Do read The Crime That We All Committed on Outlook. The author tries to imagine the agony and helplessness of a man who woke up one fateful morning to find his only child dead, murdered in his own safe house. Hard to believe, but what was to follow was even more traumatic. He was to be taken to the point of delirium. In front of his eyes, police poked his daughter's dead body by tip of boot, and media lifted her skirt to let everyone see what all lied in there. Before he could understand anything, his house was rummaged, every towel, every underwear was fished out, and every stain was publicly scrutinized. The poor girl was murdered again, and again, and again.
Before he could sit down and convince himself that his child was actually dead, before he could mourn his misfortune, and before he could say goodbye to her, he was dragged away from her dead body. And before he could collect himself, he came to know that he was accused of having an illicit relationship with his colleague, and he was accused of murdering his own daughter. Finally, he came to know that he was convicted for the crimes that he never could have committed. It all happened at a dizzying speed.
And when he got his senses back, he found himself locked in a dark, quiet, cell. The show was over. Everyone had left him. Everything was lost for him forever.
*******************************************
It has been observed that institutions tend to become inward-looking and self-serving with the passage of time. The pursuit of worthy goals is gradually, and unobtrusively, replaced by pursuit of power. Man is born blind, and power pushes him down the cliff.
In democracy, the corruption of institutions can be checked by keeping vigil, and by keeping people vigilant. And all this is carried out by another institution - media. Such is the importance of this that it is not wrong to state that the health of a democracy is directly dependent on the health of its media. So it is important to keep media healthy.
But being an institution itself, media too is open to all worms of corruption. And when media gets corrupted, everything falls out of place. The question here is - who watches the watchdog?
In a healthy democracy, the media is supposed to watch itself. Sadly, our media doesn't. Media is supposed to report the truth. Sadly, our media does everything but that - media men investigate the case, perform the autopsy, conduct the trial, pronounce the judgment, and finally execute the convict, live on camera. They distort facts, speculate, sensationalize, and goof-up everything.
They mix truth with fiction in such a way that it's hard to know what is what. The show becomes a reality and the reality becomes a show. Someone's life becomes a reality show. Man consumes news, and news consumes Man. Media hunts down one of us everyday to entertain rest of us. Media hunted Dr Talwar and we consumed him. And even that became a reality show!
Imagine the fate of our democracy - while what is public is carefully kept private, the private is exposed publicly. We don't have news anymore, all we have is gossip-mongering, all we have is voyeurism. Camera takes us into others' bathrooms and bedrooms, shows us their diaries and letters, and peeps into their salary accounts. We the people need entertainment, a hell lot of it. Anything is fine with us as long as it entertains us. And such is the depth of our boredom that anything entertains us. Media managers mint money while we swill countless glasses of spurious entertainment.
But who cares? The entertainment-hungry people? Or the profit-hungry media? At least the media doesn't. The loyalty of media managers is towards TRP alone. The days when media consisted of men with character and values are long gone. Now media is a thriving industry that recruits thousands of third class loafers who are out only to climb ladders, at any cost. Most of them have absolutely no idea what journalism stands for; and they are ready to fall for everything. That's why most of them are seen running after the cars of celebrities like street dogs. That's why they strip their decency on drop of hat, and with equal equanimity they disrobe others of their dignity too, as they recently demonstrated in this case. High on their collective power, they stagger on and trample on everything that comes in their way, with assured impunity.
Media is too important to us, too important to be allowed to run astray. We need them back on track. So it is high time media was given a tight slap hard on their face. It is high time some character and some discipline is brought back to them. It is high time they were reminded of their responsibilities. And if they choose to disregard their responsibilities, they not only forfeit the rights that they enjoy but also face legal consequences. They must be accountable to the people, and they must not breach the boundary of social contract.
Let the media be free; let the media have their say, as long as they respect the social contract, and as long as they mention what is it that they are saying- whether it is news, opinion or mere speculation. They must not mix up things. In any case, Aarushi case must never be repeated in future. Those who hold camera must know well that they too are being watched.
No comments:
Post a Comment