We don't need no communication

If you were on the Eastern Express Highway a couple of weeks ago - those of you unlucky enough to have been there will immediately recall the day - you will remember the mixture of anger, hopelessness and frustration that washed over you during your unending struggle to get home. Traffic slowed to a crawl, then stopped for hours, compelling thousands of drivers and passengers to scratch their heads and wonder about what new festival was being celebrated.

A number of people wondered aloud on Twitter, which they could do at leisure because the vehicles they were in weren't moving. Some said a crack had appeared on a bridge in Ghatkopar, prompting police to shut down a road. Others said there were vehicles going the wrong way in the absence of traffic police, leading to chaos at other points. Still others assumed something had broken down, or that an accident was responsible. Through it all, there was radio silence from anyone associated with the government of Maharashtra.

Many of our ministers are now on Twitter, most of them for reasons known only to themselves. They use the platform to retweet things written by party leaders who, in turn, retweet things written by agencies paid to write things for them. The thing that binds all these thousands of messages together is their collective attempt to say nothing of any importance whatsoever. They are tweets of praise, attacks on the Opposition, snide remarks about the outrage of the day, or random wishes on someone's birth, death or anniversary. What they never offer is actual information we can use.

A government that isn't comfortable with transparency is a government that has something to hide. Unfortunately for us, we have never had access to a government that has believed in being honest about why it is doing something, which leaves us with no benchmark to aspire to. This explains why the Jan Lokpal Bill to investigate corruption cases and protect whistle-blowers continues to have a history that is sometimes amusing and often disturbing.

When was the last time you were told why something was happening, by someone qualified to comment? Think about the hundreds of times you were stuck on a local train between stations, hoping for the speakers installed in each compartment to crackle to life with useful information instead of advertisements for Pav Bhaji masala. Think about the times you have been asked to take a detour, waited for a bus that failed to arrive, or found out an office was closed when it wasn't supposed to, without being told why.

Maybe the fault lies with us, and our ability to ask everyone but the government for answers to things that matter. We will yell at conductors, argue with rickshaw drivers, accept crucial information from fellow passengers without comment, but fail to ask the powers that be for an explanation on any of the things they subject us to. It's probably why successive governments get away with the most outlandish plans by simply describing them as 'the will of the people'. The people are never asked, and they never complain, so why bother keeping them in the loop?

I look forward to a time when the government stops pretending about listening to the people and starts being blatant about where its decisions come from.

I want the government to put up its hands and say it doesn't want to give us good roads because a lot of people earn a lot of money from giving us substandard ones. I want ministers to laugh when we ask about why our parks and open land are being sold to private builders, and tell us that the real estate lobby is more powerful than we will ever be. I look forward to an official statement asking us all to rely on private healthcare because public healthcare will never be a priority.

One of the things we can all do, to prevent a scenario like that, is stop being apathetic and start being vocal. We can forget about politicians responding to questions - after all, we live in a time where press conferences are a touchy subject - and focus on what our local representatives are doing instead.

Why are our roads being renamed? Why are paving blocks giving way? Why is traffic not regulated at bottlenecks? Why are abandoned vehicles not being towed away? Answers to minor queries may be all we can hope for in a country where big questions that affect the lives of millions are always unanswered.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates