14 Information Technology and Social Movements

Contents

1. Objective

2. Introduction: Information Technology and Social Movements

3. Learning Outcome

4. The Anti-corruption Movement

5. Citizen Activism through the Right to Information Self-Check Exercise 1

6. Movement against Women’s Oppression

7. In Brief Notes

1. Objective

In this module you will learn about the role of Information Technology (IT) in altering the contours and nature of social movements in India. This point is particularly made with the examples of some recent movements in India like the anti-corruption movement, the right to information and movement against oppression of women.

2. Introduction: Information Technology and Social Movements

Information Technology (IT) has increasingly been altering the contours and nature of social movements in India. This also has to do with the growing exposure to internet of many sections of society, especially the educated middle classes and the youth. Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly becoming more accessible and affordable options of staying connected with friends and family members spread far and wide. These are also providing opportunities to increase one’s social and professional networks, express one’s opinions and mobilise around commonly held beliefs and ideas. Activists on the ground are also finding these mediums of communication extremely useful to advocate and mobilise for their causes. Through these, they are able to reach out to more and diverse people, who otherwise would be difficult to mobilise if these movements remained confined only to processions, gatherings and meetings. This module discusses three such movements of very recent origin – the Anti-corruption movement, activism around the right to information, and movement against women’s oppression. All of these movements successfully dominated the public discourse and could even initiate changes in law and policy. Much of the success can be attributed to widespread use of the IT and social media.

In the international context, the Arab Spring movement in the Middle East and the Occupy movement in the United States were also greatly bolstered by IT and the social media. The Arab Spring movement began in late 2010 in response to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, beginning with protests in Tunisia. The Occupy movement in the United States began with the Occupy Wall Street on 17th September 2011, to protest against corporate greed and a resulting loss of financial wellbeing and opportunity for most of the population (Skinner 2011). The part of the success of these movements comes not only from organizing via social media, but by sharing insights, learning and experiences with other protesters. Social media also created a community where people could share news and mobilise support.

3. Learning Outcome

This module would acquaint you with the way IT has been instrumental in influencing public mind and initiate discussions and public opinion on a range of issues ranging from violence against women to corruption that affect the everyday lives of citizens. IT has played a crucial role to bring issues to the table, built consensus and help in mobilizations and most importantly brought a large number of people together which would not be possible otherwise.

4.  The Anti-corruption Movement

The anti-corruption movement – a movement to fight corruption in public offices through the institution of the Lokpal, captured national and international media attention since the beginning of 2011. The Lokpal would be an organization with representatives from the political class and civil society1 and would be the answer to the ever increasing corruption malaise in the country that affected all sections of society. The anti-corruption movement, spearheaded by veteran social activist Anna Hazare, former police officer Kiran Bedi and other eminent people like Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan, remained a distant dream that was realised as late as 2014. The positive outcome of the year and half long movement was that it was able to make “corruption” the most talked about issue in coffee table discussions, college canteen arguments and water cooler conversations in offices. Shops were strewn with goodies ranging from T shirts sporting “anti-corruption slogans”, Nehru caps and Anna glasses. Young children ran about with flags printed with Anna’s picture and youth ranted anti-corruption slogans in countless processions across cities of India. The movement that touched a chord with everyone reflected the disillusion with elected representatives occupying seats in the legislatures of the country and the political class in general.

The anti-corruption movement was further strengthened with the help of the media, both print and television, and widespread usage of the Internet especially social media like Face book and Twitter. Prime time slots in television channels were devoted to the constant revelations of corruption stories by the then activist leader Arvind Kejriwal. The anti-corruption movement that stirred major uproar throughout 2011 received a serious blow in 2012 with grave factions and fissures. Despite attempts by Kejriwal and his team to keep up the momentum of the movement and stirring up peoples’ sentiments with a series of “exposes” against eminent people of the ruling elite; the movement was weakened with the withdrawal of support by Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi. Both Anna and Bedi opposed Kejriwal’s idea of forming a political party, fighting for the common people on the underlying principle of a “corruption free” society. Eventually Kejriwal did form the Aam Admi Party (AAP), became the Chief Minister of Delhi and even contested in Lok Sabha election in 2014.

