You are waiting in your car for your turn at a toll tax booth. You suddenly witness some men heckling and manhandling the toll booth operator and vandalising the property at the toll booth. They are accompanying a local politician who was passing through. Disgruntled with the fact that they were asked to pay the toll, they began to argue that the toll is too high and the public is being exploited by charging an unreasonable toll fee. At the same time they are also warning others against paying the toll fee. However, the other people around you are keeping with themselves, without anyone coming forward to intervene. While you also felt that the toll was quite high, you believe that this is not the right thing to do. (a) Bring out the ethical issues in the case above. (b) What accounts for such an overt display of hooliganism in our country. (c) What is the course of action that you would take? Justify with appropriate reasons.

Stakeholders :

• Toll operator
• Me (as an onlooker)
• Exploiting men in the car
• With politician
• Society (other onlookers)

Ethical issues : (i) Threat to violence to register protests & breaking the public law

(ii) Other people not taking any action & keeping within themselves, letting the injustice occur as it is. (iii) Issue of high prices being charged by Toll operators on general public & profit seeking. (iv) Correct ways to protest in the country against reasonable grievances & in general lack of Grievance Redressal Mechanisms.

(b) Display of Hooliganism

• Delay in justice delivery which emboldens the spirit of hooligans.
• Empowered by strong political or influential backing leading to a feeling of impunity.
• Societal apathy against the violence & incapability of the victims to retaliate against the action.

(c) COURSE OF ACTION

(i) Go to the aid of the toll operator. It is my first duty as a human being to protect another life under unnecessary threat.

(ii) Ask the hooligans to stop the violence & not take the law in their hand. The law of the land should never be broken. Upon threats I can ask some of the fellow drivers to help me as they will also be motivated by my action of humanity.

(iii) Upon non-compliance, I'll try to call the regional police support through 100 so that situation can be brought under control.

(iv) In long term, I'll try to report such incident in media or other democratic platforms to bring the attention to the situation of increased toll charges. It'll help in regulating the price hikes.