For the young girl from the capital, New Delhi, whose cries to
be rescued from rapists were
drowned in a neighbourhood inundated with the noise of blaring loudspeakers
and who com-
mitted suicide in bleak despair years ago, some form of justice has been
delivered, if terribly
late. The Supreme Court of India’s verdict in July this year directing that
silence must reign in
public spaces between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. had squarely addressed one of the
major burdens of urban Indian life. A disregard for civic discipline
generally accentuated in recent decades by
an aggressive display of competitive religiosity on the streets has given rise
to the cry for silence. The fierce religion-based competitiveness that reduced
even the noise pollution discourse to "our garba, Ganeshotsav"
versus "their azan" has vitiated the social climate even further. Hence
CC’s cover for this month complimenting Maharashtra for showing the
way, barring a few exceptions, while many other states have shown scant regard
for implementing the apex court’s verdict. Kerala has in fact expressed
outrage at what its literati and intelligentsia consider to be yet another
anti-people judgement.
Within weeks of this long overdue verdict, however, came the
inevitable roadblock. Reminding the apex court of the discretionary powers
state governments have under the amended Noise Pollution Control Rules, 2002
the Gujarat government won extra hours for the nine nights (navratri)
of garba-raas celebrations. On October 3, the court modified its
earlier order, recognising the still-in-force permission allowing state
governments to relax the night-time ban on loudspeakers and public address
systems for two hours (10 p.m. to midnight) for a maximum of 15 days in a
calendar year. Maharashtra fouled up its legal plea as a result of which
Ganeshotsav – all 10 days of it – passed in relative silence,
and the early morning azan from loudspeakers in mosques has stopped,
even during this month of Ramzan. Did Gujarat win and Maharashtra lose?
Therein lies the rub. In a country yet to awaken to the
harmful consequences of noise pollution, forceful legal arguments and strong
judicial direction is only part of the solution. Enforcing the court orders
successfully is a tricky business in a social milieu where unprincipled
political parties and religious organisations in their many avatars
wait for every opportunity to demonstrate their aggressive and noisy presence
on the streets. This aspect appears to have been ignored by the apex court.
With the festive season (beginning with Ganeshotsav) just a
few weeks away, it behoved the apex court, instead of simply delivering its
verdict, to call for reasoned arguments from all players in the arena who
would be affected by this judgement, be it those who create the din or the
police of all states who must now curb it. For instance, state-level police
chiefs could have been asked about the measures that needed to be in place for
effective implementation of the order. Such advice, stemming from long years
of hands-on experience, would have been by and large responsible and measured;
where not, it would stand exposed. Instead, what we now have is a "hung
society" where a state like Maharashtra stands out as the exception in terms
of implementation. In Kerala there is open outrage, in Karnataka disregard, in
Madhya Pradesh near scorn. All this adds up to an unsatisfactory beginning for
the belated steps necessary to control noise pollution. The Supreme Court
order therefore stands in real danger of failing through wilful
non-implementation.
Apart from the cover, in CC’s current issue we also
examine the implications of another Supreme Court verdict that allows
privately funded educational institutions an escape clause from affirmative
action and social justice. The attitude of our courts in equating education
with a business enterprise for profit, as opposed to a social
enterprise for empowerment, is in stark contrast to even advanced
capitalist countries like the USA where court after court, through verdict
after verdict, has paved the way for civil rights movements. The debate is
likely to heat up further in the months to come with the UPA government’s
pending bill on free and compulsory education waiting to be brought to the
Indian Parliament.
The massacre of Dalits in Gohana, the consistent harassment
and intimidation of activists from a statewide network of Muslim women in
Tamil Nadu, the hypocrisy of the regime in Saudi Arabia and the tragic tale of
continuing racial discrimination in the USA that stands fully exposed in the
wake of the natural disaster that befell New Orleans, make up the rest of this
issue. We look forward to your comments and suggestions.