Why we don't need a people's car

Suddenly, the ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) is the hot topic. Those who fight against the establishment of the SEZ call it the ‘Special Exploitation Zone’ -- rightly so. Governments plan to set them up in the hundreds all over the country, by ‘purchasing’ land that rightfully belongs to farmers and those who live on the margins. Sops are then offered to companies to set up industrial units that manufacture all kinds of things ranging from computers to cars. The argument is that the SEZs will catapult us on to the global stage as a big economic player. India’s economic stock, it is said, will go up. The GDP will go up, and wealth will accumulate, we are told. SEZs, it is promised, will generate jobs which we all so desperately need. Who will get these jobs, I wonder…where will the displaced go?

Not everyone is buying this story, which is why we have seen Nandigram and Singur happen in West Bengal. A few persons are able to detect this crap in our lives. Neil Postman, the American philosopher and education thinker, would be happy to meet some of these people. Of course, some of them are in it for political gains. They cultivate their vote banks. Didn’t Postman once famously say and write that the task of education should be ‘crap detection’ in our lives, in society? Whether (these crappy) schools manage to help children do this crap detection or not is another story. We will write that story another day.

More Nandigrams and Singurs are waiting to happen. The government and the companies have retreated for the time being, but they will be back for sure, with innovative ideas and doublespeak on SEZ’s.

Quite a bit has been written about the SEZ in the print media and we have been witness to heated discussions on the boob tube. I do not have anything to add to that debate. I can only foresee some horrors unfolding if these SEZs have their way.

Only a few days back did I find out that the proposed SEZ at Singur was meant for a car manufacturing plant. The Tatas, one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in this country, plan to finally bring out the ‘people’s car’ which will cost only one lakh rupees. With a growing and aspiring middle class and with banks more than eager to shell out loans to even more eager consumers who want to show they have ‘arrived’, the Tatas are sitting on a gold mine. Much is therefore at stake in Singur.

I returned to my home town Bangalore this January after spending more than a decade outside the state. The other day, after relishing a mouth watering butter masala dosai in a restaurant off Margosa Road in Malleshwaram, I was walking back home. Remember the movie Matrix? Those mean, fast machines with their tentacles which killed every human in their path? Those scenes came back as I walked up the gentle slope of Margosa Road. Vehicles of all shape and sizes hurtled past. They came honking at you angrily. One had to watch out! Bangalore has never been like this. It was such a gentle, beautiful city. So much has changed. I felt small, like I had, when I set foot in Delhi in the winter of ’97. I couldn’t recognize this city and I didn’t think it recognized me. It seemed to be moving in a desperate hurry. The techies called it the Silicon Valley of India. ‘See, we too have developed?’

More vehicles, more smoke, less trees in this Silicon Valley. More buildings that were box like, with huge glass panes that reflected the sun on your face. They called them the malls, where you could find everything under one roof, from underwear to books to condoms. They also called them the software companies; they called them the call centres, multiplexes and several other things. The temples of modern India, eh? With three million vehicles on the roads of Bangalore, the metro had set foot in the city this year. Also there were more flyovers and ‘fly-unders’ now…this city had never been meant for this abuse.

Everyone needs everything, right? That’s their right, right? That is what the economists would argue. Human wants are limitless and they have to be simply met. The industry wallahs would swear by it. After all, they survive on this slogan. Ultimately, the so called fruits of development have to ‘trickle down’ to everyone. They haven’t despite so many decades of this development. But we must keep trying nevertheless. The one lakh car is just one example. Do we really need it? Despite owning a car, my answer would be ‘no.’ Just the other day my friend appeared to be disgusted with this position that according to her smacks of double standards. ‘Don’t they have a right to a better life? Who are you to stop them from owning that car? Don’t you have one?’ I can understand her righteous anger.

The problem I have is with this model of development. Can everyone have cars, refrigerators, air conditioners and the like? Can everyone have everything? I’m not proposing that a few should have everything on the other hand, which is the case right now. We often hear that the world’s 20% population consumes 80% of the world’s resources. There is therefore this problem of gross inequity in terms of access, distribution and consumption of resources. But can this be used as an argument that entitles all those right now poor people who, when they ‘arrive’, have the license to lead the lives of the current haves? I’m not sure. In the absence of any other model, there is the danger that the have nots may follow the same path. Will the haves be willing to reduce their consumption? It does not look as if that is going to happen.

Kancha Ilaiah, the professor of political science at Osmania University, Hyderabad, while arguing for the empowerment of the lower castes, said this in a lecture I attended many months ago in Mumbai: “You (the Brahmins and other upper castes) pissed on us from above for 3000 years. The time has now come for us to do it to you. Only then will you understand.” He was focusing on the atrocities and discrimination practiced by the upper castes for centuries. In many ways, he was talking about ‘payback’ time. Though he did not mention the environment, I am tempted to extend this argument to bring in that dimension. The position that Ilaiah takes may sound right from a human rights perspective (I’m not sure if the thinly veiled vendetta does, though), but from an environmental perspective, it runs on a collision course with the earth, whose resources are limited. So we need to find out different ways of living. How often has this statement been made! There has to be both inner and outer control over our actions. Yet, we continue to make the dangerous error of treating natural resources as capital. This should change. That is why we do not need the people’s car, all other arguments for it notwithstanding. May be communism is not such a bad idea, after all. But Nandigram and Singur are located in communist land, aren’t they?

Giri
5th June 2007