When people do dangerous things just to get social media likes, the punishment should be tough
If you visit a wildlife sanctuary and think it’s fun to chase a gazelle in your SUV, you shouldn’t be there in the first place. A gazelle is a protected wild animal, and chasing it is both cruel and illegal. So it’s good that the Ladakh administration punished a group of tourists for breaking the rules over the past two weeks. One of them even drove an SUV into Pangong Lake. But the punishment should have been tougher.
The authorities took away four SUVs and later gave them back after each owner paid a fine of ₹50,000. That sounds like a lot of money, but it may not stop people from doing the same thing again. After all, the fine for driving without a Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate is also high, yet many people still ignore the rule.
Illegal off-roading has become a big problem in Ladakh. Since tourists will keep visiting until September, we’ll soon find out if the ₹50,000 fine works. If it doesn’t, the government should bring in stricter punishments. This is not about taking away people’s freedom. It is about stopping behaviour that can hurt people, wildlife and the environment. Visitors who damage nature are also bad for Ladakh’s tourism in the long run.
It’s also important to ask why some people behave this way. Many of them travel to these beautiful places not because they love nature, but because they want attention on social media. This is happening all over the world. In 2018, Los Angeles County said rescue missions in parks had gone up by 38% in five years. Many people were copying risky stunts they had seen online. Around the same time, dangerous stunts like jumping off buildings became popular in Russia.
Australia even has a name for people who commit crimes just to become famous online: crimfluencers. Some Australian states want stricter laws to stop this “post and boast” culture. Their ideas include forcing social media companies to remove such videos, giving heavy fines, and even sending offenders to jail for up to three years if they glorify these crimes online. India should also get tougher on these “performance crimes” before they become even more common.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
