25 | Noise in India - with Sumaira Abdulali

Residents of India's vibrant and populous cities experience loud noise that can damage their health. We spoke with  Sumaira Abdulali, a leader in environmental and noise issues in the state of Maharashtra. For over 20 years, she's advocated for residents of Mumbai and other cities and helped to implement policy change. As a result, her work has improved the quality of life for millions of people. In this podcast episode, we talk with Sumaira about how she began her work, the challenges along the way, and the successes.

Transcript

Cary (00:06):
This is episode 25 of Soundproofist. And my name is Cary.

Phill (00:11):
And this is Phill.

Cary (00:12):
In this episode, we're speaking with Sumaira Abdulali. For the past two decades, she's led the fight against noise pollution and other environmental concerns in Mumbai, India. She's also the founder of Awaaz Foundation. Some of you might have read her columns in Forbes Magazine, or you've read about her in newspaper stories on urban noise in India. I've really been looking forward to speaking with Sumaira and I can't wait to share her story with you. So let's get started.

Sumaira (00:49):
I'm Sumaira Abdulali. I have worked on noise pollution in Mumbai for about 20 years now. And I started at a time when noise was not known at all as an issue. In fact, quite the reverse.

Cary (01:01):
And I have a feeling that you probably became known as the "noise lady" or the "noise goddess" or some such association., Because if people weren't thinking about noise before... you got them thinking about noise.

Sumaira (01:15):
Well, certainly not goddess. "That woman out there, who's the killjoy..."

Sumaira (01:20):
Because noise in Mumbai and in India is considered to be an integral part of life. And it makes us who we are. And we have the vibrant culture, you know, the colors, the sound, the music, which all those Western people don't. So you have Western influences and you think noise is a bad thing when actually it's great thing. In fact, there was an instance when I measured noise made by a political leader who actually pointed me out in his speech and said "that woman out there thinks she can control the tiger's roar. Well, we are there to teach her that she can't." So not at all for sure.

Cary (02:05):
Ah, I can imagine.

Phill (02:08):
Maybe more like the demon of noise.... noise abatement.

Sumaira (02:11):
I settled on the "minister of noise."

Cary (02:14):
Minister of noise. There we go. So was there sort of a pivotal moment or an event that made you want to pursue noise... That made you notice and want to pursue noise in your community?

Sumaira (02:28):
Well, I think there were always calls for help, which made me want to do it. It started with my uncle who was in his eighties and couldn't sleep, because of a marriage hall next door. And I don't know if you are familiar with Indian weddings, but they are quite a sight. Because they have firecrackers. They have loud speakers, they have processions and it's all out on the road. And it's often at night and it's very, very loud. It's like having a rock concert pass by your house in the middle of the night, whether you like it or not. And so he was troubled by that and that was the first call for help. Then we filed together a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court, which allows any person to take up an issue in the public interest. And I did that. And then I was flooded with calls for help. Because as a result of the orders that we managed to get, which was that you can't use loudspeakers beyond 10:00 PM and in silent zones, which are areas next to hospitals, schools, courts, and educational institutions and religious places.

Sumaira (03:42):
So in these places you couldn't use loudspeakers at all. And people started calling and saying, "well, you know, I live next to a silent zone and there's still noise going on. And I got hundreds of calls, maybe thousands. And probably by now much more, it would be tens of thousands. Because even today, 20 years later, I get at least one call a day. Even though all the systems have been set up now over those 20 years. But still people somewhere or the other do need help. So that was my motivation. And when I heard their stories and I heard people crying on the phone, and I heard someone threatening suicide. And somebody else having an actual psychotic fit because it's so loud -- we are talking of decibel levels up to 130 decibels, which is like standing next to a jet engine in your own house in the middle of the night.

Cary (04:34):
Wow. That's pretty bad. I mean, if there were no regulations until you began this pursuit 20 years ago, I cannot imagine having loudspeakers going on -- in the middle of the night -- at that noise level, how people could sleep at all. It's mind-blowing. So when you say people are still calling you now, what are the issues they're calling you about now, now that you have regulations and things in place? What are some of the typical calls?

Sumaira (05:00):
Typically it's about implementation. Because it's one thing to have a regulation. It's quite another to implement it. And the calls that I had then were after we had the regulations, because we had just got a high court order, ordering the police to implement those rules. And while they did start implementing them, it's not until I redirected the calls to the police and they set up this implementation system that any relief at all happened. And the problem is compounded by the fact that these -- the noisiest of them all, the festival season -- is directly controlled by politicians and their political and commercial interests. And to explain that the festival season consists of a series of events, just street events, street processions, mostly. And also loudspeakers set up at certain locations on the streets. Mumbai is the one of the most densely crowded cities in the world. We have a population of millions of people -- 18 million people --in the city.

