India is a rambunctious democracy
- In
- 12:40 PM, Jan 21, 2016
- Gaurav Sarin
India is a rambunctious democracy; the light and sound shows by our politicians, media, and even the general populace, continue 24x7. In this cacophony of noises it is well neigh impossible to make sense of what is exactly going on in the country in any field; the opinions masquerading as facts, half-truths as gospel, and gossip as “sources”, leaves anyone looking for truth, grasping at straws.
The arrival of Social Media has made it easier to navigate through this dense foliage by sifting through the varied and variegated links and tweets on any subject.
It has opened up new vistas and avenues for people who want to dig deeper and not be satisfied with the shouting matches on display in our Electronic News channels or the selective and slanted news items in the general dailies.
Google, Facebook and Twitter have put power in the hands of the people like never before. On the flip side, these digital tools make it that much easier to spread gossip, half-truths and rumors too.
It is surprising, to me at least, that the well-educated middle class however seems to revel in its cocoon and echo chamber, getting a tad worked up on issues which are resonated by one media house or another, but otherwise comatose; lazily gulping down the information fed by these media houses; making no effort to use these new age media tools to put each news-story to the litmus test of verification, magnitude, scale, source and context.
Verification
India was supposed to be an Intolerant nation just before the Delhi elections, when Christians were supposed to be under attack and persecution, and then again, before the Bihar election, when Muslims were supposed to be the targeted minority community. Awards were being returned by noted litterateurs, academicians and scientists. A couple of noted actors too added weight to this with their supportive comments.
When the Home Minister of India stated that the facts speak otherwise, that the number of such incidents were similar to trends of the past years, that many incidents of church-attacks were found to have no religious angle, that the attacks on rationalists were in opposition ruled states; the chatterati feigned ignorance.
The fact was what the few high profile media personalities and high society regulars had deigned it to be. You could refute, deny or criticize but it was the truth that they had proclaimed!
No verification was necessary for the electronic and print media to pounce on the issue and make it a daily ritual. The high-heeled had spoken and there must be truth in it. End of discussion.
Magnitude
When an unruly crowd beat someone to death on claims of beef-eating the English media houses went to town proclaiming how the Central Government was at fault, not the State Government; how the Prime Minister, no less, must make a statement denouncing the incident; how institutions part of the larger Sangh Parivar were at fault.
The recent Malda riots, not an incident, however were summarily brushed aside, by the same news persons, when the Bengal Chief Minister proclaimed that they were not communal.
One person being bludgeoned to death vis-à-vis a one lakh strong crowd running riot over various towns in Bengal; yet no indignation, no protest marches, no candle protests, no day-in day-out television debates; and yes, no awards returned.
Scale
India was shocked when 26/11 attacks occurred. Electronic media played a highly irresponsible role while the operations to end the attack were still underway. Over 160 people lost their lives during the carnage wrought by 10 terrorists.
India was also witness to the recent Pathankot attacks. Seven martyrs from the security forces foiled the attack by six terrorists. No civilian lives were lost. Action from the Government was prompt. All security agencies were mobilized to attend to any eventuality, including any possible hostage situation.
But the English media persons made hay, carelessly throwing allegations on the “inept”, “mishandling” of the situation by, variously, the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh; and yes, last but not the least, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.
Press statements now report the Army Chief categorically mentioning how the operations did indeed have a single chain of command, the Western Army Commander, a point many prominent panelists and news anchors had cited as the reason for the “failure” of the operations, citing “sources”.
When compared to how the Indian security forces and political leadership fared during the 26/11 attacks, can one not easily gauge how markedly superior the response was this time round?
Do the scale of casualties not tell a story?
Source
The press and media in India have found an easy strawman in the guise of “sources” to run any rumor, any gossip, any half-truths, and spread their ideologically slanted views and opinions, as news. An IIT study is out in public domain, which shows vehicular pollution from four wheelers contributes 10% to the total pollution in Delhi.
An easy guesstimate would then suggest that the odd-even rule could impact the pollution by a maximum of 5-6%. Construction & road dust, pollution from coal fired power plants, trucks, and two wheelers are the Top 4 sources of pollution, all ahead of pollution by cars.
The Indian high society and media love those who are anti-Modi, and have a supposedly utopian view of how things should be. Those who claim to fight for the under-privileged, slum dwellers and minorities, but ideally do not.
The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is their darling! Just as Indira Gandhi was when she proclaimed, “Garibi Hatao”! In 1971.45 years later, with Congress having ruled for close to 30 of those years, the destiny of the poor has changed!
Statistics, data, scientific reports and all be damned because the “sources” say so.
Context
Armed with smartphones, today’s Indian can easily record what any public personality is saying. Media persons do the same, but in a tricky way. Bereft of the context and language in which it was made, the educational and social background of the person who said it, and the audience and occasion on which it was delivered; they make a killing (TRP-wise) on statements of public personalities.
The viewer or the reader is totally unaware of the context; what he consumes, in news, is a purported statement of a Sakshi Maharaj, a General V.K. Singh (retd), and many others; leaving the viewer/reader aghast. But no such outrage happens when the Delhi Chief Minister claims the Indian Prime Minister is “coward and a psychopath".
Some news persons who have the gumption to question him or his party get their riposte, “I am from a village, a village nearby in Haryana, so my words can be wrong”. And the news persons take his word; no counter question, no bellicosity on equating villagers with crass, crude and filthy words, no outrage!
It is difficult to be an RSS or BJP member in India, difficult still to be a Narendra Modi, but probably the most difficult it is for people who support and vote for BJP and Modi.
Because they can see this Janus-faced dishonesty happening day-in and day-out. This ridiculous one-sided tirade is repeated ad-nauseam. Debate is replaced with derision. Diligence is replaced with dare. Diagnosis is replaced with diabolic.
There is hope however.
India’s youth seem to be awaking from their deep intellectual laziness and slumber, embracing Swami Vivekananda’s Upanishadic call to action, “Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached”.
The journey seems long, no one knows whether there is light at the end of the tunnel, or another lost decade awaits their destiny in 2019, but there are many who continue with hope.
Hope of an India where Indians will once again embrace the engaging & piercing logical reasoning of Adi Shankara, to re-establish the glory of reason over shifty logic, of truth over half-truths, of Dharma over A-dharma!
As Rabindra Nath Tagore’s famous lines proclaim,
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Comments