If others say law and order is the worst in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee counters it, saying it’s the best in the country. If some say miscreants in Maharashtra have killed someone linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on mere suspicion of wrong-doing, the RSS replies its enemies are playing a foul game. If you ask who these enemies could be, the RSS unhesitatingly blames the news media. Ask what the news media have got to gain from this, the answer is they love to blow up gossip just for the sake of popularity and copy sales.
This reminds me of a chief sub-editor at a Bengali newspaper I used to work for at one time. He was in the habit of contradicting everything we said. If we said one thing, he would say, “No that’s not true”. We used to joke among ourselves that if we said the sun rises in the east, he might even say, “No, the sun rises in the west”.
More From This Section
Playing politics has become a game that we seem to enjoy the most. Nowhere was this better reflected than at the iftar parties held to celebrate Eid. Leaders of some political parties donned the scullcap to suggest they were not communal. Others preferred to stay away, suggesting they were open to all religions. Whenever the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir gets violated, India blames Pakistani forces for being the aggressor. Pakistan rebuts, saying India is the transgressor, by firing across the LoC. In Bihar, on the eve of its Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) raised the same communal slogan that Banerjee had raised against the Communists four years ago to bring her party to power in West Bengal. “We want change,” Banerjee had said. Now the BJP’s Amit Shah is saying the same thing: “We must look after the entire spectrum of backward classes and save their interests at all costs.”
At one end, India proudly proclaims its aim to build a classless society, at another it sets up a committee to make a headcount of India’s population by caste. When the Supreme Court has banned animal performance at festivals and sporting events, the central government says it will soon change the rules to nullify the court’s decision. Quoting Sai Baba, the Viswa Hindu Parishad’s Ashok Singhal says by 2020, India will become a Hindu nation and by 2030, it will be a Hindu world. Imagine! That’s only 15 years away.
Newspaper reports a few months ago said that a construction company based in New Jersey, USA, paid bribes to Indian officials to win a major water development project in Goa. The total amount of the bribe was said to be $976.630. The amount included a pay-off to a central minister, too, but the details of the deal were not disclosed.
Duplicity is a game we love to play, like in the case of land, to cite one example. Land is a concurrent subject under the jurisdiction of both the Centre and the states. If some states say they will not forcibly acquire land for various projects and purposes, the Centre will readily agree and say it will not stand in the way and force its will on the reluctant parties. The habit of compromise seems to be embedded in our political life. We don’t realise that’s bad policy. Sometimes it becomes necessary to be strict for the sake of development. If development gets stalled, people’s interests are affected as well, which is not at all desirable.
Unless India transforms itself from a cheap labour destination to a skilled labour one, investors will never take it seriously. India must spend more on fundamental research and developmental activities and improve its power of innovation to make ‘Made in India’ a worthy slogan. That’s not going to be an easy job.
We celebrated our 68th Independence Day this year and yet it seems everything has remained the same. If anything, our world has only become shallower. It has the same beliefs, the same ideas, the same superstitions, the same likes and dislikes, the same conceptions, but our politicians and leaders are less genuine. All they want are photo opportunities so they can appear in newspapers and on TV screens the next day, cuddling a baby, squatting on the floor to eat with the poor, only to go back home and wash their hands and soap away their forced pretensions.
The other day, in East Delhi’s Vivek Vihar area, a young man was lying on the road bleeding profusely after his scooter had been hit by a car, which promptly fled the scene. Buses, taxis, motorbikes, and pedestrians passed by but nobody even looked at the bleeding man. When at last he was taken to hospital, he was pronounced dead.
Yes, the media, both print and electronic, love to blow up gossip to boost their popularity and revenue. But we are not dealing here with mere gossip. We are dealing here with cold, hard facts.