Sumaira (06:04):
In fact, I believe in '21, it's 21 million people. So that's a lot of people, and it's a very small area. In that situation, a politician can just set up a thing next to your house, without any permission of any kind, put his face up on a banner, and start using loudspeakers. And since in this country, police transfers are controlled by politicians, the police will not take any action. And people are typically very afraid to complain, because many of our politicians -- as is proved by the fact that they're so willing to break the law on noise -- also have criminal records of various kinds. And they still get elected into political positions. Under those circumstances, implementation is not just about having a rule enacted. It's very, very different from that. We live in a completely different situation here. And this is why it's taken 20 years to control.

Sumaira (07:00):
But I mentioned the political rally, it was conducted by a right-wing leader of a political party, which had risen to power by burning buses on the street, by burning libraries, which kept books that they didn't endorse for various reasons, and other such things. So it was a very dangerous thing to do to sit there and take noise readings. And that's why he called himself "the tiger" and mentioned the tiger's roar. It was not safe by any stretch of imagination. And people were pretty amazed that anyone would do such a thing. You know, so the situation is different. Having said that because so many people complained, initially most of them complained anonymously. They complained to me, and this is why they complained to me and not to the police in the first place. And by going to court, we made the police set up an anonymous complaint system where people didn't have to identify themselves from there.

Sumaira (07:56):
We have come to a situation today where the same political party, which burned buses and said "that woman out there, that demon out there" now prides itself in having the same function, which they've had so many years indoors. For the first time, and in not making noise. And in fact, they put together the procession leaders and the leader of ...the president of those processions, that particular festival contacted me and said that it's taken them a long time, but they've understood that this is not a religious or --  you know -- something where I'm trying to put down some religion. It's not a religious issue. It is about their health. And they have put together a team of 200 of their own people to make sure that no one will break the noise rules. And that's been happening since 2016. So it's not only about noise. It's about law and order.

Cary (08:52):
Yeah, definitely it's about law and order. I agree.

Phill (08:55):
Well, I'm curious about when you got that initial court order at, it was at the high court at Bombay, that seemed like a brave act in itself. The procedure itself to get that court order. Do you have experience in law? Like how was the process to actually do that? Was that in itself a difficult thing? It seems like it would at least given the climate that you're described that would at least require bravery. But I'm also curious about the technical hurdles or the legal hurdles to actually get that in front of a court.

Sumaira (09:23):
I was very fortunate in that because I completely by accident, met a lawyer, a young lawyer at that time who volunteered his services to me free of cost. Because he lived next to a place where, because of noise, his windows rattled at night and he couldn't sleep. And he said, "whatever you want, I will do." So he started... his name is Ishwar Nankani. I must mention him. Because not only did he volunteer his services at that time when he was just starting out in his career. But he has continued to provide pro bono services even today, 20 years later. And made sure whatever technicalities and things needed to be done: checking the papers, the filings in court, getting someone to argue, briefing senior lawyers, you know, all the rest of it. Which is not small and not easy. And which I am not qualified to do ...has been taken care of very professionally.

Sumaira (10:19):
And not only that, but I remember the first time I went to his office and saw him xeroxing like a stack of papers. They were like really, really a lot. I had never imagined that a court filing because in India to file in a court with two judges, you require at least six copies of everything. At least in fact, at least eight copies of everything, because you have to serve both the judges. Then you have to serve each party, each entity, which is a party, which means every separate division of the government. So the environment department, the police, the blah, blah, blah long list, and you have to serve all of them individually. So he was xeroxing the stack of papers. And I said, "can I pay for the xeroxing?" And he looked at me and he said, "do you have any funding? Have you, have you?" Because at this time I had no NGO. That came later. So he said, "do you have funding?" And I said, "well, no, but..." you know. So he said, "consider it my contribution to your campaign."

Cary (11:21):
Wow. That's wonderful.

Sumaira (11:23):
I have not paid him since then.

Cary (11:25):
Wow. Well, he sounds really integral to the legal aspects of the knowledge. And thank goodness you had a partner like this in your endeavors. You mentioned that you didn't have an NGO, but you do now. is this your NGO that... I think it's Awaaz, is that the name, how you pronounce it? Awaaz Foundation?

Sumaira (11:45):
So I started on noise around maybe 2002 or three, and Awaaz was set up in 2006 because I got so many calls and I got... You know, I realized I have to write letters. I have to do various things. Which needs some kind of structure. So even if it's just me and a few like-minded people, you know, and it doesn't have a whole lot of infrastructure in the sense of administrative infrastructure, because Ishwar took care of all the administrative infrastructure I would need on my legal thing. It still made sense to have an NGO. So Awaaz in Hindi and other Indian languages means "noise," but it also means voice against injustice of various kinds. So it allows me to work on noise directly, and it also gives a clear message as to what it's not just noise. It's not just the issue of noise, but how it's going to be tackled and that it can also expand to various other issues that I work on, like illegal sand mining and other environmental issues.

