|
Metro Plus
Protest, at whose cost?
|
Rallies are often taken out by people, be they Government employees or the common man, to get their grievances redressed. But most often they end up disrupting public life. GOUTAM GHOSH wonders whether such protests serve their purpose.
|
WHAT SETS the people of Chennai apart is their irrepressible urge to drink tea at roadside cafes and to meet in groups.
Pedestrians, after sipping steaming, watery tea, walk some 100m to stop again at a tea stall for another round of what they vouch for is "good, hot tea." The linear consumption of half-tumbler teas at Rs. 2 a round takes care of hunger, in a way, but it loads the system with excess fluids. No wonder the pavements bear indelible marks.
Groups of young men and women skip classes and the security of hard, wooden benches to sit on scorching asphalt-topped roads instead. To demand justice and fair play. Women of Vyasarpadi carry empty pots in the crook of their arms, and not their babies, and sit on the road demanding water. Passengers gather to squat on the railway tracks when suburban trains are delayed or cancelled. Groups of boisterous men meet at wine shops to test the endurance of their livers, vocal chords and hearing, and gather on the roads with glasses or bottles in hand. The crowd is larger when the open-air eatery is partly hidden in a residential locality, just as at the blind end of 18th Main Road, Anna Nagar West. That police never take action against the wine shops for slyly running restaurants without permits or against winos who hit the bottle and the peak of their tempers in the open is probably as old a tale as the history of the State itself.
In almost every instance, others who are not as united as the groups, which are congealed by some common cause, are the one's who suffer. Police regulate the traffic, often cutting off a zone completely. It is different for VVIPs. Roads are cleared in advance to ensure their safe transit. After all, the lives of leaders are more important than yours or mine. For they allow us access to the conveniences, which they think we should get.
Imagine not being able to reach your office, college, station or airport in time. Many institutions have twin registers — one for the punctual lot and another for the latecomers. The Pavlovian response is perfect, and attendance registers disappear instantly at the appointed hour. Rarely is any allowance made for exigencies.
It is worse if one is caught while returning home. The stress is intense unless one can communicate over one of those sleek hand-held technological marvels, which are probably as light as a woman in white who can be blown with a whiff to somersault in thin air. And what if you are carting a dying patient or a road accident victim to hospital? You will just have to wait and pray. Because in Chennai, or for that matter in most places in India, vehicles with sirens — ambulances or fire-engines clanging their bells — do not get a right of way. And if the traffic knot is because of VVIP movement, the ambulance or the fire engine must wait. Who cares if children, old men and women are roasted in burning huts? The VVIPs must move safely and fast.
For the rest of us lesser mortals, we are motivated to believe that we can die only once and some day each one of us will pass away unnoticed and unsung: whether in a road mishap or by a stray bullet or a police baton hitting a nerve node, or worst, in an ambulance caught in a traffic freeze for free VVIP movement.
So when the Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association and the All-India State Government Employees Association met at May Day Park, Chintadripet, recently, to protest the price hikes - of milk and power - and the State's inability to pay bonus, it could have passed off as another meet to voice one's anguish.
What drove the rest of humanity up the wall was the law keeper's enthusiasm in isolating the 500-odd lot to the lush green park on a pleasant morning. The overreaction was evident as the road to Chintadripet was blocked at both ends — from Anna Salai and the bridge across the canal in the west. The caution showed itself - quite painfully to all near the spot that day — as traffic was regulated at both ends.
Those who had to reach home were asked to find some other way, but there were barricades at the end of almost every street leading to Chintadripet. Those who had to reach their offices on the quarantined stretch had to wait till the meeting was over. The vacillation of road-users, with some taking an impossible U-turn as soon as they saw the traffic police blowing their whistles and frantically waving some cryptic message in semaphore, knotted the traffic at the busy four-road junction near Casino theatre. The threats by and shouts of the harried traffic constables did not untie the knot. Luckily, police barricades near May Day Park had holes to allow pedestrians through the sterile zone.
What was the need for the overreaction? Why was there a fire engine from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)? Why were riot police present? Why were there groups of armed police personnel? Was it feared that some yellow-and-blue-badge wearing participants would try to set the park on fire? Or was it feared that some of the women would hurl stones at passers-by? What was the need for sterilising the zone?
The Madras City Police Act states, "The Commissioner... may... direct the conduct of all assemblies, meetings and processions in public places, prescribe the routes by which and the times at which such processions may pass; keep order in public places and prevent obstruction in the occasion of such assemblies... (Sec.41.1)" But with reference to the last directive, the police violated the law that they are supposed to uphold. Because they obstructed the free movement of traffic and prevented access to places of work or residence.
Section 41.5 states that "The Commissioner may... depute one or more Police Officers, or other persons to be present in any such assembly... for the purpose of causing a report to be taken of the proceedings." None was seen taking notes.
While the speakers breathed fire and ice into the microphone, hawkers relished the sales boom. People lazed on the grass; some snored while many munched on boiled groundnuts; others sipped lukewarm tea; some discussed office politics; many in the audience chain-smoked; not many bothered about what was being said by the white-clad lot.
And why obstruct traffic and prevent vehicles from reaching Chintadripet? Was it feared that the participants would damage vehicles or set them ablaze after being supercharged by the bland speech at the park? Or was it anticipated that some of them would hijack some vehicles to flee?
When the meeting ended some hours later, all the badge-flaunting people left quietly. Not because they belonged to a majority class — the law-abiding, discrete lot who would hate to be whisked away to a police station even for a minute.
The human resource structure of the Tamil Nadu Government closely resembles a candle with a very short stem (the top officials) and a wide, solid crust (or lower level personnel). The structure is hardly a pyramid. A spike will be closer to the reality here.
The Government cannot ignore its role in the thousands of litres of motor fuel wasted by all the vehicles which tried vainly to reach their destinations; the thousands of man-hours wasted by the association members who stayed away from work to laze on the lawns of the May Day Park; and the stress suffered by many who needed to reach somewhere but could not — because of the police cordon.
As for the impact of the assembly, the union leaders know that the Government will remain as unscathed by the deliberations and resolutions as a block of granite scratched with a pin. Will the Government withdraw its free supply of power and make the farmers pay for every kilowatt-hour they used? That could wipe out a major part of the budget deficit.
The question, therefore, is, who really cares about meets? The answer is simple; if it does no good to the majority, why meet?
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
|
