Devotees of law

Early this week, a drunk driver in Bangalore ran over and killed 3 employees of the General Post Office in Bangalore who were working on the night shift. So drunk was this media executive that he didn't even know he had run over these people. He reached home and slept. The sorry incident should have brought to focus the legislations for drunk driving, but it unfortunately has not. The only lament heard in the local media was that the presence of a canteen in the GPO premises would have saved the 3 people, who had to go out and use the canteen in the New Indian Express building across the road. Can this one man's behaviour justify imposing prohibition in Bangalore, the pub city of India?

Perhaps the pro-prohibitionists would say yes.  This gives them enough ammunition to make a case for keeping the ban on alcohol in Gujarat intact.

The same day, a woman (among many in the country that day) was raped in Gujarat. She was raped by a man. One man, who didn't value her life. So, can we please extend the same logic to this case and ban all men from the state as well? It would make the life of all women immensely safe. Since it is the men who are a threat to the women, they should be locked up indoors, while the women should be going about the town safe.

Would the pro-prohibitionists who use the crutch of 'Gandhiji's teachings' please raise your hands and agree that the above crime is also against the Mahatma's teachings and stop all men from being out and about, in case they might rape women?

For argument's sake, this might be too extreme an example. Let us look at another one: No pedestrian in Ahmedabad is safe, the footpaths are getting better, but in pockets. No two-wheeler driver is safe. Anything can happen! The number of road accidents in any city, not only in Ahmedabad, is sufficient ground to ban all motor vehicles from the road. They are a threat to humanity, not to mention the environment! But why do we turn a blind eye to the deaths on the road? Why don't we press for better public transport, safer traffic norms, tougher punishments against offenders? Because it is convenient to turn that blind eye. It is more comfortable to drive around in the AC cars, polluting the air, than to take public transport. So when convenient for personal comfort, we can ignore the pressing issues of our times.

The irony is that the same people who would go around professing such devotion to an archaic law such as prohibition in Gujarat, would not even whimper when someone breaks the law to rape a woman,  nor would they come forward to protest the breaking of the law on the streets every day. Many of them would perhaps be party to it!

The question is: should the drunk driver of Bangalore be punished for his dastardly act, or all those drinkers who drink responsibly and don't go around killing people on the road? Which of the two would make logical sense?