Cary (12:49):
That's another whole environmental issue. You're absolutely right. That's great. One thing I wondered -- well, I wonder a lot of things -- but one thing I wondered was after you began getting some policies established around noise, some noise regulations. Do you think that this change possibly changed in the sonic landscape of the environment of Mumbai so that people began to notice things more, maybe? Actually, first of all, were any of these policies enforced or did they just simply get passed as a law and everybody carried on as they did before?

Sumaira (13:25):
No, they were enforced and they were enforced for some reasons. The first of course, is that the police were so flooded with calls that they had to set up enforcement mechanisms. I mean, if I received tens of thousands of calls then so did they, because I redirected all of them to them. And they tell me today that noise-pollution calls are the highest number of calls that they receive overall of all the issues that the police deal with. So that's one reason. And ultimately it just shows that people's participation is the only thing that works. One person like me can maybe direct it a little bit, but it's them. It's the people. And it also shows that premise that we went on that "Indians love noise" is not completely true. The other reason is that the High Court was very proactive at various times.

Sumaira (14:18):
The first time they were proactive was when they passed that first order in 2003. But also later on, in 2015 and '16, they heard implementation. They first heard the final hearing...you know, by the time that case came up, it was... Sorry, let me go back a bit. It was filed in 2003 and the High Court heard it and passed some orders. And we succeeded to a large extent in implementing it, but not completely. Not the way that I would have wished. Then the High Court took up the matter for hearing. And by the time they came, they heard it over a period of two years, practically every week, maybe twice a week. Sometimes even more than that. Sometimes even every day, for two years. And in that period of time, various people who had been complaining about noise and had become frustrated, also filed their own petitions.

Sumaira (15:13):
So my two petitions -- first one filed in 2003, the second one filed in 2006 -- which had to do with traffic and construction noise, and airports and helipads came up for hearing. So I had two. And another eight petitions were filed, alongside. So there were 10 petitions, which were linked. Some of them had to do with implementation. The High Court passed an order of hundreds of pages covering every aspect of noise from the festival noise to religious places, which have been very noisy again for political and divisive reasons. For traffic noise, construction noise, airport noise, railways, everything. Then it became clear that in spite of these orders, they were being implemented more than ever before. But we were not satisfied, and neither was the court. So then the court started hearing implementation of its orders and they would hear this...they heard this practically every week for two years more.

Sumaira (16:13):
So that takes us to nearly 2018, where we were having constant hearings on what kind of mechanism should be set up, how anonymity should be maintained, how many decibel meters the police should have, how they should be trained to use them, what their responses should be, how the other departments of government coordinate with this. And of course, because they were under so much pressure, the various governments of the department also decided to cooperate and hold awareness programs. So 2018 was declared a "no honking year" by the state government, by the Chief Minister in the state of Maharashtra, which was a big deal for us, you know. At the same, I filed contempt notices against various officers who didn't do what they were supposed to have done. And so it was kind of a carrot and stick. And finally, we've come to the situation now where the government is saying that "We did it. See, we were the ones who actually implemented this law," and that's true. And that's great. You know, I'm glad to see it that way.

Cary (17:17):
So, it's like many things, it was incremental. And do you feel like over time, that perception of noise -- cultural perception of noise -- has changed along the way?

Sumaira (17:28):
Oh, absolutely. There are many people I know now who say they drive in Mumbai without honking. Many people who, I mean, I mentioned one of them, but there have been several others who came forward and said, "we thought what you were saying was complete nonsense. And that, you know, you were just trying to be obstructionist or whatever. But we understand now and we have implemented it in our own lives." So a very early example of this was a man who called me one day and said in 2003, I had just got the order, banning his festival, his event. And he called me and said, "My daughter is doing a college thesis. And he would like to do it on noise pollution. Can you guide her?" And I remember I was so shocked because I thought here's a natural enemy, you know? And it's not always... it's not so cut and dried.

Sumaira (18:18):
It's not like that. Because ultimately everybody is affected. The problem is they know that noise is bad for them because they feel it themselves. You can't escape it at those kind of decibel levels. But they're also making a lot of money or getting a lot of political mileage. And so it's in their interest, it's in their greater interest to let the activity continue. And particularly since the people who are participating, you know, the body of people who are actually making the noise are convinced that it's not harmful to them. Because it's just for a little while, just 10 days a year, just... you know... just this, just that. But 10 days a year with your infant in your arms and your child pressing his ears against a loudspeaker at that kind of volume, literally cannot be anything but harmful.