The 2011 anti-corruption movement in India—characterized by a huge trust deficit in the political class— was actually the culmination of several such localized movements that simmered across India especially in big cities of India in recent times. These local movements, and later the massive one, were all characterised by a huge trust deficit in elected representatives and the political class in general. Calling on government to address widespread corruption in public offices through better governance, the movement marked the beginning of a new kind of citizen activism facilitated by widespread use of IT in contemporary urban India particularly visible in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Delhi.

The NGO Council in Mumbai was one such organization that was formed as a response to the floods of July 2005 that devastated the city. The NGO Council was a pan-city citizens’ organization, comprising 69 civil society organizations (CSOs), working together for better governance in Mumbai. Most importantly, the organization aggressively used the internet to collate and disseminate information. A web site for dedicated dissemination of information related to municipal governance carrying detailed information about municipal circulars, solid waste collection route plans, disaster management information, responsibilities and contact numbers of various departments of the municipal authority, procedures on how to register births and deaths, and budget details of the municipal authority created an impact on the citizens’ everyday lives. 

Fighting corruption was top on the agenda of the NGO Council. It initiated what was called the ‘Mumbai-Pact against Corruption’ with the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Maharashtra, involving CSOs and activists. The NGO Council was instrumental in, among others, the formulation of the Municipal Solid Waste (Prohibition of Littering and Regulation of Segregation, Storage, Delivery and Collection) Rules 2006, which were notified on 1st March 2006. The NGO Council also played a significant role in helping the municipal authority set up a Ham Radio network, which proved to be very useful during the bomb blasts in July 2006 that targeted Mumbai’s local trains.

5. Citizen Activism through the Right to Information

The Right to Information (RTI) has further strengthened this kind of citizen activism in contemporary India. The roots of the RTI can be traced to the MKSS movement in Rajasthan in the 1990s. In his analysis, Kumar (2014) notes that the MKSS movement was a “people’s movement against elites”. It claimed exclusive rule to rationalize processes and practices of governance through resistance. The prime cause responsible for the emergence of this movement was workers’ (poor peasants and laborers) demand for the money from elites who were acting as rulers, which they earned through their labour” (ibid: 165).

According to a study on RTI, it first started when the Indian Parliament enacted the Freedom of Information Act, 2002 in order to promote transparency and accountability in administration. The National Common Minimum Programme of the Government of India envisaged that “Freedom of Information Act” will be made more “progressive, participatory and meaningful”, following which, decision was made to repeal the “Freedom of Information Act, 2002” and enact a new legislation in its place. Accordingly, “Right toInformation Bill, 2004” (RTI) was passed by both the Houses of Parliament on May, 2005 which received the assent of the President on 15th June, 2005. “The Right to Information Act” was notified in the Gazette of India on 21st June, 2005. The “The Right to Information Act” became fully operational from 12th October, 2005.

This new law empowers citizens of India to seek any accessible information from a Public Authority and makes the government and its functionaries more accountable and responsible. The law actually places citizens and government as two parties and empowers the citizens enormously vis a vis the government. The law derives from Article 19 of the Constitution of India that ushers several freedoms on the citizens of India. The philosophy of the law also comes from the principles underlying human rights and has been articulated in numerous human rights documents, which include this fundamental right, for example, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, etc. The Commonwealth has also formulated principles on freedom of information.

Citizen activism across India has used RTI as a powerful tool to get things done concerning everyday lives of peoples like potholes not filled, encroachments, garbage collection, getting a ration card and the like. Online forums like the Mumbai Activists Committee regularly share stories of activism across cities through the Internet. Many of these stories are about the successes that citizens have received in their day to day struggles with the widespread use of RTI.

