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Challenges
to Democracy:
11th Lecture in the series on 30-11-2007
By Sri.
Gouridasan Nair
Chief Political Correspondent of The Hindu,
Political analyst, Media consultant, Guest Faculty in Universities.
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"Who takes strong positions
in support of democratic rights and civil liberties? Definitely
not the main stream media. Only the marginalized groups or
communities take such strong positions..."
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Sri.
Gouridasan Nair
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Media performs a linking service
of the wisdom, information, disinformation, or no information of the
common man/woman in a systematic manner. Democrats always expect an
‘other side’. There emerges a need for counter action when we
realize the ‘other side’ is already within the system, the
democracy.
Who’s there at the ‘other side’?
What must be their position? Debate on democracy has been quite
vibrant and active at all stages of history. Democracy is like a
liquid in which anything could dissolve and disappear. Media is the
colourful expression or representation of such a situation. As we
deal with the question – Challenges to Democracy, the basic question
is – whether the media is on the side of the problem or solution?
Though the media persons think of themselves as solutions, the
people do not think so. What makes Kerala distinct from other parts
of India? There is no state in India with so many varieties of print
and visual media. Yet there are thousands of people or communities
without access to the benefits of information technology.
What are the significant
challenges to democracy?
Most fundamental of all, I would
say, is the chaotic changes that have been occurred in the basic
concepts of society and social relationships. Democracy has cleared
the path for the supremacy and dominance to wealth and money power.
This paradigm shift from people to money power is manifested in
Nandigam, Singur and many other places in India. Apparently all
political parties, no matter they are left or right, have
surrendered themselves to chauvinistic hubris of money power.
Secondly, the political opponents
(ideological contrasts) get identified or get dissolved in each
other to the extent the primary perceptions of the RIGHT and WRONG
are totally de-constructed or got vanished off. Our politics has
been reduced to this catastrophic ends. The political ideologies
have declined and stooped to the extent that those who in the past
had agitated or fought vehemently but innocently on ideological
grounds today are united and single-minded in fighting against
people’s right to existence without fear. The failure of democracy
is complete at this stage.
Thirdly, here ends all political
or ideological debates, consequently declares the death of
parliamentary democracy. Let’s examine the struggles in last ten
years – be it on gender issues, tribal rights, environmental
protection etc – where do the people stand? What was the emotional
response of our people to such struggles? We had concrete instances
of Muthanga in Wayanad, Plachimada in Palakkad, Suicides among
farming communities, the after-math of pesticides in Kasargode
district, a series of sex scandals involving significant people and
the like. An average Malayali was comfortably satisfied with what
was served to him/her by the channels and the print media. A kind of
implosion has taken place among us. This need not be the case every
where in India.
The decadence of our democratic
institutions – the executive, judiciary and legislature – must be
read with the given situations.
India may be viewed as a
comparatively comfortable zone. Look at what has been going on in
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma and West Asian countries where
enormity of political oppressions, ethnic wars, murder of democracy,
organized violence against minorities, corruption at higher places
etc are the order of the day. Thousands of media persons were
picked up by brutal military force in Islamabad, Katmandu, Dhaka,
Myanmar and such other places. But in India the media has no history
of going into the street unless it was for fiduciary benefits. The
Indian ‘comfortable zone’ has created a media that slumbers into
blissful indifference. Hence many of us have no idea of what is
happening in many parts of the state, even one’s own district. The
media is in a fatigue.
Freedom of the Press (Media) was
never a concern in India; there has not been any movement or
agitation for free expression of thoughts and views. Take for
example the history of the media in India since 1990. It was the
media that vigorously fought for globalization. The media was always
keen in depicting environmental activists and human rights defenders
as anti-development, for the favour of multi-nationals and global
investors. But for Thehelka, there is no history in India,
the Government attacked media, never ever. Why should now? -was
the question posed by many media persons to Thehelka.
Freedom of Press (expression)
derives from Article (i) a of Indian Constitution. But the
media in India exists as a compromise with reference to Article (i)
g that guarantees freedom to do business (income generation).
Remember, when the Broadcast Bill was introduced in the Parliament,
there was no meaningful debate with the general public, but the
Union Government preferred a dialogue only with the proprietors
(investors) in the frontline. Invariably the interests of the
investors were taken care of.
Who takes strong positions in
support of democratic rights and civil liberties? Definitely not the
main stream media. Only the marginalized groups or communities take
such strong positions. From the media side, only some small sections
like the alternate media who of course
are not in the main stream may dare to take definite positions as
they nothing to lose. And the main stream media take full advantage
of Article (i)a using the good will of such alternate experiments.
The media in India appears to
have infected by the ‘herd instinct’. They flock together, move
together, doom together. For them every thing means the same. No
variants, absolutely no difference. Media functions as an organ in
the hands of the upper middle class for their social interactions.
They are preoccupied with gratifying the interests of the upper
middle class using entertainment technology.
The primary duty of the media
must be creating a social intelligence. Only when the people
exercise their role emphatically in the political decision making
process, then only political democracy makes sense. Unfortunately
our media preset mostly a hyper reality which has little relevance
to truth. People are forced/wrongly guided to live with first world
dreams in third word socio-political realities. The interface of
media and democracy becomes critical at this juncture. As a result a
situation has emerged where, what should have been talked about are
not spoken, whatever spoken are not heard, whatever heard are not
honoured.
A true media should always
function as a strong opposition. Their stance should always be
adversarial. It’s a kind of love and hate relationship. What remains
today is only love. The unholy alliance between the media and those
in power has failed our democratic institutions disastrously.
The media has miserably failed to
unearth the challenges to democracy. They deal with only what is
happening on the periphery of the technology. Take for instance the
election in the UP. The people had their own intelligence and
strategy to identify and expose truth. This was true in the case of
election following emergency in India. The media is often successful
in un-doing with truths. No body wins in recent debates. Look back
after six months, and you see that those were only false debates to
defraud the general public.
Let me ask. Have any one heard
any of our main stream media management speaking out at any point of
time, other than white-washing themselves in times of controversies?
Development of a democratic society and good governance was never in
their agenda. Careerism in media looks for better pay and
perquisites only. |