Phill (19:11):
I'm curious how you mentioned all these calls that you got. So when you filed these initial court hearings was this -- and obviously the courts were flooded with them, eventually -- did the media get onto this? How did this news spread to where you ended up getting all of this attention and contacted?

Sumaira (19:29):
Well, of course it was the media because I didn't know anybody. Just like, I didn't know any lawyers, I didn't know any journalists or anybody at all. Really. So it was all, I think when you do something sincerely, I think people know that it's sincere as opposed to doing something to make yourself famous or rich or something like that. And I think every person has that wish somewhere -- however deeply it may be buried in some -- that they want to do something for the society. And I will not exclude the politicians who opposed me or the noisemakers from that because they, when I met them finally years later, they said that, you know, "we have done so much good with the money we have earned through these festivals. And you don't seem to appreciate that." And it's taken us a while to appreciate that. It's in the greater good not to do it, not to make this noise, but still do.

Sumaira (20:23):
So everybody wants to do good. It's a matter of perception, what they think is good. So people join you for various reasons and they want to contribute. And this is another reason why Awaaz Foundation and I have been able to continue working all these years without funding and without any infrastructure -- administrative infrastructure. Because people join you and they contribute as they see best, as they feel best. And that serves another very important purpose, which is not to let you become a megalomaniac of any kind and think that you are the one doing everything, controlling everything, kind of... you know, on top of things. And everybody else is bad, and I'm good. It's not like that. People who are volunteering their time and effort say like Ishwar, will not do it. And he'll stop in a moment if I take those kind of attitudes. So it works all around. It saves money. People contribute in a much more productive and better manner than just if they were writing checks to me. They're giving their professional expertise free of cost, which would have cost huge amounts of money by now. Which I would've spent most of that money just administering that, you know? So it works. Maybe it's a new model that NGOs can follow. It's certainly worked for me. And I don't think anyone is for you or against you. It's a matter of at that moment, what they see is to be in the best interest.

Cary (21:51):
Well, you're an influencer. And I think maybe what you had to do was find a compromise like, well, you can have the festival, everybody enjoys the festival. It's an important part of the holiday, but maybe not have it, as you mentioned, after a certain hour at night, not have the loudspeakers. And I don't think that's an unreasonable request. It's not like you're telling everyone, "you can't have a festival at all." But just getting people to change in that way. I think you had to win the hearts and minds of people who were very invested in having the festival and having it a traditional way.

Sumaira (22:25):
Yeah. I think behavioral change takes a while. And I think patience is a key word there because you can't do it overnight. And if you try, you break it. You know, you can't carry people with you. If so it's a constant negotiation. And I think, for inspiration, people like Mahatma Gandhi were masters at this. You know, they never demanded things. The whole thing right up now "it has to be done now." It can't be done now. It's incremental, step-by-step. You have to take it along with all the reversals along the way, just keep making progress a little forward... it goes a little backwards. That's just the way it is.

Phill (23:06):
Well, speaking of that, we mentioned how people might see that as a threat to the tradition or that...you said that there was the sense that Indians are really loud. But you're talking about modern technology, cars honking, loudspeakers. These things can only be traditional to a certain point in time. So at some point, these traditions started using this new technology. So I'm just curious if you have any sense of how the soundscape has evolved in a place like Mumbai over the last 100 years. And maybe even in your lifetime, if you've noticed any major changes.

Sumaira (23:41):
Oh, absolutely. Because when I was young, loudspeakers were still very expensive. And so only very wealthy people could use them. And as they became more available, they were the cheaper ones were of terrible quality. So if you're trying to play 120 decibels on very low-quality speakers, you know what's gonna happen. The sound is going to be awful. And it was. And so when it's that noise at night, it's not only very loud, but it's really, really bad quality. So a hundred years ago, I'm told there was no traffic in Mumbai, of course. You know, we had bullet carts and horses like everywhere else. And they didn't use loudspeakers at least, but there weren't any easily available. So it's evolved and it's become louder and louder and louder. And even firecrackers when I was young, we had firecrackers, but they weren't this loud.

Sumaira (24:35):
They couldn't be this loud, I think. And they weren't this beautiful, either. They were just, you know, they were just things that we used. I mean, some people used, and they were very few comparatively. So it's become much louder over the years. And it's easy to say, this is traditional. What is traditional is that there was some kind of sound made attached to all these things. Like a loud sound will drive away demons. You know? So that's the traditional part of it, but how it is to be executed, of course, the louder, the better. As no one has told you that there's a limit to how much louder is better. You know, a certain amount of bang. You may think, well, this will drive away a demon. But when that bang is too loud, it's not only driving away the demon. It's driving you away.

