Analysis
Denizen of Insignificance!
Now another public figure is in the news, in India for some 'scandal' or corruption or the other. Activist Arvind Kejriwal, has taken him by the noose, and openly 'challenged' him. We are not taken by surprise. This is part of the routine news. Media channels get very hyper, the public involves itself in animated discussions, long erudite and impractical letters to the editor are written, then the entire thing subsides, just as like, after a bomb explosion.
Explosive news is the order of the day. But what are we doing? When the elections come around, we find ourselves voting for the same dispensations, hustings after hustings. The Kalmadis, the Modis, and a Minister who orchestrated the biggest corruption perpetrated in an International event, the Commonwealth Games, seem to not only be at large, but are allowed to go free.
Corruption is a banal term, it means just another thing. This is because corruption has been legitimized, and everyone read Everyone has made it a vicious cycle from the lower downs to the highest echelons. And corollaries of it like minority bashing, watching pornography in the State Legislative Assembly, are asides, to be left aside! So what, do we do? We leave it to the Teesta Setalwads, the Mallika Sarabhais, and the Arundhati Roys to fight it out. Some of us pay lip service to them, some don't. Some call them dissembling or pseudo secularists.
In the middle of it all, the media, especially the electronic media has a whopping time. It whips up enough sentiment for its channels to sell.
Isn't there any good work being done in the country? No silent crusaders? Does our country only consist of rabble-rousers, con men and corrupt people? Are these the only 'stories' to stalk and highlight with glee? If you are so concerned about the well being of the country, then please suggest lasting solutions, and work as a team. In the process irreparable and additional harm is being done to the country. It is only the story of murder, loot and mayhem. It is only the story of corruptible, forces of prudery, who inveigle and loot.
Surely there is some hope somewhere. Surely there are crusaders of work ethic and peace. The media lamentably enough in India, has become excessively voluble for only negative thinking. And we lap it up, like TV serials with gluttony. That is because we want excitement, not solutions.
Why isn't the education sector, arts and culture covered? Now, the story of Robert Vadhera will gain momentum. Who is he? I don't know. He is just another ordinary Citizen, but we have made him out to be a denizen of significance.
07-Oct-2012
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Ananya S Guha
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