A Democracy called India

“Turn to Page 108, the Chapter on the Parliament of India” said my Indian Government and Politics lecturer almost in chorus with the cool winter wind. Since no heavy book had the fortune of finding any place in my bag, a friend passed me a spare book that she had. The lecture on the Indian Parliament started, my teacher discussing its importance and significance with reverence. Instead of flipping through the pages on the Parliament I scanned my memory for traces of similar classes I had attended in school. Still in the realm of these thoughts I heard frantic footsteps gliding through the tiled floor. Gushing with excitement a fellow student entered the classroom and announced that a trip to the Parliament had been organized by the college. This was for us to see first hand this idol of democratic worship.

As a student, this was the first time that I and many like me were to experience the abstract concept of our nation’s Parliament, and see it metamorphosise into concrete reality. The reason I say that this concept was abstract is because we had only seen the Parliament through images conjectured from books and pages and frequent news reports. It was on this short trip from college to the Parliament that I started my journey towards understanding my nation, the intense poise with which she stands and the problems that ail her.

One such problem is child labour. The Parliament has banned all forms of Child Labour under an Act and yet this loss of innocence continues. While traveling to college everyday I come across a little girl less than ten years old standing beneath the familiar traffic light. Everyday she hurtles towards halted cars as soon as the traffic light turns to flaming red. She begs for money using steel can wrapped with marigold flowers and adorned with Lord Shiva idols. She doesn’t come under the definition of child labourers because she essentially begs. But her friends sell books, magazines on the very same traffic light. Even after the Act is in force, children still work as domestic helps, necklace sellers and vegetable vendors. Why is there such a flagrant insult of the Parliament’s order? Surely things aren’t being done right.

Talking to these child labourers gives a sense of their unfulfilled wishes but undying spirits. Usually they don’t have the opportunity to study. Small classrooms started by some NGOs, proactive youth are too far and too few. Yet they are significant steps. But today we as consumers of child labour are at fault. Market economics dictates actions and events in our globalized world. Then if we cut the demand wouldn’t it actively uproot the supply? If we believe in the concept of no child labour and believe in equity, justice and democracy then we should certainly refuse to buy tea from a shop which employs child labour. Simply boycotting goods like crackers made out of child labour or high fashion garments which employ them effectively means the task be made easier for the government to enforce the Act. If we’re worried about the nexus between some government officials and child labour employers then we can use our Right to Information to weed out the fallacies in administration of the Act. Waiting for others to act on our behalf hasn’t helped till now and won’t help in the future.

Another trouble I see is that a rigid distinction between Urban and Rural in the minds of our planners and public alike has gained roots. Child labourers like the girl above follow their parents from villages to towns and from towns to cities in search of a better life. Cites are expensive to live in and usually migrant rural workforce don’t own any land in these areas. For shelter they construct slums, clusters of one room apartments to live in. In cosmopolitans like Delhi and Mumbai, spacious flats mute these slum dwellings. This is especially true when serious remarks and debates over migrant rural population and their stake in the cities are made primarily by the rich and affluent.

A skewed notion that the entire urban populace is “educated,” “cultured,” and “progressive” predominates. I can safely say out of my own experience that “urban” according to accepted views are middle class and upper class only. “Rural” are not only those who live in villages, but who also constitute the urban poor. This shortsightedness prevents us from seeing the causes that make the urban poor. Rural migrant populations are enticed towards cities for ensuring the illusion of a steady flow of income. I say illusion because in most of the cases just to get to cities means selling off prized ancestral land. The solution doesn’t lie in cutting off all access to rural workers towards urban industrial units so that they can’t make slums. This is a very dangerous alternative which would starve the majority of India’s population of the fruits of development.

Villages lie at the very core of our democratic framework. Then why not start development projects which would actually satiate their needs and desires and prevent migration in the first place? Usually ambitious development projects fail because of lack of effective communication between the planners and the receivers. In this case it is the Parliament at the centre and the wheat farmer who has just spent hours looking towards the sky for rain clouds. The amount of communication that goes through different layers of bureaucracy tends to tire the whole process with the ultimate outcome of the plan being distorted. If the bureaucracy at the village level who would administer the scheme, doesn’t have adequate knowledge and expertise of the plan then the developmental plan is bound to fail. An efficient system has to be established between the Parliament and the lowest cadre of administrative officials. Further a uniform concept for the whole of India is not possible. Plans should be made keeping in mind the diversity of needs and resources of different states.

The media is also at fault when it portrays Urban areas as modern India. An identifiable shift in media coverage has occurred, with rural areas increasingly losing weight to urban areas on this balance of scales. Rarely does news covering the lives of rural people appear in mainstream newspaper and T.V. channels. Often the ones that do appear are either based on superstitious beliefs, or famine relief. The possible solution in my view is the empowerment of the rural population with journalistic skills. The canons of journalism such as fair and balanced reporting may be compromised in this approach, but certainly the voice that will emerge will be awe inspiring. More importantly, rural people would be able to fill in the communication void existing due to lack of interest showed by mainstream media.

It is also unfortunate that our fourth estate has gone corrupt in its function of a watchdog. Occasional sparks of brilliance do show in events like the Jessica Lal campaign, but by and large topics like environment, global warming, wildlife depletion and governmental misdemeanor in saving them seldom get front page space. The fundamental dilemma that persists in the Indian media scenario today is the disfiguration of its role as a social crusader by strong forces of market economics. Thus the newspaper is now a commodity and the daily news bulletin a product, to be bought by consumers and sold by media retailers. Media cannot be treated as any other profession simply because no other profession has gained the respect as the Fourth Estate of democracy. The only way that the media can be made to wake up to this reality is through putting pressure on it by citizens. Just as the media informs public opinion, so does public opinion influence media decisions. Demanding for news pertaining to the environment or wildlife is as simple as the process can get. Ample forums like blogs, letters to the editors, citizen journalism are present to bring forth this demand.

What I have envisioned is what I try to practice in my life. The institution of the Parliament has not only wide powers within its ambit but also has wide responsibilities on its shoulders. However in the milieu of life we often forget that a democracy in its very essence is a system of checks and balances. Many times this system falters and all of us whether we are judges, lawyers, journalists, parliamentarians, engineers, rickshaw pullers, shop owners or farmers have the collective responsibility to support it. My journey as a student has just started, in the baby step I took from my college to the Parliament.