One Graffiti at a time: A Libertarian’s quest to bring accountability in tax spending

During the day, 29-year-old Jaimine Vaishnav is just another lecturer in a Mumbai college. On certain nights, however, he is a different person all together. Armed with a can of spray paint, Jaimine along with his group of followers set out to different parts of Mumbai, blemishing walls with provocative slogans like “Taxation Is Theft” & “Tax for Corruption.”

Jaimine and his group call their nocturnal activity “grafittivism” – portmanteau of graffiti and activism. Since July 2017, their “graffitivism” has been seen across several public properties in Navi Mumbai, Kurla and Thane.

The Libertarian idea that taxation is a form of theft is the inspiration behind their “graffitivism”. “We pay taxes but there is no accountability in the way it is spent. It seems we are paying taxes for potholes, corruption, statues, inflation, improper standard of living and poverty,” says Jaimine.  

For the group, which includes Jaimine’s former students, working professionals and businessmen, graffiti is a peaceful way to trigger public discourse and capture government’s attention on the state of taxation in India. “Graffiti is a harmless yet powerful protest, an art form to express my anger and frustration against the lack of accountability on tax spending,” says a member of the group who is a senior corporate executive during the day.

Nevertheless, Libertarianism, which stresses on liberty and individual freedoms, remains a little-known ideology in India. Many Libertarians often support a Laissez-faire system of governance. Chintan Girish Modi, an educator and researcher, adds that it is not really a mass movement. “Libertarianism is viewed with suspicion by the Left and the Right because it values human rights as well as free markets which are traditionally seen as incompatible,” he says.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that Libertarian ideas are largely confined to social media. While Jaimine’s small group of followers actively discuss Libertarianism on a WhatsApp group, their “graffitivism” is only occasional and often spontaneous due to lack of time.

In India, “political graffiti” is largely confined to party’s symbols, except in the Kashmir Valley. However, it is a well-established art form across the world and used as a tool to express revolutionary ideas and protest historical injustices. A 2013 research on graffiti as a form of political participation notes that “political graffiti” often contains oppositional messages to influence public opinion.

In the 1960s, a student group called the Enragés covered the walls of streets & university in Paris with phrases like “Commodities are the opium of people”. For them, graffiti turned out to be a platform to express their discontent with the French society. As the White minority government exercised unprecedented control during the Apartheid era, Blacks and Asians vented out their pent-up anger through anti-race messages on walls and public properties across South Africa. More recently, the yellow jacket movement in France utilised graffiti bombing as a means to express their anger against rising inequality across the country.

“In a crowded city, an individual doesn’t have a voice. But by indulging in graffiti, many people find their voice. They feel they can be heard by other people. It is medium of expression for those who have been supressed for a long time,” says Zake, a popular graffiti artist from Mumbai.

Detractors often compare graffiti to vandalism. Zake does not deny that comparison but says that graffiti won’t be a problem until you draw obscene images or hurt anyone’s religious sentiment. “People are only expressing their dissatisfaction with the law. They express it on public properties as they want to let the world know of their anguish,” he adds.

“Shouting slogans or protest may not be helpful as it disrupts normal life. Whereas, graffiti gets a quick focus to lead the revolution silently and peacefully,” says Jaimine claiming that he has only done graffiti on unused walls and will never offend any community through “graffitivism”.  

But in a vast country like India, bringing accountability in tax spending seems a humungous task. However, Jaimine proposes an idea. “There must be a form of direct democracy where voters must form consensus on where their hard-earned money needs to go,” he says.

Jaimine’s novel idea is unlikely to find much takers right now. But he hopes to start a silent revolution with the power of graffiti – One wall at a time.