IT has facilitated citizens’ activism in significant ways in recent times. In the municipal elections of 2012 in Mumbai, for instance, as many as fifty independent candidates from wards across Mumbai contested seats in the polls. An online portal called Mumbai 227—designed to serve as a platform for independent candidates—was launched before the elections. The impetus for the formation of Mumbai 227 came from the despair surrounding the city’s deteriorating governance and the people’s loss of faith in the political elite. The aim of the movement was to mobilize civil society forces that were already working actively across the city, to fight for better governance from within, rather than outside the system. The Mumbai 227 was a completely online platform. It was called a peoples’ movement and was the initiative of some eminent citizens of Mumbai. The portal had a central group with people representing civil society, an administrative group, and an advisory group. The portal displayed the names and profiles of the independent candidates, along with the wards and symbols they represented. These candidates were selected by a group of non-partisan, credible and eminent citizens of Mumbai from a list of probables, thrown up by a flexible, rigorous, transparent, and grassroots-driven process. After the selection, these candidates underwent rigorous training to enable them to fulfil their roles and duties as municipal Councillors. After this successful attempt, many other organizations have come forward to mobilize around common issues and involve citizen’s participation using IT and social media tools. Whether these initiatives have been able to meet the criteria to qualify them as social movements is a matter of investigation. However, the growing significance and impact on social mobilization with the use of IT is something that cannot be ignored.

6.  Movement against Women’s Oppression

The year 2011 ended with a sad note with the gang rape of a twenty three year old student, in a moving bus in New Delhi, raising serious doubts on the safety of women in public places in India. While the victim breathed her last in a hospital in Singapore, people especially youth, took to the streets of Delhi, as a mark of agitation against the authorities who have clearly failed to do anything to ensure safety of women in public places. Not only Delhi, this tragic incident also sparked off candle lit marches and processions in other cities and through the widespread use of social media and the internet, demands for severe punishment and stringent laws to be put in place to avert the occurrence of such incidents were made. The demand for harsh punishments for such heinous acts was not only confined to the streets but sparked off serious debates on the question of women’s security as reflecting deeper societal dysfunctions across television channels and social networking sites and raised questions on the efficiency of law enforcement agencies especially the police and the law itself.

The incident triggered protests and raised serious questions not only in India but also round the world bolstered by IT. Indians living abroad, were hit with daily news carrying all sorts of things: reactions of the political class, reactions of common citizens, protest meets, candle lit marches, and processions in various parts of country, street protests and even hunger strikes in the heart of the capital of India, the Verma Committee recommendations on amendment of rape laws in the country, numerous judicial and legal related issues and finally the reactions of the victim’s family. Facebook and twitter were abounding with discussions, debates and reflections.

For instance, academics abroad were deeply affected by the incident and were quick to get together, discuss, write and debate on the most fundamental but often brushed aside issues concerning women’s safety in contemporary India. The months that followed the heinous incident on the fateful night of 17th December 2012, television channels, print and social media and the internet have not stopped reporting many more incidents of rape, assault, and violence against women from myriad socio-economic backgrounds, and from every nook and corner of the country.

In the aftermath of the incident, a serious discourse on amendment of rape laws in favour of women and serious police and judicial reforms developed. The ensuing movement unfolded in myriad forms. People took to the streets, people protested against the incident in social networking sites and television channels constantly aired panel discussions and debates revolving around the question: how safe are women in India? Celebrity campaigns on the Internet like the one led by Sitar Maestro Anoushka Shankar called “One Billion Rising” a global campaign with the underlying vision of ending all forms of violence against women across ages and contexts. This campaign has attracted celebrities from the world over and is anchored on the issue of growing violence against women perpetrated across contexts, particularly in Asia and Africa. The issue gained centre stage again in 2014 when the United Nations Secretary General condemned violence and brutal attacks on women following the gruesome rape and murder of two Dalit girls in the Badaun village of Uttar Pradesh. This latter incident among several others reported stories of rape from Indian states like Uttar Pradesh also reflect a deeper crisis in governance and lack of basic infrastructure and services. The two girls were attacked when they ventured out to attend to the nature’s call as they did not have toilets in their homes.

IT mobilised support and brought serious issues to the table. For instance, in one such virtual forum that discussed the question of safety of women in India, it was elucidated that safety rests on two fulcrums: a) law and governance and b) societal attitudes. As far as the question of women’s’ safety in public places is concerned, it is a matter of law and governance. The unwritten norms of social contract between the state and its citizens imply that the law enforcement agencies of the state must ensure that all citizens living within its territorial boundaries are protected against all acts of aggression. In an environment where repeated acts of aggression and violence are perpetrated against half of the country’s population, simply on account of gender, it is time to seriously introspect and reform the existing law and governance machinery.

Internet was abound with interviews of senior police officials who expressed their inability to “keep an eye” on the general public as police departments are understaffed and police personnel are busy attending to the security needs of VVIPs. One of the things that often came out as a recommendation was the idea of “mohalla police” and the concept of “partnership” between the local police department and the community workers who took up surveillance work in their respective neighbourhoods. As far as the judicial process following reported incidents of violence and assault against women are concerned, this feature may not be enough. The judicial process is a Pandora’s box with a whole lot of issues that need to be addressed urgently. It will suffice saying that even today the county abides by archaic laws that perhaps will be revised now at the behest of the recommendations of the Verma Committee. The low conviction rates of perpetrators and the quantum of punishment meted out to culprits seldom act as deterrents for others.

Those speaking in favour of police and judicial reforms always pointed out that there is a need to put in place a system that encourages reporting of acts of crime against women. At the very outset, women fear to report such cases on several grounds. First, the police station itself is not a woman friendly place at all. In such an event, the woman victim has to confront a barrage of embarrassing questions at the hands of male policemen, who are not sensitive enough to address such cases. Then there exists the fear of the media glare. The physical examination and various other steps in the judicial procedure leading up to trial are ridden with trauma. Until recently, cases as these were often related to the woman victim as having low character who might have incited such an act in the first place. In a nutshell, it takes great courage on the part of the victim and her family to report that such an incident has happened. The fear of social ostracism looms large over the victim and her family. The prospects of finding a spouse in future or for any of her other siblings diminish significantly. The family members may not get any support from the community and may well be socially boycotted. Policewomen with the help of non-government organizations might attend such cases in a sensitive way. There have therefore been attempts to set up Helplines in strategic places by the police and administration to curb such incidents. Similarly the NGOs like PRIA have initiated a campaign in Delhi and other cities against the sexual harassment of women. Many such initiatives have also happened at the grassroots levels by local groups and organizations. The Hindi film Gulabi Gang was another depiction in popular medium. The film is based on the true stories of heroic deeds of women in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh against acts of gender based discrimination and violence. In Facebook and other social media platforms, people were very vocal about the use of capital punishment for rapists in India. Such views were time and again expressed in online forums across the virtual space. Capital punishment in itself is a big area of debate which again has its own set of opponents and supporters with equally valid justifications. The question is: will capital punishment act as a true deterrent for perpetrators of such crimes? The law and order machinery in India especially the police and judiciary have not really done a good job and that is why there is no respect or fear for such institutions. People on the wrong side of law know that they can get away all too easily. The need for fast track courts, greater conviction rates, speedy justice and severe punishment will surely address some of these concerns. It is best not to remain entangled in the technicalities of jurisprudence and make the process of report, trial and justice as speedy and efficient as possible.

Online debates especially among the youth spoke in unison that there is no better deterrent than what comes from society itself. Law and police are what people usually resort to as later options. These institutions address only certain aspects of the problem but not the problem in its entirety. The problem in its entirety can only be addressed at the level of society. In the aftermath of the incident in Delhi, television channels were replete with politicians in different parts of country coming up with their own set of recommendations to ensure women’s safety. Once again the spotlight had shifted on “women and how they dress” as the reasons inciting incidents of assault and molestation. The most outrageous remark came from a sitting member of Parliament of the country. He stirred a furore when he remarked that women who took to the streets in New Delhi, as marks of protests in the aftermath of the incident in Delhi, were divorced from ground realities. He equated these protests in the capital city as those of the “pink revolution” and even outraged everyone when he labelled the women protesters as “dented and painted”. Was he equating women to cars? In whatever wisdom and knowledge, he was trying to analyse the situation in Delhi (which could hardly be put to rest despite the use of varied forms of interventions from the police), the least an aggrieved nation expected were such “insensitive” remarks from a politician of the country. Of course such remarks were severely criticized in online forums. This particular remark even triggered a whole new round of debate and panel discussions across television channels and print and social media in the country. Internet. Many of these stories are about the successes that citizens have received in their day-to-day struggles with the widespread use of RTI.

