It was the World Consumer Rights Day on March 15. As in the past, Consumer International, a global organisation championing such rights, picked a theme for the day—this year, it was ‘A just transition to sustainable lifestyle’. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the theme reflects concerns India has been voicing for years about climate change and sustainability. It aligns with the prime minister’s call for adopting a Lifestyle for Environment or LiFE.
India is home to the world’s largest population of consumers. The term itself is a great leveller. From the richest industrialists to the poorest citizens—everybody is a consumer despite their diverse realities. Yet, the community of consumers remains an amorphous entity that is extremely hard to unite and mobilise. In comparison to various other distinctly identifiable social groups like farmers, labourers and students, consumers usually show little regard for their rights and responsibilities.
A rare experiment in organising consumers effectively and protecting their interests to work towards the lofty ideal of consumer justice is the Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), which is celebrating its golden jubilee this year. Founded by social and political activist Bindumadhav Joshi of Pune, freedom-fighter-turned-musician Sudhir Phadke and social-worker-turned-municipal-corporator Madhukar Mantri, MGP has evolved as a text-book example of sustainable community organisation.
The key to MGP’s functionality is its well-knit network of smaller consumer groups. The average strength of each such group remains at 15-20 families. These groups internally distribute and collect a demand sheet of primarily grocery items every month, mentioning the approximate prices of the items sought. Accordingly, members of the group deposit the requisite amount in the group’s bank account. The apex federal body of such groups conducts wholesale purchase of the items demanded.
Later, such items are carefully packed in stipulated units and distributed among the groups. Members of every such group, by rotation, select the home of a member family as the distribution centre. On an appointed date, the members collect their items from the distribution centres. This activity cycle continues uninterruptedly all through the year.
Every aspect of this community work remains well-orchestrated and on schedule. Rarely would members miss the date for depositing demand sheets. The federal body mandated to make wholesale purchases has earned a name for getting fair and competitive prices and an uncompromising approach towards the goods’ quality. Trustworthy leadership, self-regulated discipline and the centrality of consumer justice—transparency and accountability—could be cited as hallmarks of the MGP’s success.
It must also be noted that while the MGP is a non-profit, voluntary organisation, it has always refused to compromise with its fundamental value system. Refraining assiduously from the lure of seeking donations from wholesale grocery traders or manufacturers, and not seeking any advertisements from manufacturers or big trading organisations for MGP’s magazine are two of the few policy approaches that it scrupulously adheres to. Besides, the organisation has also contributed to consumer activism in its own way at times, like playing a key role in the passage of the law to establish the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority in 2017.
No wonder then that the MGP today has 2,505 consumer groups with around 30,000 members. Its network covers just about six districts in the Konkan and Pune regions, but has a tremendous potential to expand. Meanwhile, its work has earned attention from global consumer protection bodies. It made persistent efforts to make the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection more comprehensive and for the UN Conference on Trade and Development to create an inter-governmental group of experts. Senior UNCTAD officials have commended MGP, saying that its participation has always added value to the deliberations and “successfully led (them) to the modernisation and expansion of the UNGCP, including on e-commerce, financial services, dispute resolution and redress and international cooperation”.
Although MGP’s achievements are truly historic, the challenges before the consumer movement in general and the MGP in particular are becoming more complex. This is because, like in politics, in consumer affairs too it is hard to tell people something that is unpopular but in the larger interests of the group. From banks to gyms, and from theatres to public transport, the need for greater efforts to achieve consumer justice is felt every day in different walks of life.
Take the example of media. Consumer bodies have been rightly and somewhat sufficiently vigilant about adulteration in food. But what about the growing tendency of adulterating news with views? Consumers of various kinds of media—print, electronic and digital—need to come together to protect their interests. But sadly, this has never been attempted.
In the entertainment sector, several state government are supporting movie and drama producers with financial grants. This has led to the production of a greater number of works, but unsurprisingly, it has added neither to the quantitative nor qualitative growth of movie- and theatre-goers. Instead, it might make more sense to help the patrons of cinema and theatre with subsidised tickets so that the market size is enlarged. However, for that, consumers of entertainment will have to assert, and this assertion is in short supply.
In Indian culture, the consumer has always been considered the king. Mahatma Gandhi had described the consumer as god. In modern democracy, what the voter is to political parties, the consumer is to manufacturers and traders. Obviously then, the unorganised mass of citizens will have to make sustained, well-orchestrated and creative efforts to live up to this ‘kingship’. Kings also need to assert and acquire an element of deterrence to their enterprise to sustain power.
In an increasingly market-driven economy, if consumers fail to assert, the ugly face of capitalism is bound to take them for a ride. An organised consumer base can shape a third way beyond the binary of socialism and capitalism. It’s high time that consumers realised their strength.
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe
Senior BJP leader
(Views are personal)
(vinays57@gmail.com)