Dia Mirza’s exclusion, Fadnavis playing oversmart

What Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had to say about social media content and rights over it may not go down easily with those who monitor and seek their removal using the law and rules now in play. He was explicit when he spoke before television cameras, thus: The owners of the handles have the “right to decide what content should be retained and what should be removed”.

The owner in this case is an “authority”, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), which took down a post it hosted from Dia Mirza, a celebrity from Bollywood, exhorting people not to cause environmental pollution by bursting crackers. The post was taken down after Mayor Ritu Tawde objected to it, saying the actress was anti-Hindu, and later, Mumbai BJP chief Amit Satam joined in, in essence saying it was not for Diya Mirza to ask Hindus to go easy on crackers.

Fadnavis’s contention that the owner of the handles on social media has the right to their content and what ought to or not to remain on it was their concern is at variance with the way the Centre has been asking for social media posts to be removed or even the accounts themselves to be taken down. Statistics show that as many as 1,276 requests per day, or one every 68 seconds, were being sought to be erased between March and July this year.

MCGM sought videos at court’s behest

That the Bombay High Court said that it would be “ideal” that the city government’s X handle restored Mirza’s video did not take kindly to the politicians who are in the civic body who did not like it there. It was at the behest of the court in October that the MCGM had sought videos from celebrities and uploaded them. Their exhortations are that the air remains clean. When her video was taken down, the same court took it up suo motu. The High Court bench that spoke its mind comprised Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale.

While downplaying the court’s indignation, Fadnavis slipped badly by saying it was not something that is dealt with at “my level”, and it was the MCGM’s discretion as to what its SM handle should carry or not carry. “Dia Mirza may be a good actress, but she is not a major political figure in the country,” which implied that her views did not matter. The sequence and the context show that the civic body had thought otherwise. To him, it was “a very small issue”. I believe the High Court may have expressed its opinion. In short, the court had not ordered the restoration.

The X handle @mybmc predicated each of the videos with the statement that they were on the directives of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court, which also had prohibited the bursting of firecrackers on public roads, lanes and footpaths. After Mirza’s video was taken down by the BMC itself, the others that remain are Marathi actress Nishigandha Wad, Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit, and cricketer Ajinkya Rahane. It is not clear whether the civic body would opt to find more celebrities to seek clean air in Mumbai.

‘Which way are we heading?’ asked court

The exhaustive coverage of the High Court proceedings by the Marathi newspaper Loksatta of The Indian Express stable indicated how vexed the court was. It pointed out that India was a secular country, and it was expected of its people to do everything to retain secular values. Opposing anyone was not acceptable, and politicising issues relating to environmental issues was not right. “This was not expected of the people’s representatives. Which way are we heading?”

Referring to its October order that the people be educated, the court said by ignoring it, politicians had made irresponsible statements. The court has not seen any people’s representatives coming forth with statements that heightened the public awareness about the environmental issues and firecrackers. “What has the mayor done for the city?” Justice Gokhale pointedly asked. “Show one municipal corporator who has raised his voice against air or noise pollution.”

This, Fadnavis does not think, was sufficient for him to rein in the mayor and members of his party, like Satam. Obviously, publicly chiding either Tawde, the mayor, or his party’s city chief, Satam, would also be contrary to the way the BJP thinks, and its cadres conduct themselves. Satam later clarified that he was opposed to the “tukde tukde gang”. Fadnavis may be assuming that he had adroitly handled the issue, but he did not do his duty.

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