3.  What is the support base for citizens’ activism in India?

Educated middle class especially people with access to the Internet usually serve as the support base for citizens’ activism in India. The middle class support for citizen’s activism and for larger movements like those around the RTI, anti-corruption movement and the movement against oppression of women is becoming increasingly visible and strong in recent times. The use of IT and social media has facilitated to create communities that share information, use social pressure for changes in policy, demand better governance and also spread political conscientiousness. For instance in the municipal elections of 2012 in Mumbai as many as fifty independent candidates (common citizens) from wards across Mumbai contested seats in the polls. An online portal called Mumbai 227—designed to serve as a platform for independent candidates—was launched before the elections.

7.  In Brief

In this module you have learnt about the ways in which Information Technology (IT) in altering the contours and nature of social movements in India. This point is particularly made with the examples of some recent movements in India like the anti-corruption movement, the right to information and citizens activism and movement against oppression of women in India and the Arab Spring movement in the Middle East and the Occupy movement in the United States.

The use of IT and social networking has grown in leaps and bounds along with the political conscientiousness brought about by other forms of media and progressive tools like the RTI. The success of the anti-corruption movement and eventual political mobilization in the form of support to the Aam Admi Party can be attributed to the disillusionment and disgruntled educated middle class. Members of the middle class are usually politically reticent unlike other sections of society. Middle class citizens, particularly in urban areas have preferred to remain politically aloof, or apolitical, because of the general distrust towards the political class and the world of politics being ridden with crime, money and muscle power. The middle class conscientious citizens preferred to look for alternatives to undertake public action or enter the public domain. These alternatives ranged from forming NGOs, alliances and partnerships with the higher echelons of the executive wing of the government, think tanks and policy advocacy. The RTI helped a great deal in these endeavours.

The anti-corruption movement came at a time when middle class activism was simmering across many cities of India. The fervour of the movement could strike the right chords with these sentiments and that explains why it received such a huge support base from the middle class. It is no wonder that the foundation of the Aam Admi Party was laid on an army of educated youth who left their lucrative careers to join the party that promised to bring serious social change. The anti-corruption movement perhaps was the first after many decades (after the Naxalite movement in Bengal and the JP movement in Bihar in the 1960s and 70s) that could really mobilise the youth to feel enthusiastic about a vision and a road map that promised a better future. Social media especially Twitter and Facebook also mobilised huge support for the movement around oppression of women in India that began in the aftermath of the assault and subsequent death of a twenty three year old student, in a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2011.

The success of the movement that continued throughout 2012, in India that also touched sentiments internationally could be greatly attributed to IT. Online forums brought people together in virtual communities and raised many important issues, namely the safety of women in public places in India, the need for governance and judicial reforms and most significantly change in societal attitudes towards women. Young educated people felt empowered to bring about change and in this endeavour new technologies of communication and IT helped a great deal.

Note:

1. Discussions concerned with contemporary civil society increasingly define it in normative terms as “a set of institutions that perform the functions of inculcating morals and values that facilitate social cohesion (Etzioni 1995, 1996) or that enable individuals to act as “good” or “active‟ citizens aware of their civic duties. Almond and Verba (1965), de Tocqueville (1835), Hirst (1994), Keane (1998), Putnam (2001) and Putnam et al. (1993) argue, to varying degrees, that voluntary association within civil society is the seedbed for the civic virtue so necessary for a healthy democratic society” (Hodgson, 2004: 141).