The motormen's strike that the city witnessed from 3rd May to 5th May brought forth a lot of claims about 'civil society'. But these claims came from only certain throats in the society, and not others who were also involved. All voices that managed to find ears belonged to the newspapers and their clique, and the most dominant agenda they put forward was how a few motormen had held the entire city to ransom. Not only this, the newspapers also managed to stifle what the motormen had to say and made opaque obvious questions that arose about a 'civil society' in this case. It would then be worth its while to ponder over what prospects does a 'civil society' hold for its civilians, and what did it actually imply in the strike of the motormen.
The most dominant trend in the modern world is the alleged eclipsing of one's ability and hard-work over one's hereditary privileges. This has led to, in the economic life of modern man, a kind of a professionalization- the accepted ethic is that the worker is, as a person, equal to his employer, and thus only gives his labour in exchange of money. This impersonal relation between the employee and his employer marked a break from acceptance of any divine or other forms of ascription of 'duty', and bonded serfdom or caste-slavery was rendered not viable and unacceptable. The employee was free when not at work, and had the right to deliberate upon his terms of work. This, in a nutshell, is the idea that runs behind all professional relationships in modern civil society.
For the motormen, wouldn't this imply that they must be free to demand their terms? Furthermore, doesn't the right to demand also imply a right to strike? As straightforward as it may seem, most of the media coverage managed to tactfully hide these questions. In its place, they put up a different network of ideas: there is a multitude of people on which depends the running of the entire city, and this in turn depends upon the functioning of the motormen. Since it is necessary for the city to run efficiently, it was immoral of the motormen to have inconvenienced the multitude of people with their demands. This idea came through not only from the newspapers (though they were the first to spread it)- it was reflected by the High Court, which is supposed to be at the apex of running a 'civil society'. In this light, the position of the motormen becomes like that of Arjun: what they should do is not what they think is right, but what comes as a duty by the virtue of their position in the civil order as motormen.
That is the situation of the motormen; what about the state and those that occupy public space without being a part of the state? The state was the first body to turn this professional affair a civil one. It took the debate between an employer company and its employees into the public sphere by taking it to the Centre and the judiciary. With the complacence of the Centre, it invoke Emergency Services Maintenance Act, and forcibly took away motormen's right to strike and negotiate, if not brutally incarcerating them. Political goons like the MNS found an opportunity to flex their muscles, while a laughable mistake was seen on part of the Shiv Sena, which, after having vouched for the constituency in minority (motormen), changed its allegiance and and took to appeasing the majority (the 'Mumbaikars').
Finally, we come down to the fourth estate of 'civil society'- the media. The facts- that newspapers grossly ignored the demands of the motormen, spared criticism from the state's neck in sitting passively over the demands of the motormen (which have been made since January 26th), reported the arrests of motormen with no mention of the ESMA (TOI, Indian Express), and also failed to raise questions of professionalism for the general public- go to show that they are one part of a hypocrisy that resides in our 'civil society' and that this hypocrisy itself now has been accepted as the canon for a 'civil society'. This regression into uncivil and solution-by-the-fist social behaviour bids ill-luck for any seriously civil society, for this goes back to the much reproached state interventionism into economic affairs. It is, one wonders, still that time when we ought to ask if the common worker is really free to make his choices.
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