Catching the social: And not missing the bus

As the Non-Motorized Zone (NoMoZo) initiative progresses toward its third installment, there are two broad cautions that is appears we need to keep in mind. The first is that without the leaders of this initiative indicating quite clearly the direction they intend to take, and the larger principles that animate the initiative, NoMoZo could well turn into just another feel-good event organized at regular intervals. There is no doubt a larger intellectual framework for the project and it would be worthwhile to share this with the larger public, both those who turn up with such enthusiasm for NoMoZo, as well as those who do not. This act of sharing would impart to NoMoZo, which already brims over with popular energy, a democratic element, in so far as democracy ideally involves an element of information and consciousness. Without these two elements, an initiative, no matter how popular, would remain merely populist.

The second caution that we would need to address, and one that this column will spend some time on, is that of the response that a good amount of persons involved in the exercise seem to toward the perceived goals of the project. Where the goals are being demonstrated to be to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads of Panjim, the solutions being offered by these enthused members of the citizenry are largely technological fixes. Thus, the solution to the  swarm of traffic that currently clog Panjim’s roads are held to be the banning of vehicles into the centre of Panjim, the introduction of trams and bus routes, the adoption of cycles; and to resolve the parking crisis, the creation of multistoried parking  facilities.

This column will suggest that while technological fixes are necessary, they can only be a part of the solution, and perhaps in the final analysis a rather small part of the solution. Any comprehensive solution, we would argue, must necessarily take the social into consideration. We mean a number of things when we say ‘the social’. First, that there is not only the need for a change in social attitudes, but we need to ground our efforts and suggestions in the NoMoZo in an empathetic view of the society we live in.

An empathetic view of our society would commence with the idea that recognizes that our society is extremely status conscious, and that vehicles, both two-wheelers and four, are marks of having arrived socially. They are indicators of our social and consumptive power. Having recognized this, we could make a distinction between people who have held power for a substantial amount of time, and now spend money in purchasing either one (or more) vehicles (for each member of their family), and those that have spent blood and tears and have put together enough money to purchase their first motorcycle or first car. It would be quite alright for us to suggest to the first category, that enough is enough, they might as well start using cycles and public transport; while on the other hand, to tell (either directly or indirectly) those who have only just got their first vehicle, that their desire is bad and that they need to move to cycles and public transport, especially given the state of public transport in Goa today, would be positively cruel. As was argued in an earlier column, even while we attempt to reduce the number of vehicles on our streets, NoMoZo, would have to effectively recognize that the purchase of vehicles is fueling a social need of the claiming of respect, and this is something that we will have to live with.

A second way in which we have to ground our dreams for NoMoZo, is to recognize that Panjim enjoys a certain relationship with the peri-urban spaces around it. A vast majority of the people that use Panjim as an urban centre do not in fact live in Panjim, or even around Panjim, but often at great distances away from Panjim. It is going to be practically impossible to tell them to use cycles in Panjim, even if one makes provisions for the public transport system leading into Panjim to be fitted with cycle carriers. There is simply no way in which we can enable so many people to use public transport to transport their cycles into Panjim. In such a case, we need to recognize that alongside the creation of reliable public transport within the city of Panjim, we need to also create a system of reliable state-wide public transport that allows people to travel between Panjim and their homes and back with the greatest of ease possible.

The Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar seems to have got this little detail right. In a recent interview he indicated that unless the manner in which the bus-system operated was changed, how could he expect people to give up their air-conditioned vehicles and travel by public transport? Mr. Parrikar, may also have been the force behind the brilliant innovations of the Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) some years ago; in particular the shuttle services between the main cities in Goa. For those who wanted to abandon their vehicles at home and travel by public transport (even if not air-conditioned) this was a dream come true. As with all things however, the system slipped after its initial enthusiasm, becoming extremely unreliable. The questions that NoMoZo should ideally start encouraging the public to pose is this, can this system be pulled back to its former ‘glory’? Can this system be replicated by creating hubs in larger villages from where one can catch similar shuttles into the major cities in Goa? Thus, for example, could we take a shuttle from Aldona to Panjim or Mapusa, instead of having to travel to Mapusa and then taking the shuttle to Panjim? More importantly, does this system necessarily have to be led by the KTC, or can we ensure that the private bus operators are able to fulfill this function effectively? Mr. Parrikar may in fact be the right person to set this process in order, given not only his much-lauded desire for instituting discipline, as well as his sympathy for some form of privatization. It is when we take an empathetic view of our society, that we would believe that it is possible, under the right combination of incentive and punishment, to get the existing entrepreneurs to work in the larger public interest. Our general attitude would invariably be to dismiss these entrepreneurs as irresponsible and uninterested in the public good. If NoMoZo is about giving our cities another chance, it should also encompass giving our people a second chance.

