Just Like That | Why Indians follow rules abroad but flout them at home
This has less to do with culture or DNA and more with weak enforcement, selective policing, and inconsistent state authority
Is there something in the Indian DNA that predisposes us to break the law—or at least to bend it whenever possible? At first glance, the chaotic swirl of daily life in India seems to suggest so. Traffic signals are treated as advisory opinions, civic responsibilities as optional virtues, and public spaces as the responsibility of “someone else.” Yet, the very same Indian who might dismiss a red light in Delhi becomes the model of compliance in Dubai or Singapore.
How does one explain this civilisational dichotomy? To begin with, let us dismiss any suggestion of a “genetic” inclination to violate norms. No credible scientific inquiry supports such a notion. The Indian genome is not programmed to break the law. What exists instead is a long-time legacy that influences how an average Indian perceives the State, authority, collective responsibility, and the very idea of civic discipline. Indians do not break the law because “we are like that only”. They do so because the environment permits it. The State is often inconsistent, and society rarely penalises the transgressor socially. Laws in India frequently survive only as lofty texts, divorced from the lived reality of enforcement.
Nothing illustrates this better than the behaviour of Indian motorists. Install CCTV cameras, automate challans, remove human discretion—and compliance shoots up dramatically. Suddenly, Indians who earlier treated traffic rules as negotiable become scrupulously careful. The change is instant, almost magical. Why? Because the certainty of detection is the only antidote to habitual non-compliance.
This is not unique to India; humans everywhere alter behaviour when surveillance increases. But in India, where discretionary enforcement has long prevailed, the certainty of surveillance dramatically increases compliance. We obey not because we believe in the moral sanctity of law, but because we fear the inevitability of being caught. This gap—between internalised civic morality and externally imposed compliance—is the heart of the problem.
India’s regulatory structures often lack predictability, consistency, and moral authority. This weakness is compounded by three realities. The first is selective enforcement. Laws are applied unevenly. The well-connected frequently escape, while the common citizen bears the brunt of overzealous officials. This erodes respect for the State. The second is cumbersome processes. Historically, many laws were designed less for governance and more for control. Bureaucratic rigmarole encourages circumvention. The third is poor infrastructure. When systems are dysfunctional—roads chaotic, civic agencies understaffed—citizens lose faith in the State’s capacity to implement norms. In such an environment, rules become negotiable. People ask not “What is the law?” but “What can I get away with?”
Laws exist, but the ecosystem—transparent, impartial, unavoidable—is missing. The same Indians who might casually throw garbage on a Delhi sidewalk become paragons of public hygiene in London or Tokyo. They stop at pedestrian crossings, queue patiently, dispose of waste properly, and follow rules regardless of personal inconvenience. Nobody forces them. There is no sudden mutation in their DNA during immigration. What changes is the context.
When the State shows competence, citizens reciprocate with compliance. Therefore, when an Indian follows the law abroad, it is not hypocrisy; it is proof that behaviour is shaped far more by institutional strength than by inherent character.
Another issue that I often think about is why Indians keep their homes scrupulously clean while tolerating garbage piling up outside. Why does personal hygiene flourish amid civic squalor? This too is a product of cultural conditioning. For centuries, Indian civilisation has emphasised inner purity and household cleanliness over public sanitation. The “outside” world was not traditionally seen as a shared civic space but as territory maintained by others—historically, by so-called lower castes assigned manual scavenging and sanitation work.
This mental model persists subconsciously even today. We complain about garbage but hesitate to reform the behaviour that creates it. We demand civic order but rarely perceive ourselves as participants in creating it. Delhi’s towering garbage mountains—Ghazipur, Bhalswa, Okhla—are not merely environmental disasters. They are symbols of a civic culture that refuses to see sanitation as a civic responsibility. These mountains exist because waste segregation is widely ignored, municipal systems are overburdened and under-resourced, and neither the State nor the citizens are overly concerned about these monuments to filth.
Our popular culture often romanticises rule-breaking as cleverness. Widespread corruption validates that sense of cleverness. When rules are firm, institutions strong, and society united in enforcing norms, Indians become model citizens—whether in Singapore or in the well-monitored zones of Indian cities. The challenge, therefore, is not to change the Indian genome but to reshape the Indian milieu. The transformation of civic behaviour will come not from preaching or punishment alone, but from building a society where laws matter, public spaces are valued, citizens are responsible, and governments far more accountable and responsive than they are today.
