When people trust each other and distrust their politicians, they get a democracy. When people distrust each other and trust their supreme leader you get fascism.
The question is how do you express your needs to the people for whom you voted; the people on whom you trusted because of the big promises that they made during the time of elections. In India, elections are nothing more than a festival celebrated by the mobs, paid journalists and the candidates who are backed up with confidence gained due to muscle power, poor sense of knowledge amongst people related to elections and corruption.
During this time the media also very much seems to enjoy the money spent on decoration, garlands, loudspeakers and sweets, more like a scenario when a warrior used to come back home by defeating the enemy.
The purpose of representatives has never been on how well they can formulate policies. It has always been about power politics, aggression and defaming candidates of other parties. Most of the time what is important is completely sidelined such as education, health, human rights and basic living that every individual deserves in this country.
Democracy, based on a fundamental principle of political equality, has come down to a mere game where there’s more focus on who will win and lose completely diverting themselves from one job that they have been assigned: serve the fellow citizens of their country. Our constitution makers might have never thought that free competition in elections would end by inviting criminals and rapists in the parliament.
Journalist Ravish Kumar said चार दिन मे हवा बदल जाएगी अगर मीडिया अपना बुनियादी काम करने लगे। The work of journalists is showing the reality to the world. The reality of how well those people are working, those same people who came to ask for votes during elections but can be seen nowhere. A journalist’s true job is to ask questions, ask questions to the people who have been assigned the title representatives because they were supposed to represent the demands of the citizens of this country.
India ranks 4th in the number of billionaires but is also among the five countries that accommodate half of the world’s poor. Under Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) a central government scheme, members of parliament both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha get rupees 5 crores every year for their respective constituencies so that they can spend that money on for example construction of roads, bus stands or delivery of better types of equipment in hospitals, schools etc. However, the already persisting corruption amongst the respective local authorities leaves nothing for the common citizen.
The states like Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Mumbai were severely affected by floods and our media houses couldn’t be bothered to flood their channels with this news. The problems of food scarcity and the houses that got washed away, crops being destroyed were not given much coverage on the so-called national channels. The promises made by the authorities that community kitchens will run for a period of time were not fulfilled, students who were already facing the problem of studying online lost connections, their books and other belongings to the flood.
The level of power and enthusiasm the media had put during Sushant Singh Rajput’s case, proved their double standards when the same media houses had put headlines such as “Aise Kaise ‘hit-wicket’ ho Gaye Sushant?” or “Patna ka Sushant Mumbai mein fail kyu?” (Why did Patna’s Sushant fail in Mumbai?).
There is no discussion about migrant workers, neither the doctors who are fighting at the forefront for us nor the students who are having mental stress. There is no coverage of the protest by Haryana farmers against three farm ordinances of the centre in which the farmers allege that in the name of reforms, the government is planning to discontinue the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime.
The purpose of the government looks very evident that they want to hide how badly they failed in serving the citizens and so they have the media as a helping hand working well to fool all of us.
The questions that need to be asked are very simple. We can’t learn without proper education therefore we should raise our voice for equality learning. We can’t feed ourselves without jobs, hence raise your voice for job opportunities, scholarships and distance yourself from debates on communal hatred. Talk about the benefits of all. Preach human rights and teach the others around you as well, one is not supposed to push somebody and take away their place rather you are supposed to hold hands together and move forward.
The current situation of democracy and media has put our country in the list of flawed democracy. And this is the time when reading and understanding the right thing shouldn’t stop. The scenario has come down to morality, whether you want to see someone being defamed publicly as a way to hide the real issues or you want to highlight the actual problems of people’s suffering.
Your genuine concern regarding matters such as the growth of every sector, no discrimination on whatsoever grounds and focus on basic livelihood of every individual should be on the top and far away from the things such as appreciating the photoshoot of our honourable prime minister and how he eats mangoes. The fight is regarding rightly having what belongs to you.
