Why India lacks Civic Sense?

"Is the issue of civic sense actually an issue of space between people?"

Key words: civic sense, population liability, space, privacy, emotions and opinion etc.

Today, while traveling in the general compartment of an Indian Railways train, I had a moment of clarity. Cramped shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, sharing more than just physical space — emotions, sounds, smells, even silences — I realized something: India’s so-called 'lack of civic sense' is not a failure of values. It's a result of collapse — the collapse of space between the individual and the collective.

We often complain that people don’t respect boundaries, privacy, or opinions. But maybe the real issue is that boundaries don’t exist in the first place. In places like the general coach, there is no personal space. You're not an individual — you're part of a human fabric, tightly woven together. So when someone asserts individuality — by asking for silence, or claiming emotional space — it feels like an anomaly, even a threat. Not because people are uncivil, but because in that moment, there’s no room for separation.

When everyone is crammed into the same emotional and physical space, the idea of ‘civic sense’ becomes alien — maybe even elitist. Civic sense, after all, assumes you have something to guard. Here, you don’t. Everything is shared: suffering, anger, kindness, laughter. Empathy doesn’t vanish — it transforms into a raw, unspoken resilience.

Maybe the failure isn't in the people, but in the design — of cities, systems, policies. Civic sense is born not just from moral values but from environments that allow dignity, distance, and choice. And until we create that space — literally and metaphorically — what we call a ‘lack of civic sense’ might just be a coping mechanism for collective survival.

Please do comment to discuss further for better India.