Cary (25:21):
Plus the population density, more people are probably being impacted by this loud because it's, well, you said 18 million people.

Sumaira (25:29):
I said 21 million people.

Cary (25:32):
21 million, that's right.

Sumaira (25:33):
A lot of people are impacted. And when I started again, people would say, as I mentioned, that "these all Western ideas, you go, you travel to the west, you come back, you think you should have, you can have Germany in India." You know, in Germany -- and people have told me the story in Germany, even flushing a toilet at night is illegal. "But in India you want to impose those kind of standards. It's just impractical." And I say, "well, you know, there are parts of the world which actually need air-quality standards, for example, or drinking-water quality standards. And we don't say that, well, Indians are fine if drinking water is poisoned, it's fine. Or they're immune to it. We don't say that." We maintain a certain level on the standard. And if we don't meet it, then it is the job of the government to keep trying to bring it down in a phased manner in such a way that you do meet it. We've done it for vehicular pollution, from air pollution, you know, even in India, by switching over to fuels. But why is it that for noise we just say, "oh, let's, let's raise the standard because the standard itself is it's made for Germany." You know, it's not for ... I've been to Germany. I know how quiet it is in Germany. I don't believe that overnight India can become Germany, you know.

Cary (26:51):
Neither can we, you know.

Sumaira (26:53):
I've been to the US and no, it will take a while...I think.

Cary (26:58):
There was an article I saw about you and about noise and it showed a vehicle like a tuktuk covered with horns. Was this sort of a promotional campaign that you did about awareness about car horns? And was it a joke or was it successful? You know, was it...did it engage people?

Sumaira (27:18):
Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a joke, I guess. But the good thing about it was that after the High Court started hearing these implementation orders and there were all these contempt petitions filed and all this other noise about noise. The government wanted to partner with us to create awareness. So we got this rickshaw we called in here, this auto rickshaw. And we fitted it with hundreds of these silent blowhorns, which are the old type horns, but they were silent. They were disabled. And in partnership with the government at a function, which was, you know, the gateway of India is typically out of bounds. Nobody can really have any function there, but because the government was partnering, we launched this function at the gateway in January. And so the result was that we had organically like thousands of participants, maybe hundreds of thousands of participants in this rally upfront.

Sumaira (28:11):
And we had the secretary to the government and the senior-most police officers and the transport department, everybody was there. And then we took this rickshaw and we drove it in South Mumbai, which is the part of Mumbai where auto rickshaws are not allowed at all. We were given special permission to drive it. So everyone noticed it because not only was it so different with all its horns and things, but an auto rickshaw in South Mumbai itself is quite a sight. And the most important part maybe was that we got the auto rickshaw union to volunteer, to drive this rickshaw free of cost for a month. So it didn't cost anything. Again, this was a campaign we did with very little money. The rickshaw was one which was at the end of its life. So it was very, it was...you know, we bought it at scrap value.

Sumaira (29:02):
Those horns cost a little bit of money and that's it. And the rickshaw union guy said that. I mean, again, this thing of rich and poor, you know, saying that "You people who drive in luxury cars have air conditioners. They put up their windows, they honk. And their horns are very loud, but they don't hear them as much. But our rickshaws are open. We don't have those windows So it's right that we should need this campaign because we suffer the most." And that's what the slum dwellers told me. You know when people started complaining about Ganpati noise, because they are the ones who participate the most in Ganpati and these street festivals. And they said, "You go home, you shut your windows. You put on your air conditioning. Where do we go? We live in the slums. Our houses are made of plast, and we don't have doors and windows."

Sumaira (29:51):
"And you drive your cars by our houses and you honk. And then you have these birthday parties and you have these other events which go on in the middle of the night and you don't think about us at all. So why should we stop?" And then you know, and then they started complaining -- the slum dwellers. And they complained about noise in a Bollywood film star's house, a mega film star at 2:00 AM. The police came and shut it down. And you can imagine it big news. They are the ones who complained about noise. When the commissioner of police had a function, which broke his own rules.

Cary (30:30):
Wow. Change is definitely hard, but it sounds like what you did is you influenced other people to -- first of all, there's a socioeconomic basis to this, where often the people who are the most impacted are the people who have the least resources. Because of the way their homes are built, because they don't have the money to fight this, because they may not have a political voice. But nevertheless, they maybe even have tolerated it over the years because it was just a fact of life. And now they're speaking up and they're saying, "no, actually, no, our houses aren't built so that we can block this noise." And I think that's great.

