False binary of Kanhaiya and Mallya: How some journalists' compromise their profession?
- In Current Affairs
- 01:25 PM, Mar 22, 2016
- Gaurav Sarin
We all know how the power of the binary system has shaped the fourth Industrial Revolution – Digital, with the series of 0’s and 1’s defining the lives, occupations and thinking of billions worldwide.In a socio-political context too, binaries play a pivotal role, with each SEC (socio-economic class) primarily shaped by what they are, however their political mobilization or milking is done by wily political operators by emphasizing what they are not.
In an ideal society, journalists’ aren’t covert political operators, as those with interests’ in the political arena are expected to do so overtly.But these are strange times in India.Those who profess to be in journalism display strong political bias.Thankfully, May 2014 has forced them to come out and break their cloak of unbiased reporting, they had pretended to carry for years.
In an op-ed in The Times of India published on March 20, 2016, Sagarika Ghose, tries to portray a false binary of Vijay Mallya and Kanhaiya Kumar. The attempt seems to target the most gullible segment, which has always rooted strongly for the BJP; the educated middle class. Gullible because unlike the other most gullible segment, the downtrodden and the disadvantaged, this segment is educated but, more often than not, having partial or half-knowledge, and thus ideally suited to overt machinations of those who can’t see the rise of a strong Indian nation, led by the able Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
Why is it a false binary?
The rich have always been portrayed as the anti-thesis, nay, the root cause of the stifling poverty of the multitudes.The common complaint by the Left-leaning intellectuals, journalists, social scientists, academicians, students, and others, is that the rich are getting richer.
Is it really so in the India of today?
Research would easily show how the Top Richie Rich’s List of India sees regular churn every decade. How many amongst them show up on such a list, successively over the past 3, or 4, or 5 decades? A very small minority.And that minority is likely to see further churn due to the policies of the present Indian Government.
- Real estate, one of the biggest sources of black money, will now be regulated under the recently passed, stellar legislation, Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2015.
- Coal blocks, minerals, spectrum and mining are being allotted transparently through e-auctions.
- Aadhar has been provided statutory backing and the distribution of most subsidies is expected to be increasingly delivered directly into the beneficiaries Jan Dhan powered Bank accounts, eliminating corruption by middle-men.
- All government decisions & policies are available online and no favoritism towards a chosen few corporate houses is evident.
- Bank chiefs are going to be transparently chosen by the Banks Board Bureau, under the much feted former CAG, Vinod Rai, dealing a body blow to the crony capitalism evident in India, especially during the Congress regimes.
- No privileged access is provided to journalists’, middlemen or corporate honchos, in North or South Block.
- Mudra Bank provides loans to the personal sector, with special emphasis on the Dalits, OBC’s and women. StartUp India focuses on stoking the entrepreneurial fires of the enterprising Indians.
What would all of the above likely lead to? It would lead to less corruption, less domestic black money, less crony capitalism, more resources for the innovative, and more opportunities for the disadvantaged.
Does it look likely that the Mallya’s of yore will flourish in such an environment?
The true binary of today’s India, sadly, is nationalism and anti-nationalism. 68 years after Independence it is indeed sad that ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan, repeated ad nauseam by Congress earlier, and parroted by Kanhaiya now, still gets the eyeballs and TRP’s it does. That too from the vanguards of those who have contributed immensely in their perpetuation. Rhetoric of ‘Garibi Hatao’ will not reduce to poverty reduction; action taken by the present Government of India will.
They could improve, improvise or rejig as they go along the way, but the intent and action clearly shows where the heart of this Modi Sarkaar lies; upliftment of the downtrodden, encouraging startup & innovation to lead to not just self-employment but employment for the large youth populace, and rules-based corruption-free non-dogmatic non-discriminatory Governance.
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