Last week I wrote about the tourist who callously threw garbage into our sacred river Cauvery. The response was overwhelming. Thank you dear readers, for the support, messages and responses. Many of you felt exactly the way I did – the pain of watching our rivers, roads and beautiful landscape being desecrated.
This week, I want to raise another uncomfortable issue that may not please everyone, but I believe it needs to be asked.
Let me put some perspective in why we should be concerned.
- In 2020, the Farmers protest resulted in a daily loss of ₹ 3,500 Cr (source ASSOCHAM)
- In the 1980s, the Private Sector lost on average 505,000 working days per year, with the public sector recording half of that.
- There are strikes and protests everywhere the most recent being the youth-led “cockroach” movement. The latest and significant disturbance was fuelled by persistently high youth unemployment and recurring leaks of examination papers that threatened to derail the careers of millions of students, at a time when stability was the need of the hour.
On a much more diminished scale, Kodagu seems to be finding a new reason to protest almost everyday. Reasons – poor infrastructure (especially roads), elephant menace, inaction by the district administration, perceived inappropriate decisions, community disharmony….. some are also very frivolous. On occasion the grievances may be genuine but increasingly, “taking to the road” has become the easiest route to make the government listen. Maybe it’s effectiveness is beginning to wear thin with relatively disproportionate economic downsides to the public at large.
Therefore, the uncomfortable question – When does the right to protest begin to infringe upon the rights to everyone else? Kodagu needs to protest- but it also needs discipline in the manner of protest. Amidst the slogans, political gatherings, cultural assertions and road blockades, one cannot help asking are we really solving our problems or are we simply creating new ones for the common man?
There are many other powerful forms of protests through public hearings, petitions, delegations, peaceful demonstrators at government offices, symbolic protests, social campaigns and legal action.
Why should an entire town be punished because a department failed to do its duty?
From road blockades to disruption of business, has public space become a stage for political indulgence and indiscipline?
Political parties and organizations appear to be competing with one another to mobilise crowds, raise slogans and demonstrate their strength. But amidst all this noise, there is one question we must ask: is anything really getting solved? Or are we momentarily creating more chaos while the original problems remain – with (strangely) no follow-up action to achieve a conclusion to the problem?
Not so hilarious is another uncomfortable truth – How many people participating in these protests actually know what they are protesting about? How many have actually understood the issue? How many know the facts?
The dire need of the hour is:
- citizens who speak with conviction, without silencing everyone else.
- leaders who mobilise people without paralysing public life.
- an administration that listens before people are forced onto the roads.
- And we need a system where a citizen does not have to block the road to prove that his or her problem exists.
Imagine an ordinary morning in Kodagu.
- Students on the way to school.
- Workers rushing to their plantations/business.
- Farmers taking produce to the market.
- Patience rushing to hospital.
Suddenly their road is blocked. They may have absolutely nothing to do with the issue yet they are made to pay for it with their time, fuel, money, patience and sometimes even their safety.
Why should the common citizen suffer for the failure of the administration and thoughtless action by a few vested interests?
Protests cannot become the permanent substitute for governance or lack of it. If the same issues keep returning followed by another protest, further memorandum, followed by another assurance…. then something is fundamentally wrong.
Why should the road – the lifeline of thousands become the mock battlefield every time?
A summary of our discussions at the news desk suggested interesting outcomes.
- what do our political leaders and their team really think of the job they are doing?
- Is it possible for the district administration and the dynamic leaders to share their annual work plan and priorities with the public?
- We assume that legislators’ primary responsibility is to keep their constituents happy. But what if they don’t agree with that assumption? After all they do have their ubiquitous “high command”!
THE POSSIBLE SOLUTION
From the grass roots level, hold a periodic (say quarterly) meeting from the Panchayat/Block Level upwards where progress against a pre-determined annual plan is openly discussed. After all they are answerable as “Public Servants” for the posts they occupy and in the money that they have been trusted to spend on our behalf. There should be nothing more satisfying than to hear accolades of a job well done.
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