Sumaira (31:09):
So traffic noise is the next... I mean, I started working on traffic noise when a police officer approached me. And I've mentioned throughout that they have been very good people who have wanted to contribute in whatever situation they've been in. So this police officer -- Harish Baijal -- was at that time, the deputy commissioner of police in the traffic department. And he approached me saying, you know, "this noise from traffic is unbearable. And I hear you have been speaking up about noise from festivals, but what about traffic noise?" So we partnered with the police. That was the first time I think that we did something with the police, not against. And we did the first No Honking Day in 2008. And they challenged and fined 16,000 people in one day. After that this particular officer Harish Baijal was transferred to a smaller city near Mumbai in Maharashtra, where he seized and crushed under a road roller hundreds of thousands of illegally manufactured and fitted horns. Horns which were too loud.

Sumaira (32:15):
And that was a precedent, which was later followed by other people in other parts of Maharashtra. I don't know that it's been done outside Maharashtra. So we have partnered with them. And we are in fact right now in the process of partnering with them again in an awareness campaign, which will be launched on Sunday. So we are going to release a booklet. And so it'll be a joint release by the police and others as to how people can complain and what action they can expect from the police and what the police will do. This rickshaw campaign was a continuation of the honking thing. But of course, we've had setbacks along the way. For example, a Minister of Road Transport, a Union Minister of Road Tansport was disturbed by honking when he was meditating one morning, a few months ago. And his statement was not that we will of course now extend honking rules because India is so loud and honking contributes to lack of safety, which should have been -- according to me -- his statement.

Sumaira (33:12):
What he said was "we will now mandate that all horns should be changed to resemble Indian traditional musical instruments." And I read this statement and I thought, I don't know. I mean, you don't know how to react. You don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Because that means that every horn today, which is single...we have quantified that Mumbai honks 18 million times an hour, as part of that rickshaw campaign. 18 million times an hour, each of those horns are one honk. Imagine if they're Indian musical instruments and they're multiple. What's going to happen then? And we have no decibel-level cap on the horns. Car manufacturers typically advertise that they sell louder and stronger horns for India. Audi advertises -- the CEO of Audi. India made a statement that the horns that they sell in India would be gone within a week in Europe.

Sumaira (34:10):
So they do a special exercise for India that they blow a horn continuously for two weeks before they approve it for India. So under these circumstances, if you're going to have musical instruments on the road, then I think we are very confused again, as to what the purpose of a horn is. We were taught, or I believed always that a horn is supposed to warn somebody out of the way, if you have an emergency. But if they're musical instruments, then clearly that's not the purpose they're serving. They're serving a different purpose. And in fact, because there's so much noise on the road, which is aggravating road rage at those kind of decibel levels, and that kind of mixture of different types of sounds, you are making the roads less safe and that's borne out by the fact that India has the highest road accident death rate in the world.

Cary (35:03):
So these horns -- are they like cellphone, mobile phone rings or something? You know, like playing a part of a song? Or what exactly, what did they have in mind with these horns?

Sumaira (35:17):
I thought he was criticized so much that I haven't heard about it recently. And I've written a piece which was published last week, talking about honking, where I've mentioned this fact that we are very confused, right from the top down. If our union minister can want horns to resemble musical instruments, our Union Minister of Transport and Road Safety can want this. Then I don't think we are aligned with the actual purpose of a horn.

Phill (35:45):
Well, if the horns become musical instruments, wouldn't it also be appropriate for them to change the raga that they're using depending on the time of day when you honk the horn? So maybe you would need a wide variety of sounds to even use that mandate.

Sumaira (36:00):
Yes. And there's of course there's personal preference, right? Because somebody likes the meditative music. Somebody else likes Bollywood hit songs, which have taken over anyway on these cultural and traditional festivals. They would play Bollywood hit songs. So if the tradition is taken forward by Bollywood, then why not honking?

Cary (36:24):
One thing that you mentioned about the horns. It sounds like the cars are manufactured outside of India to have a louder horn -- if I understand correctly -- than what would be tolerated in their own country. So if it's a German car -- Germany's probably a bad example-- but even a US car, the horn is made louder than it would be acceptable in the United States. But it's okay to do that for India. Nobody in India asked for a loud horn. A horn is enough in itself, but why make it even louder? So in a way, the car manufacturers are contributing to your problem.

Sumaira (36:59):
Absolutely, they are. I mean, I think it's shocking that they would push for something in India, rather than saying, "look, our cars are safe, they're environmentally safe." And that includes having a horn that's environmentally safe. To say that "no, for India it's okay that we make them louder because they sell better that way." You know, that's misleading your ...that's exactly what the politicians did by misleading those poor slum dwellers and making them think that it was okay to participate in events, which were too loud, which were hurting their own health. Because it suited their political purposes to do it. That's exactly what's happening with the horns. Because it's suiting the commercial purposes of the car manufacturers.

