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Why India needs reform and not bans for a clean Diwali

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Makarand R Paranjape
Makarand R ParanjapeOct 18, 2017 | 10:15

Why India needs reform and not bans for a clean Diwali

Diwali this year has started on an unusually quiet note. Perhaps, it will also be less smoky, if not smokeless, in the days to come. A part of me, to be perfectly honest, is glad. As I grow older, I like the noise, smoulder, and smell of phosphorous less and less.

But living in a democracy means that we cannot impose our own likes and dislikes on others. That is why I am against either an overzealous executive or in its absence, an interventionist judiciary.

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Firecracker ban

The Diwali firecracker ban is actually a complex matter, with legal, scientific, social, religious, and political dimensions, all of which need to be examined before we have an adequate understanding.

Considering the legal angle first, the Supreme Court’s judgment was handed down in response to a writ petition filed in September 2015 on behalf of three toddlers, Arjun Gopal, Aarav Bhandari, and Zoya Rao Bhasin, by Gopal Shankaranarayanan, the lawyer-father of the first.

In the first place, the original petition prayed for a comprehensive reduction of pollution in India through a variety of environment-improving measures. These included halting of seasonal crop burning, dumping of dust, malba and other pollutants, and the immediate enforcement of Bharat-V or better emission norms.

However, not surprisingly, banning Diwali fireworks comes much easier, which is what the petition has boiled down to. In fact, the Punjab government has refused to fine stubble burners, so not much progress to be expected on that front.

Also to be noted are the many twists and turns in the case, including the Supreme Court’s judgment on September 12, 2017, admitting in para 69 that there is no conclusive scientific evidence to attribute the spike in pollution at this time of the year only to firecrackers. The October 9 ruling actually reverses this earlier order. But more significant from the legal angle is how a new breed of rock-star lawyers can through PILs force the whole country to bend to their will.

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This is incredibly empowering to individual initiative on the one hand, but also quite dangerous to the public good. As noted legal expert and senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan observed in a recent column, “Usually, a private interest litigation cannot be filed as a public interest litigant. It is not what one father wants but what all fathers should want subject to balancing of countervailing interests.”

If the final outcome reflects how the judiciary proceeds in India, its base is still science, not law. But the science is confusing if not complicated, to say the least. What most data shows is that to fix responsibility solely on firecrackers for Delhi’s deteriorating air quality is untenable. 

At the same time, it would be contra-factual to argue that dangerous, unregulated, toxic and smoky firecrackers are harmless. What is the way out? It is to improve manufacturing and safety standards. We definitely need greener fireworks and safer, more regulated firecracker industry in India.

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Social angle

This brings us to the social angle. Much of our anti-festival discourse springs from an upper-class Hindu, Western-educated elite, which has internalised the modern and Abrahamic horror for “pagan” and primitive celebrations. Hindus, arguably the longest surviving non-Abrahamics of the world, with monthly quasi-religious festivities are easy targets. Every Hindu festival, consequently, is under attack for being either superstitious or polluting.

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Reactive Hindus, understandably, go ballistic — we’re being curbed in our own country, they rage. True, but folks, remember that Hindus are also most capable of reform; shouldn’t we work harder to celebrate our festivals in more contemporary, not to speak of safer, ways?

That includes being more sensitive to our environment too. No wonder the learned judges were hurt by allegations of anti-Hindu prejudice: “We are pained to hear when people give a communal angle,” Justice AK Sikri, head of the Bench said, “Everybody knows I am a very spiritual person but this is something different.”

Politics of judgment

Which brings us to the final aspect, the politics of the judgment. Somehow, everything in India boils down to politics in the end. That’s what we seem to relish, thrive, and get off on. Everything else subserves this most tribal of our instincts.

And what is one indisputable, if regrettable, characteristic of our politics? It is to exercise negative power, that is power to bully, browbeat, and enforce our will on others. Having been badly oppressed over the ages, the exercise of power for most of us is actually its imposition on others.

No one, whether it is the legislature, executive, or the judiciary, let alone the humbler and lower echelons of our polity, seems exempt from this urge to dominate others. Self-righteous interference and exacting authority on the helpless, if not hapless populace, marks our ideas of the public good.

Those in power seek the props of science, morality, or political correctness to legitimate their domination. But the bottom line is that like our colonial masters before us we don’t consider our ordinary Indian fellow-citizens good enough to know and decide what is good for themselves. Instead, we will not only tell them, but whenever possible, enforce our will on them.

India will transform only when we give up such arrogance. Let’s educate ourselves to better celebrate Diwali and other festivals, but let’s not curb the spirit of celebration through overzealous and interventionist judicial overreach.

 (Courtesy of Mail Today.)

 

Last updated: October 20, 2017 | 15:42
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