MUMBAI -
Loudspeakers, vehicular horns, firecrackers and
other noise pollutants have had an enduring affair
with India - that is until the country's Supreme
Court pulled the plug.
No more
loudspeakers and unnecessary honking after 10pm,
the court ruled in a recent judgement to a public
interest petition concerned about the health of
millions fed up with late-night torture of the ear
drums, particularly during festival times.
The serious festival months start with
India's three biggest: Ganesh Chathurthi, the
festival of the much-beloved elephant-headed god
Ganesha, was in September, while Navratri (Durga
Pooja) is in October and Diwali in November.
Both urban police and the Supreme Court
held firm over the night deadline the past
fortnight during the Ganesha festival, even in
Mumbai - the
festival's epicenter - amid unprecedented pressure
exerted by state governments concerned over the
loss of business and political clout at the street
level. The Gujarat and Maharahstra governments had
little success after seeking an extension to
midnight during the Ganesh festival.
"No
one shall beat a drum or tom-tom, or blow a
trumpet or beat or sound any instrument, or use
any sound amplifier at night [between 10pm and
6am] except in public emergencies," Chief Justice
R C Lahoti ruled. He said the case raised "certain
issues of far-reaching implications in day-to-day
life of the people in India".
The case had
a tragic origin. The petition was filed by
engineer Anil Mittal who approached the apex court
after newspapers reported in January 1998 about a
13-year-old girl who was raped but whose cries for
help were drowned by blaring neighborhood
loudspeakers. The raped girl later committed
suicide by setting herself on fire.
Even
without such grave reasons, enforcing a 10pm
deadline on loudspeakers might seem an innocuous
and obvious ruling. Not so in India where noise
pollution is a national disease - from the honking
of impatient drivers and private functions made
public with loudspeakers screeching Bollywood film
hits to festival times such as in winter when the
noise soars to manic proportions.
A
massive industry loses out if festival revelry is
toned down. Affected are sound equipment
suppliers, Navratri parties and dances (called
garbas or dandiyaa raas),
organizers, entertainers and TV and movie stars
who stand to lose out on appearance money, and
related businesses such as fashion retailers.
Revellers are known to spend more than US$900 on
clothes and accessories, a sum greater than the
average monthly income of an upper middle-class
family. Festival organizers gloomily grumble that
the Supreme Court ruling will bring down sales by
35%.
The 10pm loudspeaker deadline has
shattered garba organizers. In a city such
as Mumbai with long commuting distances, 10pm is
usually family suppertime. Partying comes later.
In effect, the new deadline means the party is
over before one can get to it. Peeved organizers
want to abandon festivities, saying they have no
choice.
"Most of the organizers have
called off shows this year," Nikhill Shah of
Beaters Music Group told Asia Times Online. "We
have been organizing garbas for 25 years in
Mumbai, and this year we have moved to Esselworld
[Mumbai's biggest amusement park], which as an
entertainment zone can have loudspeakers up to
12:30am."
Ingenuity can find alternatives
in indefatigable Mumbai. The Ganesh Naidu Club in
suburban Borivili wants to beat the loudspeaker
deadline by fitting dancers with wireless
headphones (each costing more than $15) connected
to a transmitter. The club is awaiting police
permission.
In the western Indian state of
Gujarat, where the Dandiya Raas is most fervently
celebrated, the biggest garba, the
Maa-Arkee in Baroda city, has reportedly called
off festivities this year. Many others in
Ahmedabad are reportedly planning likewise. One
garba organizer said more than 25,000
people visit their garbas, with organizing
expenditures exceeding $100,000 for the entire
festival. In Mumbai, the bigger garbas sell
season tickets for more than $100. "The big
garbas have 5,000 patrons each night and
15,000 during weekends," Nikhill Shah said.
This is how a garba usually goes:
with public space, road or stadium as a hired or
encroached-upon party venue, the nine-day Navratri
(meaning nine nights) has every night start out
with a pooja, or prayer with rituals; then
prasad (sacred offerings) are distributed
to devotees. After that, the party begins. Hired
bands and singers belt out raucous music to a
typical dandiya beat. Male and female
revellers, dressed in their glittering best,
sashay in a large circle, each carrying two small
wooden sticks (called dandiyas), which they
clash together as they dance moving along the
circle.
The clickety-clack of the sticks,
the color, the mood, the dance and even the music
would be fine, if not for the loudspeakers, which
don't give you the chance to call it a night.
Chances of sleep are remote until the revelry
ends, usually after 1am. Most people in crowded
cities such as Mumbai, particularly students, the
elderly, the ailing or those inclined to quiet and
early nights, have little choice other than
dreaming of soundproof rooms. Earplugs don't shut
out the noise, as this correspondent can wearily
testify.
The noise gets worse during
Diwali, the festival of light that is usually
louder. "During Diwali a number of Mumbaikars come
to Worli Seaface and burn [fire]crackers leaving
behind a sea of smoke," a chartered accountant
celebrating the Indian Supreme Court ruling on
loud speakers wrote online. "My mother has
bronchitis so I shut all the windows scared that
the smoke might result in an attack." He added
that burning of firecrackers at such a large scale
is a waste of national resources. "Even if 50% of
the money spent on crackers were used to start
schools and hospitals, I am sure that we would
have at least 3,000 more schools every year."
He and the rest of the long-suffering
populace have reason to celebrate. It is the first
time the country's apex court has stepped in so
strongly to muffle probably one of the noisiest
countries in the world. India gets to sleep easier
this winter.
More pressing reasons other
than noise persist for the noise clampdown, as the
Supreme Court observed, quoting environmental and
medical studies with a long list of health hazards
from sound pollution: neuropsychological
disturbances, cardiac and digestive disorders,
fatigue, stress and insomnia.
"The noise
polluters have no regard for the inconvenience and
discomfort of the people in the vicinity," the
court ruled. "Nobody can claim that he has a right
to make his voice trespass into the ears or mind
of others. Nobody can indulge in aural
aggression."
Those are words that may be
music to the ears of millions of long-suffering
Indians.
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