Imagining life in Delhi after 1 Jan: Odd-Even formula will make the 'India we don’t live in' more visible

It is tantalizing to imagine the changes our lifestyle in Delhi would undergo should the city-state government implement the policy of allowing odd-even private vehicles to ply on alternate days. It won’t just improve Delhi’s air quality, but also alter urban consciousness, and communitarian living, in inconceivable ways. Owners of cars don’t opt for public transport because they find it overcrowded, time consuming and tiring. But it is also true cars are indicators of social status, not the least because automobile revolution in India is still in its infancy. What model of car you drive defines your place in the social hierarchy. To lug it out in metros or buses tells the world that either you can’t afford a car or you are stingy.[caption id=“attachment_2536480” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Will odd-even formulae protect Delhi from pollution? AFP[/caption] Indeed, people don’t buy cars just because it makes life easier. Had this been true, people wouldn’t dispose their smaller models for fuel-guzzlers, which enhance comfort only incrementally, at least as far driving in cities is concerned. Often, people graduate to a more expensive vehicle as soon as their salaries rise. The Delhi government’s policy will compel car-owners to take the public transport to their offices every alternate day. It will undeniably diminish the importance of car as a status symbol. Since every alternate day the link between the car and social status would be snapped, people might discover that taking the bus or metro is no commentary on their social identity and status. No doubt, with car owners pushed into taking the public transport, Delhi’s buses and the metro will have greater class heterogeneity. There will be an intermingling of classes in the shared public spaces of Delhi, which has seen middle class citizens carve out exclusive zones for themselves. They have their malls, gated residential quarters, and air-conditioned cars which shut out the classes below them. It is perhaps also the reason why the middle class, post-liberalization, has increasingly become insular and lacking in empathy. From this perspective, we in the middle class will acquire a greater feel for others who don’t share our economic status. The India we don’t live in will acquire greater visibility. It is also possible the disproportionate influence the middle class wields over government policy might lead to a dramatic improvement in the public transport system. It is conceivable that car owners will have to rethink their daily schedule. No longer will we have the luxury of stepping out of home and into our car to drive to office. You will have to set aside time to walk to the bus stop or the metro station, even to call for the cab. Life will become increasingly rushed and exhausting. It will eat into the time otherwise reserved for leisure or family. And it will be worse for those – obviously, more for women than men – who return from office to cook for the family and supervise their children’s studies. But this will perhaps be balanced by other variables. You can no longer say, as so many do, “I am bored, let us go see a film or spare in the mall or catch a film.” The antidote to your mood will be in the last digit of the number plate of your car – it is an even digit, so you must remain home and cook a special meal to enliven your evening, or watch TV. Perhaps people might take to even reading. Your friend invites you to the party he is hosting next Saturday. The first thing you’d do is to check whether it is the day you can drive your car. No? Well, you tell this to your friend who tries to match you with another guest whose car has an odd number as the last digit. “So and so will pick you and drop you home,” the host says. To the party you go and the person who picked you up wants to hang around late. You are stuck, you are at his mercy – and you begin to learn that the art of tolerance, a word till now invoked every time there are differences of opinion on communal-secular issues. The search for convenience will have you go on a prowl in your neighbourhood, diligently taking down the numbers of cars. You have a car with its list digit an even number and you ask all those who have an odd digit whether they work around your office. He takes his car out one day, you on the following day – you strike a rapport you wouldn’t have otherwise. But it is possible your boss is a task-master and you have been held back at office for an extra 45 minutes. You come out and you see the man from your residential colony on whose car you took a ride has a scowl on his face. He says, “What’s wrong with this AAP government?” But you know it is a jibe meant for you. “Sorry,” you say. “Never mind,” he replies. Living will become a negotiation, which implies a relationship. It will mean having to live thoughtfully, in a measured way, which will stifle spontaneity. But that, you will be told, is a small price to pay for ensuring your children don’t die of pollution. Yet this car pooling might become a problem for working women, or for any of them wishing to return home late night. This is because of Delhi’s warped idea of gender relations. Delhi’s men have little sense of what constitutes harassment or, worse, they feign ignorance. Our public transports at night resemble a no-go area: they would undoubtedly menace women, definitely at 10.30 or 11 pm. It might make sense for the Delhi government to exclude women from its odd-even car policy. But the exclusion will be treated as a loophole. Families will discover women have been empowered, because they will have to depend on them to drive the car on the day it shouldn’t have been on the road. Perhaps housewives will learn driving to drop their husbands to offices. Perhaps the representation of women in the driver community will expand exponentially. Those who have chauffeurs driving them around will now wonder: should their salaries be halved considering they will be working for just 15 days every month? With the demand for cabs likely to soar, perhaps drivers will avail of loans to run taxis. You will have a new line demarcating car-owners - those who have cars and take cabs every alternate day, and those who have cars but take the metro every second day. For the first category, travel expenses will become a new expenditure head in the family budget. Indians, particularly Delhiites, are contemptuous of law, quite evident from the manner in which they save tax. You are already hearing a lot of chatter about possessing fake number plates. You can screw the number plate appropriate for the day to your car for driving it. It is feared people will buy a second-hand or even new car to beat the odd-even digit policy. This is elitism, no doubt about it, you will be told. After all, a large segment of Delhi’s population travels on overcrowded buses and metros daily. What’s so exceptional about car-owners that they shouldn’t undergo the harried experience of the aam aadmi? You will counter saying, “It is communist-speak. Do I need to share in the everyday hardship, just the way people in former communist countries were made to share in inequality?” The arguments will go on. Let us face it – car-owners are to Delhi’s air what the United States is to carbon in the atmosphere. In a way, Delhi’s pollution is a byproduct of the class inequality in the city. Like the United States, car-owners speak of the need to reduce emission and pollution, but don’t want to alter their lifestyles and experience hardships. We all know the US always has its way. It won’t therefore surprise if the fuss and fury of Delhi’s car-owners will prompt the government to abandon the odd-even digit policy after a few days of trial. (Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist in Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, has as its backdrop the demolition of the Babri Masjid. It is available in bookstores.)