An empathetic view of society would understand that making NoMoZo a reality is not simply about asking people to take pledges to give up something, nor about offering technological fixes for our problems. It is about recognizing that NoMoZo is really a popularly led policy initiative, and like all policy initiatives, needs to be based on a comprehensive understanding of the society it is seeking to benefit. Understand the needs of the society, the constraints that force people to act in particular manners, and one will not need people to see the changes as sacrifices. On the contrary, they will automatically embrace the proposed changes.

With luck to NoMoZo’s third installment, scheduled for Sunday, the fifteenth of July on 18 June Road.

(A version of this post first appeared in print in the Gomantak Times dtd 11 July 2012)

Fighting for space: Streetside vendors and urban design

This column on an earlier occasion remarked on the absolute frustration with the lethargy, cynicism and callousness that marked the Kamat model of governance that gave the current government its lease of life. With the election of the Parrikar government there has also been unleashed, as a result of the same frustration, a variety of utopian initatives, not least of which is perhaps the Non Motorized Zone (NoMoZo). This column will deal with two other expressions of this utopian drive, both of which are, like the NoMoZo, concerned with urban design, and the experience of life within the city. The first of these expressions is the suggestions contained in the O Heraldo column of Daniel F. De Souza on the twenty-fourth of May, and the second, a YouTube video petition articulated by Joegoauk Goa, an anonymous visual archivist.

De Souza begins his column by pointing to some of the very real traffic problems that plague the city of Vasco da Gama. He points to the disregard for parking rules that see two-wheelers using space reserved for four-wheelers, and to the unsettling tendency to overtake from the left. It seems however that De Souza saves his best ire for last, when he takes on the presence of roadside garages and makeshift repair shops on the streets of Vasco, charging them with not only being eye-sores but also with posing an inconvenience and hardship to the general public. De Souza argues that by conducting their business on the sidewalk, these shops are forcing the pedestrians off of their rightful space on the footpaths and onto the road and the path of the disorderly traffic and endangering the lives of these pedestrians. 

The video petition of Joegoauk has a similar problem with persons that make a living on the sidewalks and by the sides of roads. His video draws the attention of the Panjim Municipal Corporation the Chief Minister (also MLA of the city of Panjim) to the number of hawkers vending everything from fish, vegetables and plastic toys, amidst the buses and commuters at the Kadamba bus terminus in Panjim.

Both these interventions in the public sphere are motivated by a similar logic, suggesting that the roads are for traffic, the side-walks for the pedestrians, and that the hawkers and vendors, and others making their livelihood off the streets ought to find some other place. Indeed, this is the suggestion that De Souza makes at the end of his column, indicating that the Mormugao Municipal Council ought to identify a location, and then relocate all the makeshift repair shops to that one single location. In making this suggestion De Souza is treading on a well-used path, given that this was a logic that was used in the relocation of the gadey from various parts of Panjim to one single location.

Before differing with the logic that both these gentlemen propose, it should be acknowledged that De Souza does have a point with problematizing the existence of the vehicle repair shops/ garages, though his logic differs from mine. It is true that these enterprises do interfere with the use of the sidewalk. However, the larger problem is that because their presence is not accounted for by the urban-planners or city-council, the highly toxic waste that they generate is unsuitably handled. Invariably the oils and grease they reject stain the ground and find their way into ground water and other water bodies, and other material waste fails to find a route for appropriate waste disposal. The most significant problem with these garages is that they externalize the costs of our usage of vehicles, since the environmental damage that is caused by aging vehicles is not accounted for. Were these garages forced to fulfill norms laid out by the State and municipal bodies, the cost for these norms would have to be borne by the owners of vehicles, giving us a sense of the real cost of our usage of private vehicles that currently dominate our streets.

For all his good intentions however, De Souza’s logic does not seem environmentally responsible. On the contrary, it appears that his logic, and that of Joegoauk, would in fact eventually result in a greater usage of vehicles and the associated environmental resources. In arguing for clearing the streets of street-side vendors, both these individuals subscribe to an urban-planning logic that has created the suburb in other parts of the world. This logic designs urban spaces by their usage, segregating shopping, business, residence from each other, and forcing people to use motorized transport to move from one location to another. Where there is no system of public transport, this results in high use of private vehicles. Simultaneously this same logic designates the street for vehicles able to move at high speeds, and sidewalks for pedestrians only.

There are many problems with this form of urban design, most significant of which is that it does not correspond with the realities of life in India. This reality is one that includes a history of densely populated, multi-use living spaces, as well as the poverty and markedly unequal distribution of wealth. Urban design models that segregate urban use from each other, assume the existence of a prosperous, and middle-class inclined toward high consumption. In forcing the use of private vehicles, this model also spells the death of integrated communities, creating the conditions for crime and social dysfunction.

Both De Souza and Joegoauk, probably have cities like Dubai and Singapore as their models for what our cities should look like. This is not an uncommon desire among the Indian (and Goan) middle-class. We should however keep in mind the words of the RahulMehrotra, and architect, urban studies academic and practitioner who recently authored “Architecture in India Since 1990.” In a recent interview he pointed out that “Looking at Dubai or Shanghai or Singapore as metaphors not only undermines the fact that we’re a democracy but it also undermines the fact that the poor even exist in our cities.”

Street-side garages and vendors exist in our cities not because we are an indisciplined nation, but because these are forms of urban life and commerce particularly suited to the manner in which our society is currently socially and economically structured. These vendors are those who cannot set up shops, and they cater to those who cannot or are unable to visit shops in the course of their daily life. Having a vendor, whose prices do not include a substantial overhead makes economic sense for these consumers. Indeed these vendors are making our society more productive and efficient, and exist only because there is a need for them.

Rather than hounding these vendors away from the streets therefore, rather than criminalizing their presence, there is a need to see how we can effectively integrate them into urban design. De Souza hits the nail bang on the head when he asks the municipal body to address these issues, stressing that the general public needs these services. However, we should be clear that the presence of street vendors is not a problem, that our cities and roads should be seen as spaces shared by pedestrians and vehicles and that urban models designed for undemocratic, wasteful societies are not blindly implemented to our collective loss.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times  30 May 2012)

No…Mo…Zo! Taking Urban space back to whom it belongs

About a fortnight ago, citizens of Panjim city and from various other parts of the State celebrated a Non Motorized Zone (NoMoZo). By all descriptions, NoMoZo was a grand success, overwhelmed by a huge turn-out of people who flocked to the stretch of Dayanand Bandodkar Road around Campal that had been blocked off for traffic. This NoMoZo then turned that stretch of road into a playground for the citizenry, allowing people to walk across the road, to cycle, to skate, little children to use their tricycles, for the road to be used as canvas for temporary art-works, for playing community games and the like. There was, as was to be expected, some amount of chaos as a result of the traffic diversion, especially where people were unaware of what exactly was going on, but by all reports, this chaos was not substantial.

In the afterglow of such success however, and especially because of the various interpretations of the event that are going around, it is important that we refocus on the agendas that could legitimately animate NoMoZo. One of those supporting the NoMoZo for example, suggested that having Campal free of motorized traffic for a couple of hours was the point of the exercise. “It would look so nice.” The fetishization of traffic-free spaces in elite neighbourhoods however is not the point of NoMoZo. On the contrary, the NoMoZo movement has plans to reconvene next, on 18 June Road, the throbbing heart of Panjim city, on the eighteenth of June. The fetishization of vehicle free roads eventually takes us down an elitist path, justifying the good old days, when only a few people had vehicles. This is categorically not the aim of NoMoZo that has a much more sophisticated relationship with traffic.

There is no denying the fact that since everyone wants and has a vehicle, the traffic in our cities is getting out of control. It is leading to road rage, and the destruction of our cities through the expansion of roads and the consequent demolition of homes and livelihood spaces. One has to also recognize however, that the result of this growth in private vehicles has been the boost in self-image and the social assertion of the owners of these vehicles. This growth in vehicles then, was a part of the democratic project. However, because it is the democratic project that is our goal, and not the growth of automobiles, we need to take this democratic urge forward, by equalizing the playing field and encouraging more people to travel in public transport.  One of the critical goals then, is to boost the use of comfortable, safe, reliable and efficient public transport, transportation that is intended for more than those who cannot afford private vehicles.

The first edition of NoMoZo effected a ban also on the entry of public transport into the demarcated zone. This may be a useful step in the short run, but if public transportation for all is to be our larger goal, it is important NoMoZo be open to including the passage of public transportation when it is in progress. There are a number of reasons, in addition to the discussion above, why this should be done. First, it would encourage, what is admittedly the currently callous way of driving public transport, to discipline itself. Given that NoMoZo is about pointing out that the first citizen of the urban space, is the pedestrian, and not the vehicle, it would train the bus drivers and conductors, to give the pedestrian right of way. Too often unfortunately, might has become right in our society, allowing larger vehicles to mow down smaller vehicles and smaller people. NoMoZo should therefore, actively create an environment where the pedestrian is king. The second reason to allow for public transportation when NoMoZo is in progress, is because it will make people realize that there is a middle-path between using private vehicles and walking; reliable public transportation. If people are annoyed that their thoroughfares are blocked to their vehicles, we should be able to indicate to them, that there is the option of public transport that they can use. Ideally, the State and city governments should use NoMoZo as a way to introduce people to the new mass transit systems that they should start implementing. Also, given that as of today, public transport is used by those with no other option, to evict public transport, when a democratically inclined event like NoMoZo is in operation would be surreal step towards making it just a one-off picnic for the ‘hi-fi’!

There is another cancer that has been eating into our urban life that NoMoZo is ideally located to deal with. This cancer has been the steady abandonment of our public spaces and their falling into disuse, as we retreat to finding entertainment in private spaces.  This trend marks the slow death of society, and the eventual rise of a climate of suspicion of the neighbor. A significant contributor to this tendency is no doubt our increasing use of private capsules to shuttle from one private location to another. Add to these capsules the currently fashionable air-conditioning and our disconnection from the public sphere is compounded. What NoMoZo does is to rekindle the threatened community spirit by taking us away from the private capsules into which we retreat, and back into the public spaces that were being abandoned in favour of private spaces. There will be many who will acknowledge that participating in the first NoMoZo, on the  thirteenth of May, ensured that there are a couple of more faces that they now know in Panjim city, and can smile at, as a result of participating in the community events that animated the event. 

It has to be acknowledged however, that the determined recapture of our public spaces has been a project at least in Panjim city, with the Campal Creek project, the many musical performances at the bandstand in the Jardim Municipal, and many others. While speaking of concerts in public spaces, it should be pointed out that another one of the triumphs of NoMoZo was the use of non-amplified music. Where road-rage is initially released through raucous honking, there is also something disturbing about our indiscriminate use of loudspeakers that foul the public sphere. Toward this end, NoMoZo is also laying the ground for a renewal in the manner in which we conceive of the use of the public sphere.

  

One of the better learnings from NoMoZo however, came from those who, rather than participating in the fun activities that formed the core of NoMoZo, performed the volunteer’s tasks of redirecting traffic. What became increasingly obvious to these volunteers was the kind of effort that goes into a traffic policeperson’s job. A job that has to deal not only with exhaust pollution, but noise pollution, and more often than not the disrespect from motorists. This disrespect involves the refusal to budge, especially when directed by police-women, to vacate no-parking zones; the blithe jumping of red lights; and the refusal to wait patiently in line, but rather resort to individual attempts to cut the traffic jam. Perhaps with more citizens volunteering to manage traffic, we would be able to develop an empathy with the often maligned police forces, returning to labour the dignity that is so often snatched from it?

Goa is fast becoming the victim of its own success. While the growth of real-estate developments are evidence of its success as a destination to live in, the growth in traffic is a success of the society flush with funds. The problem with the latter however, is that we have entered a spiral where the pedestrian is not privileged, and it is the vehicle that has the right of way on roads.  The person has been displaced to locate the vehicle as the appropriate subject of the urban space. Thus we engage in this unending expansion of roads, and see our urban space, not as places to live and play, but as places to park and drive vehicles. NoMoZo is such a welcome move to put the social actor back in the spotlight.  To all those who worked toward making the first NoMoZo a success, thank you, and may your work see fruition. 

Viva NoMoZo!

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times dtd 23 May 2012)

Rough Notes: Attempting sight from the other side.

Some weeks ago, short on the heels of the election of the present set of legislators, a friend questioned what would be the implications of a BJP-ruled State. There are a number of responses that could be provided to this query, and one of them would be; ‘Who knows? As of now, it looks as if it is not a BJP-ruled state, but a Parrikar-ruled State.’

The claims being made for life under Parrikar, are nothing short of utopian. Take for example, the rather encouraging discussion, penned by a Veeresh Malik, of Parrikar’s ‘controversial’ reduction of the cost of petrol. Malik’s argument is that this decision by Parrikar, one that has been labeled populist by some, and fool-hardy by others, is in fact nothing short of laying the ground for the utopian in Goa, given that it “is a brilliant move to plug revenue leakage caused by smuggling petrol into Goa and by adulteration of petrol with kerosene; and the first step to improving transport services.” There is no space in this column to discuss Malik’s arguments, but they bear a good read, and perhaps evaluation by political-economists who are more capable of a serious evaluation, not just of Parrikar’s controversial action, but of Malik’s analysis as well. 

An earlier installment of this column, discussing the election campaigning, had suggested that there was a danger to this singular focus on Manohar Parrikar. The danger is that Parrikar ‘(T)he man is no longer addressed as just a man, but per force becomes… the target for the larger claims that are being made on his behalf.’ In other words, when Parrikar is discussed, the discussion is not about him, but his name is merely a platform for other discussions. The same caution holds good for the utopian expectations that are being pinned on the new Chief Minister, and perhaps the claims that are being made for him (if not by him). To promise, or to encourage utopia is a double-edged sword, since we cannot ever really reach this magical space, even as human progress is necessarily predicated on our striving for it. More practically, what very often happens is that when our utopian ambitions fail to materialize the golden boy of one moment, becomes the whipping boy and scape-goat for the next. A good dose of realism therefore, even as we strive toward these utopian goals would be very much in order.

To change track momentarily, but only marginally, a lesson learned in the course of shifting from being a student of law to that of anthropology, has been that rather than judge from predetermined positions of right and wrong, black and white, (as the lawyer is wont to do); one should be open to listening to what the people one is working with are saying. Rather than dismiss what they are saying, because it does not fit into our preconceived notions, the anthropologist must strive to make sense of what they are saying. This exercise, to be sure, requires some amount of interpretation, but at the end of the day, it requires us to carefully sift through popular discourse and listen for the sounds we have not been expecting to listen to. It was such an ethic that caused this column to make a turnaround with regard to the politics of the controversial representativecurrently from Santa Cruz, and then from Taleigão. The politics of Mr. Monserrate, that may appear offensive to some, are in fact the liberatory politics of others. We may not agree with it, in deed we may see problems in it, but we cannot deny the fact that his returning time-after-time to legislative power is indicative of the aspirations of a good amount of people. The democratic imperative does not require us to silently agree with the majority opinion; it does however require us to positively engage with it, compromising at times, countering at others, but always, as in the anthropological exercise, giving respect to the groups one is in conversation with.

This is not to suggest however, that this column will turn into another roll of fanfare for Mr. Parrikar. (pause for smile). What this column will however attempt to do; is to inquire what one is to make of the utopian (and other) responses to the helmsman-ship of Mr. Parrikar. In other words, is there another way of looking at the situation, that isn’t Jeremiad?

As many have already suggested, the victory romp of the BJP into the Goan Legislative Assembly should not necessarily be seen as a pro-BJP wave, but an anti-Congress wave. Let us take the statement beyond the obvious however and point out that perhaps this is more than just a motion against a particular party, but indeed against a particular kind of politics that amply marked the period of Congress rule in the state for the last five years.  Perhaps there is too great an awareness of the fact that regardless of its rhetoric, the BJP once in power, could fall victim to similar patterns of behavior. It is for this reason then, that there is this fervent acclamation of Parrikar. Given his personal credibility as an honest person, and an efficient administrator has never really been suspect, Parrikar can be very easily read, as indeed he is, as more than just a member of the BJP. He is being read as the harbinger of radical change in the Goan polity.

It is this demand for a difference that is perhaps the single-most interesting feature of these obsessions both for and against Parrikar. Clearly Parrikar has become the symbol of a desire for change, and is being presented with a wide variety of agendas that diverse segments of the population wish to see fulfilled.  There are equally other groups that are opposed to these agendas, or simply opposed to Parrikar (both as an individual and as representative of the agendas he stands for). These diverse opinions are finding voice and will necessarily battle it out in the public sphere. They will first acclaim Parrikar for the change that they hope he will bring. When he is unable to, or does not, or simply fails, for no fault of his own, but for larger systemic reasons, to meet up to their expectations, he will be bitterly criticized. This will launch another round of soul-searching, discussion, introspection. This kind of discussion, this public hankering for change, and the demand to see it realized can only be good, in terms that it will, for better or worse, ensure that there is no business-as-usual in our otherwise petty Goan republic. It will mean a public sphere alive with discussion, and charged, after that long winter of ideologically-poor, and opportunistically rich, politics. This much we can expect during the time of Parrikar as CM. And even if for this reason alone, it appears that his presence must be welcomed, like the bitter pill that purges the system of rot.

(A version of this post first appeared in the Gomantak Times dated 10 April 2012)

Rules of Engagement: When People Aren’t Smart Enough for Democracy

Following close on the heels of the close of elections, the link to an article, with a rather disturbing suggestion, found its way into my inbox. “Democratic elections” it suggested, “produce mediocre leadership and policies.” This startling assertion was made a Prof. David Dunning, psychologist at Cornell University, whose research apparently demonstrated that “incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas.”  Prof. Dunning is represented as having argued that given that most people do not have the mental tools to make meaningful judgments, “no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. His final cut was even worse, where he suggested that "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is".

One could agree with Prof. Dunning to a limited extent. Most people do not in fact possess the mental tools to recognize the sophistication of certain ideas. Thus they simply fail to see these ideas, and address these ideas at the most basic level. But we will come to this point later. The first point we need to deal with is the basic flaw in Prof. Dunning’s work, which is that "The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it.” This may be one of the arguments for direct democracy, but it is not a foundational argument for democracy that rests on the idea that every person must have a say in the way they are to be governed. The work of people like Dunning is part of an elitist and rightist move, prevalent the world over, and also visible in Goa and India, where we would like to restrict the role that ‘the people’ and their legitimately elected representatives play in democracy on the grounds that they are ‘uneducated’ ‘unqualified’ or such like. We would rather have persons who are ‘educated’ and ‘capable’ (this is of course being just another variant of that annoying upper-caste, anti-Mandal argument of ‘merit’).

There is no doubt that most of the people may be making choices that in the long run are deeply detrimental to the status quo; but this is one of the compromises that one makes when one enters into democracy. For the sake of the principle of justice involved in allowing everyone a say in the way they are governed, we acknowledge the possibility that things will not always go our way. In doing so, we also acknowledge the possibility that our way is not necessarily the best way. Indeed, as one scholar pointed out, one the benefits of having a minority is that they often  preserve options that the majority may not be particularly inclined to think about at a particular moment in time.

The beauty with a democratic setup however, is that merely because one has given up one’s right to make the choices all the time, one has not surrendered all of one’s options. Given that democracy is also about the right to argue one’s position and persuade others, democracy is also a profoundly pedagogical system. Indeed, the great Euro-American bourgeois democracies prior to the Great War, and subsequently the welfare democracies after the end of the II World War were substantially based on education. This pedagogical exercise was not limited only to schools however, but extended to creating a public sphere where people outside of privileged backgrounds could imbibe what were essentially aristocratic and bourgeois ideals and sensibilities. Museums, opera houses, public parks, all of these ensured that a certain sensibility was imparted to persons who could not earlier ‘see’. A good amount of this exercise rested on philanthropic work given that these elites recognized that the continuation of the status-quo rested on the creation of a group of people who even if they could not see as clearly as the leading elites, would at least acquiesce to the decisions that were being made.

