[ಕನ್ನಡ ಅನುವಾದ ಶೀಘ್ರದಲ್ಲೇ ಬರಲಿದೆ — Kannada translation coming soon]
we will lose these two heritage gems and future generations will never forgive us. (Feb 2019) Time to reinvent India’s Consumer Movement. Bhamy V. Shenoy The modern consumer movement was born mid 1960s in the US after the publication of a book, “Unsafe at any speed” by Ralph Nader. He succeeded in exposing the danger of driving Corvair automobiles. Nader dared to fight against the mighty General Motors, an act unthinkable at that time. It is interesting to observe that Nader considered Mahatma Gandhi as”the greatest consumer advocate the world has seen” for advancing the concept that commercial enterprise should serve the consumer. Leading Indian consumer activists are often admired by comparing them to Ralph Nader though India’s consumer movement had different history and many pioneers and heroes. There is unlikely to be any agreement on both these since India’s political and economic conditions are vastly different from the US. Some academicians credit Consumer Guidance Society of India for ushering in consumer movement in India. CGSI was started by nine women in Mumbai in 1966. The driving force for their interest was the suffering of forty persons after consuming adulterated groundnut oil. Victims did not get any justice while culprits escaped any punishment. Some also consider Manubhai Shah, the founder of Consumer Education And Research Center in 1978 as one of the towering figures in India’s consumer movement and so also Jaji Mandanna, the founder of
Karnataka Consumer Services Society in 1970 who had played pioneering role in India’s consumer movement. However we need to apply a more encompassing criterion (discussed later) and not limit consumer movement to the purchase of goods and services only. Then we can consider H D Shourie, founder of Common Cause in Delhi, and our own activist from Udupi, Dr. K Prabhakar. Kamath who started Udupi Consumers’ Forum (Balakedarara Vedike) as pioneers of India’s consumer movement. Shourie succeeded in promoting systemic changes by filing PILs and Dr. Kamath advocated the idea that we are “Masters and not Servants” in a democracy. Despite all the heroes mentioned above, many argue that the consumer movement started in India with the adaption of Consumer Protection Act (COPRA) in 1986. It was after COPRA more than 2000 consumer NGOs started to function in different parts of India with varying degrees of success. In the early stage of the implementation of COPRA ( it was thanks to a PIL by Shourie, states were compelled to start the consumer courts) there was much hope that it will bring a consumer revolution. Unfortunately such hopes were dashed. Hundreds of amendments were incorporated to overcome the deficiencies in the original act over the years. Finally in 2015 totally revised Consumer Protection Bill (CPB) was introduced in the Parliament. It took four years for Lok Sabha to pass the CPB on December 20, 2018. But Rajya Sabha where NDA does not have a majority did not find it important to take it up. Some opposition leaders raised issues pointing out the hardships likely to be faced by the entire medical profession, e-portals and small traders dealing with false charges. No act can be perfect and most of these non-issues were raised to delay the passage of the CPB. Now the CPB has lapsed and when the new Parliament meets it has to take it up again. It may reintroduce the old CPB 2018 as it is or start the exercise of law making from scratch.
