the added weight in the first place.
The National Motorways and Highways Police, overpaid though its personnel might be in comparison to the grossly overworked “real” police, is a reasonably well-performing outfit. The gleaming uniforms might make them magnets for blame but the bus entered the motorway through one of the smaller interchanges and managed to pass through the net of patrolling officers. Not to encourage complacency of any sort in the NH&MP, or absolve them of responsibility, but just to rationalise the blame, a disproportionate amount of which the airwaves and vernacular press has laid at the feet of the force.
The country’s private education sector, as a whole, is grossly underregulated. It is hoped this particular incident sets that ball rolling.