Chandigarh: Few Indian motor vehicles have acquired quite the awesome baggage of the four-wheel-drive Mahindra Thar jeep.Once celebrated as a rugged go-anywhere workhorse, its persona on Indian roads in recent years has morphed into eight parts macho status symbol and two parts vehicle. According to senior officials in the Union Territory of Daman, the Thar has emerged as a machine to shamelessly flaunt ‘ruffiangiri (ruffian-like behaviour)’ or ‘mafiagiri (mafia-like behaviour)’ – essentially, road bullying and aggressive misbehaviour behind the wheel.Consequently, these enduring misdemeanours recently led Daman’s Collector Saurabh Mishra to line up hundreds of Thar and Toyota Fortuner sports utility vehicle (SUV) owners, along with their vehicles, and make them to take a public safety pledge to drive safely, not perform road stunts, fit unauthorised silencers or lights to their jeeps, or darken their windows.Or, in short, not transform their vehicles into four-wheel assertions of their individual testosterone.Under official instruction, each Thar owner was also asked to pledge to avoid unnecessary honking and follow traffic rules and regulations. They were also encouraged to post their pledge on social media platforms, tagging Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, to persuade him to launch a nationwide campaign to restore the Thar’s good name as a respectable, law-abiding vehicle.Thar and Fortuner owners participating in the ‘Thar-Fortuner Sankalp Yatra’ and taking the Road Safety Pledge administered by District Collector. @anandmahindra #daman #damanpublicity #thar #fortuner #TharKaMatlabZimmedari #awareness pic.twitter.com/K62cTnQDDm— Department of Information & Publicity (@DamanPublicity) September 9, 2026Daman Collector Mishra was, in effect, carrying forward an argument made rather more bluntly last year by former Haryana police chief O.P. Singh. “The choice of car shows the mindset of a person,” Singh had declared in Gurgaon after repeated traffic offences by Thar owners. The Thar, he went on to state, is not a car; it’s a statement which says – this is how I am.Singh had further linked Thar owners to reckless driving, roadside stunts and hooliganism across North India, prompting a social media storm over class stereotyping and road safety associated with this jeep. It even led a Gurugram-based Thar owner to send Singh a legal notice, demanding a public apology and retraction of his comments.However, as a Thar owner myself, having driven one for over five years, I feel obliged to come to the vehicle’s defence.The Thar is perfectly capable of behaving itselfIn my experience, the Thar is perfectly capable of behaving itself and cannot be blamed for the sins and transgressions of those who drive it. Rugged, upright and rather difficult to ignore on the road, it certainly does not encourage ‘ruffiangiri’; that particular affliction or disorder comes with the driver. To further bolster this line of defence, there is no official study which in any manner establishes that Thar owners are any more reckless than owners of other vehicles.But an undesirable reputation of this kind, once acquired, is difficult to dislodge, and social media has only reinforced it, with Instagram and other similar online platforms awash with video clips of Thars speeding, swerving and splashing through mud, usually accompanied by suggestive, raucous music that only adds to the daredevilry of the vehicle. So much so that even when a Thar driver is doing little more than furtively seeking a parking spot anywhere across India, he is disingenuously portrayed online as little better than a forbidding menace.Yet, such stereotypes overlook a considerably less glamorous group of Thar owners – the older generation, including septuagenarians like myself, who remember when a jeep was bought because it was a jeep, rather than because it looked good on an Instagram reel. For us, the Thar has a different appeal: it’s a reminder of an earlier form of motoring – sturdy, uncomplicated and capable of going somewhere without first consulting an electronic menu that has become standard operating procedure in many of today’s vehicles.Meanwhile, this theatre of machismo is due largely to the Thar’s overall look – its high clearance, squared-off bodywork and, above all, its military ancestry, which traces back to the Willys MB, the ubiquitous American World War II military jeep immortalised in numerous Hollywood films. Mahindra first began assembling Willys in India in 1949, initially from imported kits, and thereafter licence-building the vehicle, but through successive civilian and military versions, it never abandoned the basic jeep formula.Over the years, an abiding romance grew around the open wartime workhorse, with its canvas sides, hard seats, obstinate floor-shift gear lever and engine that delivered a wallet-crushing five kilometres to the litre. This allure, which made even an ordinary outing in the Willys seem like an adventure and drew admiring glances from passers-by, persisted for long, eventually transferring itself to the Thar, which made its dramatic debut in 2010.Compared to the Willys, the Thar looked decidedly purposeful and powerful: it started without coaxing, was reasonably economical to run and combined competent four-wheel-drive capability with good ground clearance, a tough drivetrain and an ability to take in its stride the standard fare of Indian roads: potholes, broken surfaces, mud and rough tracks. Its elevated driving position also provided an excellent view of the road, while its relatively compact dimensions made it surprisingly manageable in teeming cities and surprisingly easy to squeeze into crowded parking lots in South Delhi areas like Khan Market, Defence Colony and even Lajpat Nagar.And, for all the attention its macho image receives, the Thar remains a practical and relatively sensibly priced vehicle, without pretending to be a luxury SUV. Its interiors are functional rather than indulgent, its controls uncomplicated and its mechanical hardware reassuringly straightforward. In short, it is a sturdy, versatile and remarkably dependable machine which, so far, has spared me the interminable roadside mechanical dramas that were once part and parcel of owning a Willys jeep.What some of its brash drivers choose to do with itNo doubt, the Thar’s misbehaviour in Daman is less about the vehicle than about what some of its brash drivers choose to do with it. The vehicle remains much what the old jeep always was: sturdy, capable and ready for the road, but its driver who decides whether the Thar leads to a clean deal on the road, or to the local collector’s office for a safety pledge.Many Thar owners also feel that their vehicles are being unfairly singled out for misbehaviour which, they argue, is hardly peculiar to them alone. Road bullying, reckless overtaking, unnecessary honking, illegal modifications and general disregard for traffic rules are hardly peculiar only to Thars – they remain endemic on all Indian roads.Why, then, they ask, myself included, does officialdom make the Thar the villain?Perhaps the Thar does not need rescuing from itself, but some of its drivers do. And if Daman’s road bullies want to turn their jeeps into symbols of ‘ruffiangiri’ and ‘mafiagiri’, that is hardly the fault of a vehicle whose greatest virtue is simply getting on with the mission for which it was created. After all, a Thar is only as much of an unruly ruffian as the one behind its wheel.