Not just Power, even Horse Power corrupts

"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely "- the essence of a quote by Lord John Acton was originally in reference to monarchies which went on to wield power in a manner that was oppressive and ultimately resulting in revolutions. The world is no longer rules by crowns and thrones; but the concentration of power with one person has been happening time and again with military rulers and dictatorships. More often than not, these regimes collapse and revolutions led by citizens do happen.

While India has rarely seen such revolutions since the emergency, the Czars in India is a bit different. There is political power which resides with politicians, but is exercised to the full by at least a 100 people under them. The money power with an industrialist extends far beyond the limits of their family. Time and again, this power reaches you and me through their arrogance or acts which challenge laws and rules which apply to the rest.

But there is one area where almost every single one of us has become corrupt: thanks to a certain power vested in us as a privilege and not a right (used to be written behind a book style license). It is the privilege of a drivers licence. May be once it did certify that this person knows how to drive, today it also means this person has a license to chill, go for a thrill and hopefully not kill.

Let’s be honest; we all have driven rash at some or the other point. We do cut lanes, run red lights, ignore the yellow and the zebra crossing is actually a grey area with pedestrians. Many times, we have reasons justifying why we do so; while sometimes, it is actually unwarranted. Overall, we do end up abusing this privilege in ways more than one and in a way dominate power over someone who is not having the same at their disposal.

In the hay days of the License- Raj in India, owning a car or a scooter was something limited to only a small section of the Indian population. Limited choice options, controlled manufacturing and lack of easy access to finance and credit meant that the number of vehicles per family were less and hence also the traffic on the road. Almost everyone know their place in the hierarchy demarcated by their engine horse power: so a scooter was slower than a Yezdi while the Ambassador- FIAT could never outrun an imported car. I guess road rage was also mostly an unheard term then.

The 80’s era saw a super transition of sorts with cars and bikes getting affordable and easily available. The old guard of slow moving tanks like Ambassador- FIAT and Bajaj Super 150 were being replaced by zippier and trendy looking models from Maruti, Hero Honda, Yamaha and the likes. The cycle gave way to bikes and the biker turned car owners. But even though economic growth and access to finance has propelled consumerism to a new high, it is yet to make us aware of the fact that monetary power and its expression in the form of horse power are very different aspects.

I know the last lines were a bit over the top- but you can check this for yourself with a small social experiment. Stand at a signal where the only crossing is for pedestrians and observe what vehicles that stop at the crossing as soon as the light goes to red.  Repeat the exercise for five times and you will possibly confirm to similar results that I witnessed. Most bikers (70%) will not stop; instead will try to weave around pedestrians as they are crossing. Local buses or garbage trucks can be held back only if their way is obstructed by someone. Private luxury cars and private cars with drivers are most likely to stop (60%), so are cabbies and ricks with middle aged or older drivers (63%). For young adults of both genders, teenagers, cars with families- the numbers are just about 50:50.

My understanding from this is pretty simple. Bikers possibly rule pedestrians below them and actually don’t care. The same is true for buses and garbage vans as even when they don’t own the vehicles, they have the horse power. Drivers abide to rules, possibly coz they are still answerable to their employers. Cabbies are trying to just make a living and penalties don’t help their cause. For the rest; it’s all about the muscle and power under the hood that’s talking.

Very recently, a friend of mine was expressing his disgust about reckless bikers and the sheer ignorance and lack of driving skills for first generation car owners. In all honesty, it isn’t their fault coz their cars and bikes are an expression of their means and not skills. Yes, my friend and I have been fortunate to be having a car around us since birth, been bashed up for every scratch as we learnt to drive and actually took a driving test. We tried to hone it like an art rather than use it as means to vent our primal instinct; it was like the frontal cortex and not the limbic brain at the wheel.

Talking of limbic brain (also called the lizard brain), the best manifestation of our primal instinct is that we use SUV’s in cities. At a time when our cities are low on available parking space, we have car a of draconic size, with the driver perched at a position of vantage, an engine sounding like a T-rex chasing you, guzzles fuel like a blue whale and is built in a manner that will save the inhabitants and wreak havoc outside in case of an accident. Not to mention, the looks are often inspired from predatory animals and have names like Duster, Scorpio, Fortuner, Captiva etc. In a nut shell, the entire scheme is for dominating the streets by use of the horse power.

Though I have no clue where all this might go; but if the apathy, road rage and use of roads for defining why cars with powerful engines are called ‘mean machines’ goes on, we are likely to witness an expression of corruption via horse power that is likely to be so common that we shall even fail to recognize it.