Phill (37:41):
So the current status, if I can recap some of what I've learned, is that there was a Day of No Honking. And then was it 2018 that there was a year of no honking? Or maybe it was a different year. And now...

Sumaira (37:51):
Yes.

Phill (37:52):
That was correct. Okay. And now there's discussion around perhaps changing the horns or there are cases going forward. This is in the discussion with the courts, or just in the public sphere between manufacturers?

Sumaira (38:05):
This is just in the public sphere, just the thing of changing the horns. The minister can mandate it. If he passes a law that this should be so. So we need to oppose it before the law such a law passes because once it's passed or put up or drafted even, it becomes that much more difficult. Which is why it was important to create public opinion about this now. And you know, all that stuff, because I don't want it to reach that point where it becomes a draft law, you know, at all. In the meantime, the government of Maharashtra, I mentioned that they have now come to a point where they are using it as a selling point, that actually we make less noise than other places. And it's true that Mumbai leads the country in anti-noise stuff. So they have doubled the fine for honking in Maharashtra, by a new notification, just a few months old.

Sumaira (38:57):
So I think these talks that I'm in with the police right now about them telling people how they can complain, what are the sources of noise? What they can do is part of building up towards implementing that in a more organized long-term way. The police have been very effective in implementing some types of laws. Like drink-driving laws, like wearing helmets, seatbelts, stuff like that. Which has been, you know, it's not been easy for them, but they have really put a lot of effort into it. And they have done a pretty good job. You know, I, myself was fined once for picking up a cellphone while I was driving. And, you know, I had to stop. I had to pay that fine. And it wasn't that much of a fine, but that I had to do it made sure I never did it again.

Sumaira (39:43):
You need an enforcement drive. And the police started very well just before lockdown because they released a video called "The Punishing Signal." And while that video was a purely awareness, it was not something they actually implemented on the ground. It talked for the very first time of punishing, you know, after 2008, when those 16,000 drivers were challenged. There have been just a few, maybe a few hundred cases now, and then it's not been really a drive. It's been occasional kind of thing. But this punishing signal brought to the fore the term "punishing" with honking. And it talked of the Mumbai police being really fed up of traffic noise and itching to do something about it. And they came up with this concept of putting a decibel meter on a signal and having the signal timed backwards so that if people honk, then the signal stays red longer, as a deterrent.

Cary (40:39):
Oooh.

Sumaira (40:40):
And of course, it's nothing they can ever do because, you know, there's so many other issues attached to that. It was a great awareness video. And then we had lockdown, and everything changed. So after lockdown, the fact that they, again talking of enforcement, the fact that they invited me... I've talked to police officers in the past and done training sessions, which are related to the decibel meters. Which they, you know, they've bought now. Every police station has multiple decibel meters across the state of Maharashtra. So they have now hundreds of decibel meters, and so I've done training sessions around those with the officers. But now a few months ago, they invited me to come train their constables, the police constables on the road and talk to them about what enforcement means. Maybe this is the next thing that we'll actually be able to tackle and do.

Sumaira (41:28):
It's not going to be easy at all because people in Bombay, they believe that it's impossible to drive in Bombay without honking. But, you know, I have driven without... My driver has driven. I have driven, my family has driven without honking for decades, you know. And we haven't been late by a single second because of it. Because when everyone's honking, no one's moving anyway. It doesn't make any difference. So, I think it's something that can be done. You know, I hope to start with police drivers. So that they lead by example...let's see how that goes.

Cary (42:02):
Are there quiet hours when there's almost no honking? Like say two o'clock in the morning typically, is there still a lot of honking that happens on the roads?

Sumaira (42:12):
It depends where you live, because this is an unplanned city. Restaurants are typically right next to residences and, you know, stuff like that. So it depends where you live. If you live in a better area, it's not even a better area. If you live in an area where there's no restaurants and the anomaly is that often the best restaurants are most expensive areas. So they are very loud. I know a woman who came from... who called me and complained about the noise and she was the CEO of a major bank in Mumbai. And she had just moved to Mumbai from New York. And she said, when we moved here, we looked around and we found, of course, I mean, I don't suppose budgets were a constraint really. So they found the house with a fabulous view, right on the sea, you know, trees, everything.

Sumaira (43:04):
And she said, what we hadn't realized was that that's not as important as figuring out how much noise there's going to be. And we can't bear it. We can't live here. So it's a very strange, it's not really a zoning issue in quite the way you are thinking. You know, it's not the way zoning works in the US. It's different. We have mixed zoning. And where slums are placed next to some of the most expensive housing in Mumbai. So, and we, we live together, we grow together, you know. The slum dwellers protect their neighbors and their neighbors to some extent protect and they're dependent on each other. Because the help comes from those areas and they live together. You could say it's a totally different structure, social structure, and there's not the kind of discrepancy. We are not completely cut off. That's what made slum dwellers able to complain about Bollywood stars because they live next door to each other.

