Jamal Mecklai: The beginning of the beginning

Market Maniac

The astounding success of the public campaign to prevent the government from emasculating the Right to Information Act is an inspiration. It shows how a group of loosely-knit (ragtag would be the less elegant word) activists and interested citizens""just plain folk""were able to get the government to do their bidding. To be fair, the media also played a significant role, but for the media's role to be effective, it needs""to use a market term""an underlying, something showing clearly that the people are interested. The media, after all, is a business enterprise and, like any enterprise, needs to be sensitive to the needs of its stakeholders.

In any event, the experience shows that in India today""all the inefficiency and corruption notwithstanding""democracy does work. And a working democracy is what we need to sustain economic growth and to find ways in which to make the distribution more balanced.

Of course, to make democracy work continuously the empowered citizenry has to be (more or less) continually active. And this is perhaps the greatest value of the Right to Information Act""it makes being active relatively simple. So, please, go forth and exercise your right to information. As often as you can. Again and again. And again.

There certainly are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of things you encounter every day that make you wonder why/how they happen. Take the time to find out why. Ask the municipal corporation why, for instance, the road dividers at Marine Drive were suddenly being painted two days ago. Ask the Reserve Bank why the Tarapore Committee report, which was submitted on July 31, has not yet been made public. Ask the police why the public parking that was committed for Nariman Point was converted into a mall. Who approved it? Was the due process followed? And so on.

The specific questions are not important. What is important is to participate. Democracy is not just about voting and forgetting about it. We all know that but the refrain usually goes, "But whatever can I do-o-o-o? What difference can I make?"

Well, boys and girls, you've just seen it. With nary a whimper, the central government took the issue of exempting file notings from the RTI off the agenda for this session of Parliament. Note that the war isn't over""this is simply the first battle in this single point agenda. And we need to be ever vigilant. If, over the next few months, thousands""tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands""of citizens were to actively use the RTI, the government would have no choice but to""firmly""bow to the will of the people.

But this should be just the beginning. The easy capitulation of the government is a sure sign that the structure is actually looking for citizen support. We need to raise more issues that are important to us, and demand that the government act according to our diktat""we are their masters, after all.

For instance, there has been a horrendous increase in intolerance, in what is called "moral policing", in recent years. Great Indians like M F Husain have to stay overseas to avoid the embarrassment of on-again off-again harassment. The film industry has to deal with incomprehensible foolishness""banning of cigarette smoking in films, banning of a wide range of content on the broadcast media, and so on. And adult citizens of the country have to put up with boorish constraints on their behaviour.

This isn't Afghanistan under the Taliban; it is democratic India in 2006.

None of these horrible politically motivated efforts will stand up to either constitutional or sensible scrutiny, provided, of course, they are challenged by the people.

Freedom of expression in the arts has been ruled on by the Supreme Court as far back as the 1950s, when some other set of fools brought suit for obscenity against another great painter, Akbar Padamsee.

The purported reason for banning cigarette smoking in films can be much more effectively addressed by once and for all banning surrogate advertising""I mean, what is this nonsense about playing cards and drinking glasses.

And as to permitting citizens to eat, drink, play when and where they like""let's just look at other major cities like London and New York, which make nearly 20 per cent of their annual budget from tourism. Let's understand that Bombay is already the focal point of both domestic and global interest. And rather than wasting energy (and generating payola) in keeping unnatural closing hours for bars and restaurants, let's recognise that investing in arts and entertainment infrastructure is perhaps the best ticket to revitalising Bombay.

We need to take inspiration and a leaf out of the book of the RTI campaign. Write to every politician/bureaucrat you can find. Talk. Meet. Talk. Be loud. Be aggressive. Be a citizen.

And let's drink to the beginning of the beginning.