r/IndianCivicFails

Today cities like Bangalore are filled with potholes . Why not allow private citizens to fill up the pot holes near by their respective areas? Like let's assume the road in front of a appartment or a school or office is full of broken roads and potholes .... Then those flat owners can pool a small sum per head of Rs 1000 to 2000 and call apon some private road contractor to fill in those patches of road ... If done on city scale roads will be better and it can avoid fatal road accents due to potholes. Govt must do their job . If not at least they must allow people to do it ... Govt also will not care for people even if they die and they will neither allow people to solve their problems is very criminal in nature . Just a idea to change our lives..

I'm a second-year BVSc student and will be a veterinarian in the future.

During our first-year zoo trip, (@chhatbir zoo , chandigarh) my classmates and I bought some snacks from a small café inside the zoo. After eating, all three of my friends just left their used plates on a chair instead of throwing them away, even though there was a dustbin barely 10 steps away. I picked up all the plates and threw them in the dustbin.

One of the girls sarcastically said, "Ohho, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan." I didn't respond because, honestly, she was the one behaving irresponsibly.

Later, as we were exploring the zoo, one of my friends threw a biscuit wrapper straight into the bushes, despite another dustbin being just a few steps away. I picked up the wrapper and threw it in the dustbin too.

I genuinely don't understand what people are learning if they don't have basic civic sense. At least don't behave like this in a zoo. They were also shouting at the animals, expecting them to wake up and entertain us. It made me think, "Are you educated or not? Don't you have the basic civic sense to know where trash should be thrown?"

We spend a lot of time here discussing why others don't pick up their trash, but while we are here judging and shaming others, they are simply not going to learn that littering is a matter of public decency. Indians don't like to be told what to do and they will simply resist and continue their actions just to challenge others.

In the past year, I have politely asked people to pick up their trash and have suggested how to dispose of them responsibly. People are very receptive to intervention when it is stated properly. However, there are other points to note. When we see trash in a public park, for example, do we pick it up and put it in the bin? Many don't, because they didn't litter. One thing we can change about ourselves is how we participate in civic duty. When we see trash, we pick it up and dispose of it properly. I am not saying we should do the work of the municipality, but we can certainly go a bit further than what we are already doing. This will set a very good example. When others see us doing this, they will realize that there is no shame in this activity and will follow this themselves. Children will watch and learn. They will teach their parents. The government cannot bear the burden of educating everyone. We can start doing this today and make change.

What do you think? Have you picked up trash that was not yours? Did you do it in front of others? Do you think this can help change public culture towards responsible trash disposal?

I was at my friend's house since he needed my help with giving medication to his cat, so I go there daily. There's a wide desk in his home office which I use for loading medication into the cat's solid treats, and the cat is quite comfortable there so it's the best place to medicate without stressing it out too much.

Preparing the treats does make a bit of a mess (crumbs, small pieces, etc.) so once I was done, I cleared it up into the palm of my hand and while I was just about to throw it in the trash can in the kitchen, his wife suddenly remarked "Just throw it outside". Confused as to what she meant, I asked - "Outside?" and she told me to just throw it out of the window.

It's a gated community and the entire neighborhood is kept very clean and well-maintained by the staff, so it makes no sense to me why someone living in such a posh apartment would tell me to throw trash out of the window, especially when I was already about to go throw it in the proper trash anyway. To clarify, I asked "What if it falls on someone's head?" and she said "Let it fall" in a very dismissive tone.

She has a STEM PhD and did postdoc in Europe, and I'm baffled by the response. It's also not the first time when I've witnessed highly educated people behave this way. At this point, I'm not convinced anymore that education solves our problem with people not having any civic sense.

An indian grocery store in the usa. The scarcity mindset will prevent civic sense for generations. Why bother with order and queues..

Only singapore knows how to control this. Through canes and whips.

https://www.threads.com/@m.i.s.r._/post/DaVOtZPju6f?xmt=AQG0M9ndQ-j2aou1z31FQdw0Pmz8f0MnhUy0auhB5gl_m5TgHPge1RaDy310HNb3W0qywtI&slof=1

Does anyone else feel like Indian Reddit has an inferiority complex about how foreigners see India?

I've noticed this not just here, but on other Indian subreddits (even r/TeenIndia at times). Whenever a tourist shares a negative experience, the comments quickly become "our reputation is ruined," "foreigners must hate us," or "this is why the world looks down on us."

As an Egyptian, this feels really familiar because people say similar things about Egypt online. But my real-life experience has been very different. I've spent time at resorts and water parks where there were lots of foreign tourists, and they were mostly just... normal people. They were friendly, chatting with locals, swimming, relaxing, and enjoying their holiday. Even when I asked some tourists about visiting places like Luxor—which has persistent sellers and scams—they generally acknowledged the issues but didn't seem to hate Egypt or Egyptians because of it. They treated it as something to be aware of while traveling rather than judging an entire country.

I'm not saying we should ignore genuine problems. We should absolutely improve civic sense and address issues where they exist. But sometimes Reddit seems more anxious about foreign validation than the tourists themselves. It feels like people online assume every visitor is constantly judging the whole country, when many travelers are much more chill and capable of separating a few bad experiences from an entire nation.

TL;DR: Does Indian Reddit sometimes overestimate how negatively foreigners view India? It often feels like Reddit worries more about "our reputation abroad" than many actual tourists do.

I’m from South India and recently visited North India for the first time, specifically Mussoorie and Dehradun. While the scenery was beautiful, I was honestly surprised by some of the things I experienced.

Most of the tourists seemed to be from North India, and many people were speaking very loudly in public places. The driving was what shocked me the most. The road to Mussoorie is steep, winding, and not very wide, yet I saw people driving rashly. Some people were hanging out of sunroofs, and I even saw people sitting on car bumpers while the vehicle was moving.

I also noticed that casual conversations often included a lot of abusive language. In several families, people seemed to address each other using abuses quite casually, which was shocking to me.

Another issue was cleanliness. Many public toilets, including some in otherwise decent restaurants and cafes, were not well maintained. We also experienced catcalling, which was disappointing.

Something else I found frustrating was how little consideration some people showed for others. For example, people would walk right between photographers and those getting their pictures taken without a second thought.

The biggest disappointment was a waterfall we visited. The path down was filled with trash, had a bad smell, and the area around the waterfall was quite dirty. For a place with such natural beauty, it was sad to see so much litter.

Before this trip, I always felt that North India was unfairly stereotyped. However, I witnessed so many instances of poor civic sense that it genuinely affected my experience. I know these issues don't represent everyone, and there are plenty of respectful and responsible people as well, but this was honestly my impression from the trip. I've been meaning to journal my experience about the trip, but whenever I sit down to do it, these are the incidents that I keep remembering lmao