Cary (44:01):
Yeah. Very different, where we do have neighborhoods here that are very, very separated. And in terms of architecturally also less vulnerable to noise because of the difference in the wall construction and the insulation, and that sort of thing. And so I am curious: when you began dealing with noise, you probably never used a decibel reader before. I mean, you somehow figured out or got your hands on a decibel reader. And that was probably one of the first tools you needed is that right? Just to learn how to use that and what that data meant.

Sumaira (44:36):
Again, you know, I mentioned people have been helpful. So someone just gave one and said, "take this." And I mean, it's ridiculous at the time that I'm going to hold a decibel meter in my hand and start measuring noise, you know, there was no official data of any kind. It just seemed, I think people would just laugh. "What do you think you're going to be doing? You know, you're going to measure decibel readings and then what?" You know, so it was kind of random, but yeah, I figured it out. And I didn't know, but the courts accepted my readings basically because there wasn't any other readings. You know, when you say it's so loud that my window rattles, you still have to bring that within the framework of a rule of a law. So even if they want the best, you know, they want to get those court orders going. And then of course now the Pollution Control Board, the police, they do a much better job. But my readings are still relevant because they still track, you know, what they're doing is actually correct, or whether they're leaving out, you know. It's possible, and it's happened all the time that the police will go to a site where someone has complained, but just before the police come, the noise is suddenly switched off for unknown reasons. And then when they, it starts again. So that's why it's still important for me to keep doing it.

Cary (45:57):
And the kind of noise that you were measuring far exceeded even the World Health Organization limit on -- I believe at 85 decibels, it's perceived that you will start damaging your hearing. And you were talking about like 120 decibels or more. It's no question that the data you collected, whether you were able to measure it to something from the World Health Organization or any other organization at that time, it left no doubt that it was exceeding acceptable levels really. Is there some way that people can contribute to your organization in any way in terms of volunteer work? Or in India, can they get involved in any way? Do you feel like already you have that kind of engagement and what do you foresee? What are your next steps going forward?

Sumaira (46:43):
Well, I'll tell you it's very difficult to contribute to this kind of activity in India for anyone out of India. And I'll explain why we have laws here, which do not allow me to receive any kind of foreign funds or grants or donations. And so that's completely out. If people were to support in ways which were perceived to be biased, you know, I've already been, I mentioned in the beginning, people said these are Western ideas, but these are highly sensitive political, traditional things, which in our country are getting more and more polarized. And I have worked very hard to keep it neutral. That noise is a health issue. It has nothing to do with religion or with any kind of political polarization. So if it was seen that, "no, actually there's an input from the west, which is anti some kind of political ideology" that would actually harm the campaign.

Sumaira (47:45):
So it's difficult to know what kind of help and support I cannot ask for, really. Having said that I have been writing more so that what I am doing, you know, like I'm speaking with you now. I have been writing more. I have been speaking more. It would be very helpful if these things could be spread more, it would be very helpful if I could be invited to speak there myself, because that would help. And maybe, I mean, there is certainly no bar in, you know, being paid for my own work in any way. So that could be paid for, but donations...no. So it would just be, you know, my own, whatever I can contribute. And if people find that it's useful to them, if they'd like to support it, they could pay for that. That's about it. That's all I can really think of.

Cary (48:35):
Good to know what the parameters are around that. Also National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, NEERI, are you also working with them? So it's a governmental entity besides just the police and the courts... And you have their support as well?

Sumaira (48:53):
Yes. Because the court ordered them to do noise mapping of all our cities. So they noise-mapped 27 major cities of Maharashtra. And yes, I mean, I've been in regular touch with them. You know, there's a lot of things. They've developed an app which can measure noise. And the difference between that and a free app just off the internet is that if it's a government developed app, it's more difficult for the police to say that we don't recognize it. They will have to recognize it. So yeah. You know, again, those are partnerships, which I'm trying to come to, but also asking people to use those apps because they're more difficult to kind of brush aside.

Cary (49:32):
Yeah. Yeah.

Phill (49:33):
Thank you so much. I mean, a great exemplar of being a leader and a true grassroots movement that I think...you know, I'm glad to share your story because I hope similar models will take root in other places where people can come together and tackle issues that are important to their communities. Especially these noise and health-related ones. Thank you.

Sumaira (49:52):
Thank you so much. It was really nice talking to you.

Cary (50:00):
I'd like to thank Sumaira Abdulali for speaking with us today and for her bravery in fighting for the health and wellbeing for the people of Mumbai and beyond. We'll post some links to her website, her writing, and her achievements on the Soundproofist blog. Thanks for listening and see you next time.