The CPB 2018 had a number of consumer friendly provisions to improve upon the earlier COPRA. These are: 1. Setting up of a Central Consumer protection Authority, 2. Setting up of Mediation Centers in Consumer Courts, 3. Widening the jurisdiction of Consumer Courts, 4. Unfair Terms of Contract, 5. Jail for false and misleading ads, sale of spurious products and adulterated food, 6. Product Liability. 7. Penalty on celebrities for endorsing false and misleading advertisements. In the background of the failure of the Parliament to pass CPB 2018, we the citizens need to ask some inconvenient questions about India’s consumer movement. It is also timely, since we celebrated one more World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) of this year recently. WCRD was celebrated on March 15th in a typical ritualistic manner wherever there are some active consumer NGOs in India. Media has done its part in recalling how WCRD first came into existence in 1982 and how it owes its origin to the famous speech of President J F Kennedy in 1962 who formally addressed the consumer rights. It also discussed the theme of this year’s WCRD which is “ Trusted Smart Products” as suggested by Consumer International. There was a similar topic, “ Building a digital world consumers can trust” for WCRD 2017. In India besides WCRD, we celebrate another consumer day every December 24 called National Consumer Day. This is to mark the day when the President gave the formal consent to COPRA. The theme of NCD last year was appropriately “ “Timely Disposal of Consumer Complaints”. Unfortunately neither WCRD nor NCD has been used by we the people to reflect on what consumer movement should be in Indian context and what needs to be done. Certainly in digital age where mobile phones are used even by the poor in India and more than 500 millions have access to Internet, themes of WCRD are quite timely. Achieving the goal of timely disposal of consumer complaints is timely for NCD when on
average it takes more than a year to get the judgement. However more appropriate theme for India would have been to discuss why the parliament failed to adapt and what can be done to put pressure on political parties to pass it soon after the election. There was no such debate if one browses the web. Consumer Voice had started a petition drive before the WCRD. Even after two weeks less than 400 had signed the on line petition. This is despite the efforts made by some well known Consumer NGOs and activists urging the netizens to sign CPB 2018. Several web sites from Mangalore, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mumbai and Delhi had published articles urging consumers to sign the petition. Petition web site prominently showed the support by former Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde. More than 35000 IITM graduates were urged to sign the petition. Is this a poor reflection on the impact of social media or lack of interest in consumer movement? Consumer Voice (CV) is a Delhi based nationally well known consumer NGO. CV publishes a monthly magazine to provide independent and unbiased reviews of food items, consumer durables, and financial & banking services after getting comparative testing and has thousands of subscribers (full disclosure: I am a governing council member of CV). Still there were few participants in the petition drive. While celebrating these twin consumer rights day, often we recall the famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi that “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.” In many places, these meetings are presided over by the consumer court judges who are not often familiar with the actual philosophy of the COPRA. They have systematically converted these courts into civil courts. They give speeches on the speedy judgements given by their courts with minimum number of adjournments which again is not true.
According to the COPRA, consumer complaints should be resolved in less than 90 days with minimum number of adjournments. In reality very few meet that bench mark and most take more than a year. Judges presiding over the consumer courts are not influenced by the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied especially in most consumer cases which are simple to adjudicate. Currently there are approximately 4.5 lakh cases pending in consumer courts. 20% of district forums have no presidents! One of the reasons for the poor implementation of COPRA is the absence of strong and vibrant consumer movement in India. We the consumers have also been tolerating the inefficient and often irresponsible implementation of COPRA and did not find time or concern to protest. Same seems to be happening now with the latest petition drive of consumer activists to put pressure on the political parties to adapt new CPB. Equally important in Indian context for consumer movement are the services offered by government agencies and institutions. We pay for them directly or indirectly through taxes. For examples these are services by government run hospitals and health clinics, schools, colleges and universities, urban and rural local bodies, railways and bus services, etc. Today all of them are corruption ridden and ever ready to exploit their consumers. What we need is systemic change to make them consumer friendly. COPRA at best is just a band aid and that too in some limited cases. In a democracy we are actually the masters and all the government employees from top ranking IAS officers to clerks are there to serve us. How often are we treated as “masters” in government offices? There are instances of government doctors demanding bribe to release dead bodies! In fact treatment doled out is no better than given to servants violating common human decency. Again in democracy our elected representatives are accountable to voters. Can we really claim that it is the case in India?
A vibrant consumer movement besides helping the consumers of goods and services would have ensured that the government employees and elected leaders are held accountable to the public. One of the ways would have been the effective implementation of Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act. Only towards the end of its term, NDA managed to appoint the Lokpal while Karnataka government succeeded in clipping the wings of Lokayukta. To enjoy the benefits of democracy public has to be vigilant and actively get involved in solving civic issues. When some public spirited NGO takes up a worthy cause, citizens need to support such protests. However most of us act like the residents in famous Tennali Ram’s story that others will pour milk in the pond while we can pour water. It is time that India’s consumer movement reinvent itself by not only taking up problems involved in buying goods and services, but also holding all the public servants accountable. Our two mantras should be that Consumers are kings in the market place, and the citizen consumers are true masters in government offices and institutions to revolutionize India’s consumer movement. (March 17, 2019) World Environment Day: Every Mysurean should celebrate Bhamy V. Shenoy All over the world, June 5th is celebrated as World Environment Day (WED) as designated by the UN since 1974. This year’s theme is “Air Pollution” while the theme of the last year was “Beat Plastic Pollution”. Celebration of WED gives an opportunity to create a powerful platform to highlight the need to preserve and enhance environment by involving individuals, corporations, and communities.