Talking Shop: Should I be disoriented?

“The system has your brain. They

evaluate it to let you. A mafia of

established people, your competition,

wants to destroy you and functions

as Geppetto, planting false negative

things into your brain and body.”

―Maria Karvouni

What a fall from grace. The media will not talk of searing unemployment, rising prices and runaway inflation (tomatoes alone are now over Rs 100 a kg). They will not talk about rising crime against women, increasing incidences of lynching by mobs, frequent riots in many states or the rule of local goondas. Instead, they will talk of inane and fake issues. My father was media. I am too and have been most of my life, but we never lost the ethic, the plunger to drive home a nationally-important point. Now, it’s all about money and TRPs, subjugation, cars, power and continuance in our so-called sacred chairs in the office. What a shame. Being media was never about physical and material fulfilment, but today, that seems to be the only ultimate goal.

Things came to the fore when the Sushant Singh Rajput incident happened, when a handsome and talented bloke went to his makers before his time. The media had a field day—him, his present, past, future and his girlfriend. I woke up, realizing that my brethren were nobody’s brothers any longer; they were callous, prickly and preposterous. It was an anathema, this business of ratcheting out falsehoods in the name of ‘Breaking News’. And it hasn’t stopped since. These jokers continue to spread fake stuff in the name of NEWS (north, east, west and south). Hell, they do not even spare the Gods. Even there, they have an agenda—about where rivers propagated from, why temples are divine and mosques not so much, about Yogis and Sadhus being the only recourse to learn and vent from. Vent is appropriate, for they spew spleen and vitriol, uncannily triggering a national disgrace.

Need I say more?

I do, for I feel disgraced myself, being part of this motley crowd of information miscreants. The power of the pen that I grew up with has been bent shamelessly off-shape, only allowed now to peg mistruths and the affirmations of those who wield the sword. What a sham(e). Hathras happened, so did Lakhimpur Kheri, as did our lady grappler champs who were wrestled with and manhandled. No one speaks about it. Instead, they speak of a God (or many) gone crazy, of a man in a white T-shirt going berserk, or of wonders to be achieved in space and yonder wonderland. What happens to the truth on the ground? What about the 23 crore eligible and educated people in my country those are jobless and penniless (or should it be paisa-less)? Who will speak of them and their misery?

Too many questions I ask, and I am perhaps recanting, so let’s recount. At last count, 10 per cent of India's rich today control 77 per cent of the money in the country, bellowing the historic disparity India is witnessing in wealth creation and hoarding. In the last two years alone, 73 per cent of India’s earnings have gone to 1 per cent of the richest. For the average person working in a textile mill in today’s India, reaching the CEO’s salary will take 941 years. The worker shall be rather old by then, I presume. The inequality in Indians’ earnings is as caustic as it is worrisome. This is in a country where it is estimated that by Year 2024, we will produce 80 new millionaires every day. The number of billionaires in India has already jumped to 119, up from only 9 in Year 2000. The fortune of these billionaires has increased by 10 times over the last decade and their wealth was higher than the entire Union budget of India for FY 2018-19, at Rs 24.42 lakh crore in FY 2023 itself.

What is wrong?

Well, everything. The last decade has been different and the rules have changed. We are learning to be fearful and subservient. The media has been impacted and hit hard, impaled, turning into a pusillanimous skeleton at the altar of a new today. If you do not toe the line, you risk losing those toes. At large, the media has succumbed to the new masters and become a victim of its own making. I have written columns on a vacillating media before, citing instances of misreporting and loathsome journalism. But today is different—for it iterates on shine-out developments that are being left out of newsprint and news-bytes, only to please the high and mighty.

This new low in journalism is a precipitous one, for it cannot be heard out loud. This is a new trick, where the ‘aakaas’ (Lords) don’t want something to be known to the people and obedient genies rush back to their bottles and slam the cork shut above them, only to resurface later. Chinese incursion(s) into India never happened and let’s forget the US Pentagon’s images of full colonies established inside our borders. You want more? Okay, what about Lakhimpur Kheri and a cavalcade of SUVs bull-dozing peacefully marching farmers facing the other way—nah, all speculation and hype, a total lie. Hathras rape case and the midnight forced cremation of a victim girl despite the grieving family’s protests—yawn, what are you talking about? People dying of oxygen shortage across the country during the second wave of COVID-19 the year before last; what a waste of newsprint, since no one died? Farmers perishing on Delhi’s borders during their agitation; they were not farmers at all. What about Manipur, for there’s nothing wrong with Manipur?

What can be done?

A few simple steps can actually go a long distance and alleviate the intellectual poverty. The authorities need to invest in making essential services available to every person, funding this by taxing the wealthy strictly, even posthumously. The Government should provide people-focused services and end the under-taxation of Corporates and rich individuals, as has been done in Europe and the United States. Paradoxically, many of the very overseas rich have voluntarily paid more taxes than they were supposed to, to protect their country through a crisis. Governments have been proactive as well, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—they bailed out airlines, pharmaceuticals, hospitality and other companies, but only in exchange for a hefty stake in these Corporates.

India has been different, our approach only picturesque, focused as we are on visual manifestations and affiliations. Today, at the height of a crisis on almost all fronts, we are confronted by hoardings that dot our petrol stations and line our highways, with the authorities demanding that they be thanked for doing their jobs, albeit belatedly and opportunistically. Ljupka Cvetanova once said: “Times change. Before, no one believed the weather forecast. Today, in the news, only the weather forecast can be trusted.” That’s as hilarious as it is very poignant and sad.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal