Mumbai's right to party: Why no one gives a damn

“Who are these people, Akka?” asked my driver as we pulled into Cubbon Park in Bangalore earlier this month. He was pointing to a bunch of kids standing in a corner wearing masks. I spent the next 15 minutes explaining one, the nature of online political content; two, the efforts of the government to censor the same; and three, the importance of freedom of speech in a democracy.

At the end of my convoluted explanation, Selvaraj, an exceptionally bright man, remained mostly unimpressed. The right to call some politician an ass**** on Facebook, or circulate cartoons mocking them seemed trivial, if not suspect. He could understand a rally against corruption or the government, even the wrongfulness of arresting people who attend such a rally. But he was mostly bemused at the sight of a bunch of upper middle class folks insisting on their freedom to say what they want on a website – one that most Indians would likely never read. Those silly masks didn’t help either.

[caption id=“attachment_355010” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Facebook news feeds are peppered with updates by cynics amused at the prospect of an upper class andolan.”]  [/caption]

Besides, Selvaraj’s lack of interest seemed to be shared widely by most of his fellow citizens, including the very people who claim to care about such things. The turnout at the Anonymous-driven rallies earlier this month was abysmal. All that social media excitement did not translate into boots on the ground. Everyone F-liked the idea, just not enough.

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“[T]he turnout didn’t help dispel the ‘slacktivist’ tag that has dogged internet campaigners - only 50 people turned up in the capital with over 1,500 marked as coming and even more marked ‘maybe’ - the few who did said the real work gets done online,” noted India Today.

The “slacktivist” spectacle is likely to repeat itself again this weekend, this time in Mumbai where a “Save Mumbai Night Life” protest is scheduled for Sunday, June 24. The cause for outrage is the recent spree of bar raids led by ACP Vasant Dhoble who has single-handedly put a crimp on the social life of young Mumbaikars.

My Facebook news feed is peppered with updates by cynics amused at the prospect of an upper class andolan. One source of general hilarity is this Mid-day item by a friend: “Five to 10,000 protestors are expected, there will be a jail bharo initiative if things get messy and effigies of the three men seen behind the recent bar raids are expected to be burnt.”

He is betting that the number won’t cross 500 – and no one is willing to take him on.

Of course, there is much more at stake with internet censorship than just one cartoon or an anti-Sonia FB page. And as Deepanjana Pal points out in her MumbaiBoss column, it’s morality not conscientiousness that drives the anti-nightclub intitiative – despite Dhoble’s protestations about “only doing my job”. Why enforce laws on alcohol or music with such nitpicking vigour when the same cops routinely ignore a multitude of greater sins on a daily basis?

But the fact – bitter as it may be – is that politics is a numbers game, a fact, Mumbai’s Commissioner of Police, Arup Patnaik, underlines with great satisfaction:

Out of around 1.5 crore people, how many people can actually even afford to enter such places and have a drink… maybe a thousand-odd. I am not here to serve them, but the rest of Mumbai.

It has become fashionable for people to gang up and criticise Dhoble on the Internet, as it would not look cool to approve of the raids. When Dhoble was wielding his hockey-stick and cracking down on gambling, liquor and prostitution dens in areas like Kamathipura, these people were happy. But now that he is also raiding five-star hotels, this hip-hop set finds it shocking that this pandu (constable) can enter such places and take action against them. It is an affront to them.

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Ah, there it is: the class card. And it works very well because what matters here is not the just-ness of the cause, but its relevance, or lack thereof, to the lives of most Indians. Arup Roychoudhury makes much the same point about the Anonymous protests on Reuters.com:

One has nothing against freedom of expression or the need to protest for virtual rights. But there is a need to put the protests in the context of India. Then maybe those who were disappointed by the turnout and complained of apathy will understand that a protest against internet censorship is a non-issue here…

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How many people are affected by any attempts by the establishment’s attempt to crack down on online content? A few million maybe, out of about 300 million urban Indians and the 1.2 billion residing in the country. We do need to look at the larger picture here. Because in a land where millions fight for their lives, livelihood and dignity every single day, the fight for online freedom seems, for the lack of a better word, quite trivial.

Yet, these issues are not, in fact, trivial, precisely when viewed in a broader context. The freedom to censor one kind of content – i.e. online – empowers the state to censor all content, across the board. A cartoon today, a damning report on police corruption tomorrow. And the internet is the last remaining bastion for the free circulation of information in the era of corporate big media. Much the same argument can be made for the anti-bar raids. The principle at stake here is the freedom from police harrassment. There are so many obscure laws on the books that they allow the authorities to harrass ordinary citizens on the slightest pretext. As for the moral policing component, it just points to the hypocrisy of a state grown fat on middle class consumption. Yeah, we want you to spend all your money in malls, buy new cars and flats, but don’t drink, dance or have sex outside marriage. Sorry, the free market brings with it social freedom and individual choice. The Mumbai police doesn’t get to pick which aspects of liberalisation are okay, while it bans or restricts the rest. But for these issues to have broader resonance, they need to be framed in a different way – and perhaps by a different set of people. “[Dhoble] makes obvious a truth that the more affluent middle classes are usually shielded from: that the police are not necessarily your go-to guys in times of need,” writes Deepanjana Pal. But the more important truth lies elsewhere, in the realisation that the pet peeves of the “affluent middle classes” will be ignored by the very same Indians who they ignore on a daily basis. As when those hockey sticks show up to clear a slum or a roadside bar. And hamstrung by its narrow worldview, the Mumbai nightlife rally will remain what it is: a protest in search of a Beastie Boys anthem. A fight for the right to paartay!