Will the PM and the Indian Parliament create a platform for petitions to debate, and act?
Sourcing support:
One of the benefits of Internet-enabled computers and mobile phones is that one can solicit the support of disparate digital audience hailing from a smartcity (how smart are the smart cities of Bharat Mata, and their status? You can take a photo and WhatsApp or Facebook to the Ministry of Tourism; or share it with the digitally ubiquitous PM or PMO) to a grubby dysfunctional village (villages in India are the least preferred destinations for the locals to stay-on and non-domiciles to move in because the government schools do not function and the hospitals are paralysed but their staff get paid, and there are still tracts of excreting grounds to garbage).
Internet enables netizens to have the opportunity to vote for this or that (we are not for away to express support for a political party in an Assembly or General Elections), for him or her, to say yes or no, or to append one’s signature to that issue or on this issue.
The offline television channels and newspapers ask for their audience to say yes or no on an issue on their websites; firms ask for support for a campaign (remember Free Basics?), NGOs persuade people to support their cause, and individuals too could spearhead a movement (to suss out information otherwise hidden from the public, or otherwise ignored by media) in the interest of the denizens either locally or globally (WikiLeaks!). And, there are firms that specialise in helping companies and brands like iCrossing that promise to “increase visibility, acquire new customers, deepen relationships and grow loyalty”.
People are utilising the immense, explored and unexplored, potential of Internet to garner support from their peers and fellows for a local, national and global causes and campaigns. They are mobilizing support and people to force decision makers (political executive) to find solutions and policy makers to devise effective ways to make things better for the affected, and vulnerable.
Change.org offers a platform form for petition starters and supporters. It says more than 100,000 organisations are advancing their causes and connecting with new supporters. And, journalists are sourcing stories and covering campaigns otherwise censored by proprietors and editors. One can start a petition on change.org and start to mobilise support. The trending petitions on its website are: We Want Bulletproof Jackets For Our Soldiers; Remove Reservation for Those Earning Over 10 Lakhs a Year (a topic that will give goosebumps for politicians to even hear such thing); Decriminalise Homosexuality (started by diplomat turned politician Shashi Tharoor the Congress MP–an elected representative of the Indian parliament is seeking online support albeit for a cause!); TRAI: Don’t allow differential pricing of services & let consumers choose how they want; Stop Violence Against Women; End Female Genital Mutilation in India, Build a memorial at Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s burial site; Suppport Aditi Chauhan for Indian Women’s Football; Publish Financial Documents On Chennai’s Drainage Projects (an area under the fiefdom of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa: whose regime has filed a slew of defamation cases against journalists in Tamil Nadu for doing their jobs properly) and others.
As the 2016 Budget Session of the Indian parliament is about to begin, will there be a petition asking for the esteemed and venerable elected representatives to let the Lower House (Lok Sabha) and Upper House (Rajya Sabha) to function in the interest of 1.25 billion Indians? Interestingly, during last year’s Monsoon Session, a petition called “Parliament to function” was launched on Change.org and signed by the business honchos and financial sector’s heartbeats ranging from Sumit Mazumder to Kris Gopalakrishnan; Rahul Bajaj to Kiran Majumdar-Shaw; Pawan Munjal to Adi Godrej and others to end the logjam. Did the political parties and MPs heed to it? No!
Indian Parliament: no laws to pay attention to online petitions
Officially, the Government of India has no platform to solicit or seek online petitions. Because India is on the cusp of digital ‘revolution’ ranging from allocating a budget of Rs 10,000 crores to Start-Ups and to impart digital literacy to more than five million Indians, the Narendra Modi government should take initiative to open an online platform for petitioning to his government, directly, and to act upon them. If this happens, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be doing a favour to himself, and to the heartbeat of digital and non-digital Indians. If this happens the Government can debate not only on issues what the opposition parties want but also what want the public wants (bypassing the legitimate legislators?).
United Kingdom (the mother of democracy) has an established procedure for online petitions: the petitions have to be routed through its official website (https://petition.parliament.uk/). If a petition gets 10,000 signatures the government will respond (a petition demanded the government to force the holiday and airline companies not to raise fares and the government responded: We sympathise with parents struggling to afford a holiday but our policy is not to intervene when markets function normally…). If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, the British MPs will be debate in the Parliament (‘Don’t kill our bees!’ to ‘No UK airstrikes on Syria’).
Obama seeks online petitions: for transparency
“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.” – Barack Obama, US President
The White House in the US also offers a platform (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov) for its citizens to start a petition and track it until it gets a response. One of the petitions with the White House is: Demand The Release of Supreme Religious Leader of Sikhism, Jathedar Jagtar Singh Hawara, Head of Sri Akal Takhat, and it has received more than 1 lakh signatures.
With world’s leading democracies having an established platforms to reach out to the executive and legislature, India under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi should offer an online space for the (digital) Indians to vent, express, share…and ask for solutions. By having an effective mechanism to listen and respond to the people, the political parties that shamelessly waste time in the august house can be tamed, and reined in the interest of the public.
Kovuuri G Reddy teaches at the Department of Journalism & Mass Communications, AIGS, Acharya Institutes, Bangalore University.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect that of IBNLive and Network18)
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