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October 12th saw the "Meter Jam II" campaign in Mumbai - a boycott of auto-rickshaws and taxis as a protest against the service delivery methods. This campaign by and large has the interests of the harassed middle-class at heart. The auto and taxi drivers, themselves middle-class aspirants though would not miss the hypocrisy in the campaign: passengers paint themselves as customers with rights while overlooking the more basic right to a decent living of the poorer driver. The campaign, being organized by advertising professionals rather than civic activists is an indication of the principles at work in this protest.

"...You can never formulate a protest only in terms of interests. You can never say I am being oppressed; you have to say oppression is wrong. That’s the only way you can formulate a protest. The moment you do that, the principle becomes universal. Not universal in the sense of 100% universal, but it finds for itself a class which goes beyond you. Then what happens is that, you will have to speak for many more people, which again has its own further consequences. So a perpetual expansion of the principled concerns is unavoidable in the very fact that a protest has to be expressed in terms of universal values."

Hyderabad based late civil-rights activist K Balagopal in an interview

In a campaign like "Meter Jam", this aspect of expansion of a cause and understanding the consequences is missing. The only "class" commuters are willing to be clubbed along is with other passengers, while unwilling to view themselves as stakeholders in the larger civic transport system and so on. To these activists, the problem is simply one of supply chain inefficiency that needs censuring and not a symptom of social inequity or the breakdown of the rule of law.

The rent-seeking ways of the drivers speaks of lax regulations and patronization of their unions by the civic government together lead to extortionist practices. Till a mechanism is worked out where the government does its duty of regulation with tact and imagination while remaining unbiased, any number of protests by the commuters and the transport unions will result in little except advancing the careers of the campaigners.

Links:
http://www.meterjam.com/
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/meter-jam-in-mumbai-commuters-boycott-taxis-autos-43861
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/meter-jam-ii-mumbaikars-say-no-to-autos-taxis-59126
http://www.dnaindia.com/speakup/interview_we-won-t-organise-meter-jam-3-but-will-help-people-seek-results_1451760
http://balagopal.org/