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The Delhi Prevention of Property Defacement Act 2007, introduced in the Delhi Assembly recently, makes a depressing reading. According to its provisions, a mere act of putting posters on the walls or writing anything with chalk, paint or any other material can make you liable for a punishment of one year in jail. Additionally, you can be asked to pay a fine of Rs 50,000.

 

The proposed Act is said to be an improved version of the earlier Act in operation in the state, which was considered lenient. Now, any defacement will be a cognisable offence, which means you can be arrested without even getting into the formality of preparing a warrant.

 

The Delhi Government had adopted the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act 1976 to penalise those people who were found to be engaged in ‘defacing public property’. It duly arrested around 2,802 people during a short span of two years (2001-2003) while 1,925 people were punished for wall writing, putting posters, stickers and banners.

 

Looking at the stringent provisions in the proposed Act and the way in which a mere act of putting posters would be bracketed as ‘cognisable offence’, one can easily see a spurt in the number of people getting arrested or punished.

 

Interestingly, the period during which this draft Bill was put before the House for discussion, one came across another decision of the government that talked of the government’s move to allow putting ads behind auto-rickshaws. The government expects that it could see a quantum jump in. its revenue. A few months back, the local Municipal Corporation had also decided to allow putting of ads on the radio taxies to increase the size of its coffers.

 

 

 

Any layperson could comprehend the rationale behind the contrary approach adopted by the people in power. While on the one hand, it seeks to penalise those people under the spacious plea of ‘defacement of public property’, it has no qualms of any sort about propaganda, if you are in a position to pay for it.

 

It is clear that only moneybags or big corporate houses would be able to avail this opportunity of putting across their message by paying for it and a large majority of the working population of the city who has to struggle hard to make both ends meet would be denied any such opportunity. In the changed ambience, where one is finding ‘criminalisation’ of the right to t freedom of expression granted by the Constitution, it would be increasingly difficult to express one’s disenchantment with the state of affairs.

 

One cannot expect ordinary people would ever find themselves in a position to express their stand vis-a-vis the custodians of democracy. Few years back, thousands of people working in different factories in Delhi were asked to either shift to new a places of work or get ready to leave the job altogether, as the powers that be had decided to close the factories t1 supposedly to ‘control pollution’.

 

One also saw the well-planned drive n by city authorities to demolish slums and ‘decongest the cities’. A senior judge had no qualms in comparing slum dwellers with pickpockets denying them any alternate accommodation claiming that it would be ‘rewarding the pickpockets’.

 

Imagine a similar situation where the people on the margins of society want to express their discontent about the state of affairs. How do they do it if they are denied even the opportunity of putting posters? Do they have any way out before them than getting ready to get arrested and pay a hefty fine for daring to put a handmade poster?

 

 

Anybody can see that the situation that seems to be emerging cannot be said to be a sign of healthy democracy, which is considered to be a ‘rule of the people, by the people and for the people’. How can it be called a ‘real democracy’ if its citizen are even denied the opportunity to exercise their political rights?

 

Everybody knows that the concept of citizenship has evolved down the ages and being a citizen of any country imbues you with political rights. And if we limit the idea of political rights to mere right to vote occasionally, then one is making a travesty of the definition.

 

The key thing to be noted in this debate is that under the present phase of neo-liberalism - where market forces have been given a free play and the state seems to be withdrawing from key sectors of running the government - the very move ‘to ‘criminalise’ right to’ freedom of expression is a sign of the hollowing out of the idea of citizenship.

 

It is evident that by putting someone in jail for putting posters would not only deny the citizen the right to be freedom of expression, it would deny her/him the ‘ethical and moral duties’ of a citizen.

 

Questioning the manner in which ‘public is being differentiated into a hierarchy of individuals’ under a neoliberal regime and also substituting ‘citizen with consumer’. But can we have democracy without ’society without a modicum of equality of status and condition, secured by universal public services, and a significant degree of social solidarity based on this? It seems unlikely.

 

To save itself from the charges of throttling the right to freedom of expression’, the Delhi Government plans to develop around 150 notice boards (5 ft long and 15 ft broad) spread over Delhi whose population is moving rapidly to touch the 1.25 crore mark. Anyone can comprehend that it is a mere formality.

 

To conclude, all these moves are a part of a wider game plan of ‘beautification of the city’ to prepare itself for the Commonwealth Games to be held in 2010. There could be no doubt that they may help ‘beautify’ the city outwardly by removing ‘unwanted/illegal structures’, but it would also help reveal the larger anomalies inherent in the society and the party.