(Pavan K Varma is an author, diplomat, and former member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The views expressed are personal)
Is there something in the Indian DNA that predisposes us to break the law—or at least to bend it whenever possible? At first glance, the chaotic swirl of daily life in India seems to suggest so. Traffic signals are treated as advisory opinions, civic responsibilities as optional virtues, and public spaces as the responsibility of “someone else.” Yet, the very same Indian who might dismiss a red light in Delhi becomes the model of compliance in Dubai or Singapore.
How does one explain this civilisational dichotomy? To begin with, let us dismiss any suggestion of a “genetic” inclination to violate norms. No credible scientific inquiry supports such a notion. The Indian genome is not programmed to break the law. What exists instead is a long-time legacy that influences how an average Indian perceives the State, authority, collective responsibility, and the very idea of civic discipline. Indians do not break the law because “we are like that only”. They do so because the environment permits it. The State is often inconsistent, and society rarely penalises the transgressor socially. Laws in India frequently survive only as lofty texts, divorced from the lived reality of enforcement.
Nothing illustrates this better than the behaviour of Indian motorists. Install CCTV cameras, automate challans, remove human discretion—and compliance shoots up dramatically. Suddenly, Indians who earlier treated traffic rules as negotiable become scrupulously careful. The change is instant, almost magical. Why? Because the certainty of detection is the only antidote to habitual non-compliance.
This is not unique to India; humans everywhere alter behaviour when surveillance increases. But in India, where discretionary enforcement has long prevailed, the certainty of surveillance dramatically increases compliance. We obey not because we believe in the moral sanctity of law, but because we fear the inevitability of being caught. This gap—between internalised civic morality and externally imposed compliance—is the heart of the problem.
India’s regulatory structures often lack predictability, consistency, and moral authority. This weakness is compounded by three realities. The first is selective enforcement. Laws are applied unevenly. The well-connected frequently escape, while the common citizen bears the brunt of overzealous officials. This erodes respect for the State. The second is cumbersome processes. Historically, many laws were designed less for governance and more for control. Bureaucratic rigmarole encourages circumvention. The third is poor infrastructure. When systems are dysfunctional—roads chaotic, civic agencies understaffed—citizens lose faith in the State’s capacity to implement norms. In such an environment, rules become negotiable. People ask not “What is the law?” but “What can I get away with?”
Laws exist, but the ecosystem—transparent, impartial, unavoidable—is missing. The same Indians who might casually throw garbage on a Delhi sidewalk become paragons of public hygiene in London or Tokyo. They stop at pedestrian crossings, queue patiently, dispose of waste properly, and follow rules regardless of personal inconvenience. Nobody forces them. There is no sudden mutation in their DNA during immigration. What changes is the context.
When the State shows competence, citizens reciprocate with compliance. Therefore, when an Indian follows the law abroad, it is not hypocrisy; it is proof that behaviour is shaped far more by institutional strength than by inherent character.
Another issue that I often think about is why Indians keep their homes scrupulously clean while tolerating garbage piling up outside. Why does personal hygiene flourish amid civic squalor? This too is a product of cultural conditioning. For centuries, Indian civilisation has emphasised inner purity and household cleanliness over public sanitation. The “outside” world was not traditionally seen as a shared civic space but as territory maintained by others—historically, by so-called lower castes assigned manual scavenging and sanitation work.
This mental model persists subconsciously even today. We complain about garbage but hesitate to reform the behaviour that creates it. We demand civic order but rarely perceive ourselves as participants in creating it. Delhi’s towering garbage mountains—Ghazipur, Bhalswa, Okhla—are not merely environmental disasters. They are symbols of a civic culture that refuses to see sanitation as a civic responsibility. These mountains exist because waste segregation is widely ignored, municipal systems are overburdened and under-resourced, and neither the State nor the citizens are overly concerned about these monuments to filth.
Our popular culture often romanticises rule-breaking as cleverness. Widespread corruption validates that sense of cleverness. When rules are firm, institutions strong, and society united in enforcing norms, Indians become model citizens—whether in Singapore or in the well-monitored zones of Indian cities. The challenge, therefore, is not to change the Indian genome but to reshape the Indian milieu. The transformation of civic behaviour will come not from preaching or punishment alone, but from building a society where laws matter, public spaces are valued, citizens are responsible, and governments far more accountable and responsive than they are today.
(Pavan K Varma is an author, diplomat, and former member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The views expressed are personal)
One Subscription.
Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines
to 100 year archives.
Archives
HT App & Website