What Dunning’s work represents is a certain global breakdown of this earlier democratic strategy, in the face of neo-liberalism and the growing trend toward privatization. Part of the new strategy now rests on confirming the absolute, congenital even,  impossibility of certain groups to participate in democracy, laying the foundations for the nakedly oligarchic control of the State that must definitely follow. One could still follow the Greek ideal and call it a democracy, just as we are prone to calling the communidade- gãocaria system democratic, but both these system rested on forced and unfairly unremunerated labour.

In Goa, there was a valiant attempt, in the shape of the Konkani language movement, and led to a large extent by the Konkani Bhasha Mandal to follow this European ideal of forging a public with a common (Konkani) consciousness. The trouble with that effort was its timing. The period of crafting a common language as the basis of a (sub) national democratic public had long past. Furthermore, given the cussed parochial tendencies of the KBM and other Konkani language groups, anything that did not fit into their idea of what Konkani or Indian could be, was cast out. This was especially mistaken because of the sophisticated tastes of the average Goan, open to, as a result of so much migration, influences from all over the subcontinent and the world. Add to this the supercilious caste prejudice that only a certain kind of Konkani could be Konkani and they sealed the fate of their project.

In a Goa where we lament so much about the ‘bad’ choices that the ‘common’ man is making, it behooves those of us who moan and crib to engage in a project of education of these masses. There is no doubt that choices are being made that will lead us down the road to hell. And yet, there does not seem to be a broad enough consistent effort to engage these masses with a larger pedagogic project. A project that while being philanthropic in nature is decidedly not populist. On the contrary when one does have opportunities, like the IFFI for example, one sees the resort to that old Roman strategy of  Panem et circenses, where rather than encouraging the public to engage with nuanced cinema, they are treated to a common carnival.

One particularly noteworthy effort however, that runs contrary to the prevalent strategy, is that of the D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas. Despite the debatable caliber of more recent speakers at this festival, it is one of the more interesting attempts at engaging the public, especially given the size of the audience it manages to muster. One wishes however that this festival either traveled across Goa, or that other towns in Goa saw similar festivals of such caliber.

In sum, while it is true that not all start with  the capacity to make reasoned and nuanced decisions when faced with electoral or other political choices, this lack is not a congenital impediment. It is one that can be rectified though a systematic engagement with these groups where we hope to win these groups over to our point of view. When they fail to be won over however, rather than turn around and blame the democratic system, we need to recognize that perhaps there is a reason why our point of view is not being accepted in the first place, and go back to the drawing board. In short, we would need to suck it up for the moment, while continuing with the longer project of public engagement.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times dtd 6 March 2012)

Newspapers and democracy: On stings, advertorials and ethics

Despite all the good that they bring, in terms of revelations of the dirty underbelly of our society, governmental operation or otherwise, there is always this nagging feeling that all is not quite right with the route of the ‘sting operation’. Our legal system, like most today, is based on the centrality of the conscious subject. Thus for example, one cannot compel an individual to give evidence against oneself. Despite the unpopularity of this idea among various segments of people, to do otherwise would result in fairly authoritarian systems, which would absolutely undermine the freedom and dignity of the individual.

Faithful readers of the Gomantak Times will realize that reference is being made here to the sting operation conducted by the journalist Mayabhushan Nagvekar against the ‘paid news’ services that the O Heraldo seems to offer. The point of this column is not to condemn Nagvekar for his operation, nor to hastily condemn the O Heraldo before the whole episode has been investigated and run its course. The aim of this column is to explore the suggestions made by the editor of the O Heraldo in his response, to Nagvekar’s charge.

