In Joel Schumacher's 1993 film, Falling Down, Michael Douglas plays an unemployed engineer who breaks down during a traffic jam in LA, abandons his car and goes on a violent rampage while trying to reach his estranged family. While she did not go on a gun-toting spree, a woman furiously confronted Maharashtra water resources minister Girish Mahajan on Wednesday for a rally protesting the non-passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in Parliament that was holding up traffic for an hour at Worli, Mumbai. She was desperate to pick up her daughter from school. For most of us, a citizenry expected to absorb the costs of every act of political theatre, she spoke on our behalf.
It is easy to consider the woman's outburst as 'entitled'. Thousands, many argue, go through daily trials and tribulations without a murmur because they have accepted the manufactured strain as part of urban living. This commandeering of public space must stop, as must the collateral damage inflicted on civic order that ordinary people have normalised.
It isn't just rallies but also encroachments, processions, blockades, all somehow conducted in the name of either 'celebration of democracy' or 'beautiful chaos'. This legacy of hoodwinking must be put right if one is remotely serious about things like 'Viksit Bharat'. Outrage should not be dismissed as elitist irritation, but recognised for being a desperate demand for accountability from those that people in public office claim to represent. If political spectacle continues to be judged by the chaos they cause and the snarls they create, citizens must judge them by the same measure - and push back. Democracy isn't strengthened by unease of living but when citizens insist that their daily lives are not expendable.
It is easy to consider the woman's outburst as 'entitled'. Thousands, many argue, go through daily trials and tribulations without a murmur because they have accepted the manufactured strain as part of urban living. This commandeering of public space must stop, as must the collateral damage inflicted on civic order that ordinary people have normalised.
It isn't just rallies but also encroachments, processions, blockades, all somehow conducted in the name of either 'celebration of democracy' or 'beautiful chaos'. This legacy of hoodwinking must be put right if one is remotely serious about things like 'Viksit Bharat'. Outrage should not be dismissed as elitist irritation, but recognised for being a desperate demand for accountability from those that people in public office claim to represent. If political spectacle continues to be judged by the chaos they cause and the snarls they create, citizens must judge them by the same measure - and push back. Democracy isn't strengthened by unease of living but when citizens insist that their daily lives are not expendable.
