A letter to the CM

Sir/Madam,

Recently, the Chennai High Court upheld the decision of the Municipal Council authorities to suspend water supply to those residents who failed to pay their water tax. Although this seems like a very simple method to deal with the defaulters, the underlying consequences are multiple. In my case, I live in a cluster of apartments along the Usman road in T Nagar, Chennai, along with 20 others. When it so happens that one of us fails to pay up the water tax for various reasons, the suspension of the water supply will not happen individually but for the whole building. Does this mean the authorities see it fit to deprive even the honest tax-payer of what is due him? Water is a natural resource, and the reason I pay a tax for it is because it is delivered to the taps in my home by an institution whose duty is to do so. Therefore, it will be justified on my part to expect, nay demand, for my supply to be restored when I have paid my tax. Unfortunately, the High Court’s decision makes this impossible. My question is why the lawyers as well as the judges have upheld such a frail decision by the Municipal Council authorities.

Secondly, the law has also made it inadmissible for an apartments’ association to take any action against such defaulters, thereby making silent persuasion the only available course of action for the irked and the deprived. If such associations were given the right to disconnect the water supply to the erring resident, then the law need not step in from time to time to resolve such issues. Furthermore, with the decision making power in the hands of those who can truly and more quickly make a difference in the way things are run, a greater degree of compliance with the rules can be established as well as issues of non-compliance can be dealt with more quickly. However, with the said decision being taken, the number of cases of inconvenience in and around the city is definitely posed to increase.

What I would like to stress upon in this letter is that the Municipal Council has, in essence, not concentrated sufficiently on this issue. Although it is improper to abstain from paying one’s taxes, the actions taken thereupon to accordingly penalise the defaulter must ensure two things: first, that services to those who do pay their taxes are not disrupted in any manner, and second, that the concerned person does not repeat his or her actions again. If a such a thing as a municipal council has been established to this effect, then what they are doing does not seem right. Following a similar train of thought, it is now in my capability to demand that all branches of the Chennai Silks franchise in the city be demolished just because their T Nagar branch has failed to comply with the corresponding architectural rules. If a rule or a law is framed, then it must function and behave as one. It cannot curtail one offense by stifling a large group of similar people. I, as a citizen, can only demand that my rights and opportunities remain the same as they were previously; however, I am also driven to ponder upon the manner in which this situation has been deliberately complicated.

Mukundh V

T Nagar

(P.S. One copy each of this letter has been sent to the municipal council, the EiC of the Hindu publication, and the CM’s office. Awaiting response.)

The Right Side Of The Line

I grew up in incredible India, or so the tag line of the advertisement (that advertises the nation) says. It’s a nation of more than a billion people, which makes it the world’s largest democracy. But all that doesn’t seem to inspire anyone in India to adhere to a path of honesty and austerity. It’s not whether there exists the necessity of a need to, but it is because it is impossible to. Following after the British structure of government, the quantity of paperwork involved with anything is massive and predictably inefficient. But more than anything else, it is the way we take to it that marks the spot: we take to them as necessary evil. I don’t think anyone in India has ever really understood the importance of each piece of paper they sign, each bill of value they pass around – whether over the table or under it. We just do because of two simple reasons: we don’t know what it does because we don’t have the time to, and we do it anyway because someone else who can make things happen wants it done. Adherence to a politicial cause, in other words, is limited to the upper echelons of power. When you decide to get into politics, you have to be politically motivated. You don’t have to be patriotic – you only have to emboss the impression on other people that you can’t be knocked down, and if you are, then you can get back up in no time. You need to lick ass, you need to touch feet, you need to be the one all the others need to bribe to get things done. As much as you say it’s a roadblock to national prosperity, corruption is inevitable. 

And in such a country as this, if one is truly inspired to espouse a political cause so much as to stand up and speak for it, then one is jeered at, shouted at and spat until one decides to see it for what it is, or seldom for what others have made it to be. For example, in a nation of approximately 1.5 billion people (that’s around 20% of the world’s population), 240 million live on less that Rs. 20 a day – that’s a sign of abject poverty. If you were to stand up for them, you have to embrace a political cause, and here’s why: all causes have been embraced by the number of people on a money-minting campaign in the Indian political scenario, and if you pick a side of the wall, you’re on the political side. Even the top of the wall. Or under it. So anyway, standing up for them or banishing them: you’re rooting for someone. Forget being politically correct, you can’t be non-aligned anymore. Although no one seems to care for this thought, I do because it constrains development. I can’t seem to be able to do anything without donning political connections as a perpetual garb. Furthermore, the need to pass around as much money leads to the obvious localisation of resources, but that’s an economic residue, and I don’t want to spend time on that now. Political belief, as it used to be in the 1940s and ’50s when Mahatma Gandhi called out to the good of the nation to join political parties, has collapsed in the face of blatant distrust with and outright rejection of the state of affairs. And this has also cascaded into a siphon effect, resulting in something resembling a sewage pipeline network. Those who truly seek to do something are shoved to the sidelines. The only thing that can save us now is an abrupt and wholly miraculous change of heart within those on the thrones.

They have to begin to listen rather than speak all the time. They forget that we permit them to be there only so our voice is heard in the Hall of Power, not theirs. You promise land, you promise water, you promise homes. But what is it that we truly ask for? Have you promised to listen?

With the issue of every cause being commoditised as a tool to draw crowds and manufacture emotions, free speech is a luxury that has to be paid for – and it doesn’t come cheap. The only fact that has our nation clinging on to the frail strand of democratic nobility is that we all vote to elect our leaders (on Electronic Voting Machines). I’m sorry to say this Dr. Kalam, but Vision 2020 will only serve to be a bait. We will plod towards it with enough measures of luck and strategy, but Vision 2200 is more realistic. It’s not that I’m being pessimistic – I’m only being, again, realistic. I have my hopes too that India become a nation to be looked up at by others, but prefixing the word ‘incredible’ in an advertisement is only alliteration styled after the ideas of others.