The editor's statement to the allegations by Nagvekar, published on the website of MXMIndia,  suggested that ‘Herald is the only newspaper which used the tag “advertorial” on top of their news pages so that the difference between editorial and advertorial is clearly established.’ This suggestion seeks to draw a line between the practices effected by O Heraldo and other newspapers. The editor is suggesting here, that in doing so, O Heraldo, is in fact the more ethical of the pack. If this is true, this is a fair statement to make. However, the question we should be asking is whether it is ethical in the first place to allow “advertorials” in a newspaper, whether indicated as such, or simply placed there for the unsuspecting to swallow, hook, line and sinker.

It appears that we are not surprised today when a newspaper is seen as a commercial institution, geared toward generating a profit for its owners. We must not forget however, that the newspaper has come into this position of being able to generate profit primarily because it served larger ends. This larger end was the creation of the informed public sphere, or civil society, the basis of the modern bourgeois democracy.  The very notion of the public sphere is based on numerous ideas of honour.  The idea that ‘the public’ is of value, is educated, thus worthy of honour demonstrated in the form of presenting one’s idea passionately, without guile or artifice. This presentation of an opinion also relied on the idea of the honour of the writer, the journalist, who staked his honour on this guileless presentation. Finally, is the idea of civil society, where unlike in the ancien regime where decisions were made without reference to the people, reached through private arrangements, governance would be effected through the results of open discussion.

The newspaper served thus as a mouth-piece for ideological groups, each group proclaiming its position, creating through this process of publication, and reading, and subsequent response, the public sphere, a democratic space that could be relied on by the Government to carry on its task of responsible and responsive governance. Profit comes late into this equation, initially as a means to sustain an initiative, and convert a good idea, into an institution. The newspaper sold itself initially on the idea that what was being presented was an idea, unburdened by guile, personal or corporate profit. Indeed, the respect, the almost unparalleled access that the journalist receives is based on this history, this expectation that the journalist is representing one’s honourable opinion, one based on convictions, not on other extraneous circumstances.

One would be hard pressed to suggest that the ‘advertorial’ matches up to this hallowed history. Under the set of circumstances that create the advertorial, the journalist is not someone who presents her impassioned opinion, or a balanced review of a position. On the contrary, the journalist is now a hired hand. You pay money to the journalist, and the journalist is commissioned like some portraiture artist to paint a flattering likeness of the situation or person being presented to the reading public.

There is another possibility however that does not violate the political traditions of the newspaper as an institution. This is when the advertorial is not crafted by a journalist who works at the newspaper, but is merely a public relations agent. The job of this agent is precisely to be this hired hand – though one hopes that such agents also have ethical considerations that animate them. In such a case, the advertorial is just another form of the kinds of advertisements that we encounter on the birthday of a politician, of national events when we are force-fed ‘news’ of the greatness of the politician whose anniversary is being celebrated, or of the government in power. To be fair, this tradition, with the dubious exception where the government places ads to lavish praise on the electoral party in power, is a valid exercise of the public space created through the newspaper. The purpose of the newspaper is to present a point of view, and if the fan-base of a political leader seek to demonstrate why they love him, this is a part of the newspaper’s political tradition. We need to remember however, that where the elected representative is treated as a king, relations between the representative and the electorate are not the ideal relationship one imagines where representative is responsible to the electorate, or to a wider public, but one between subject and King.

Where the advertorial steps outside of the political tradition is when it takes up editorial space proper. When money alone determines what becomes news and what not. In the cynical world of late capitalism this position may not be shocking, but as idealist democrats, we reserve our right to be shocked by this practice. We reserve this right to be shocked because the point of a democracy is that whether rich or poor, everyone has the equal right to speak and to be heard. In a democracy, the poor especially have a right to have access to institutional frameworks that will speak truth to power. When money begins to start determining what makes it to the editorial page and what not, then democracy is in big, big trouble. When money determines whether a citizen is able to prove her point, or not, then democracy is in even deeper trouble.

Given the age of the  O Heraldo, and the rich political history of Goa that it represents, we owe to it the opportunity of believing it when its Editor suggests that they were striving to be honest to the political traditions of the newspaper when they indicate whether an item in the newspaper is ‘advertorial’ or ‘editorial’. However, may we also suggest to the Herald, that perhaps this distinction that they employ is riddled with problems, and it behooves them to move beyond this practice that has so unfortunately taken root in our democracy?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 2 Nov 2011)