Media ‘Hypes’ This Election Season
It’s a widely accepted fact that news today is a commodity, that media doesn’t spare any efforts to sell. In the process the audience gets prejudiced and events like elections are often affected, though there is no way to measure the impact of an ‘item’ on the minds of the masses and the classes.
But why should media be blamed? After all, it is trying its best to cater to our needs (or is it the other way round–the debate is endless).
Some of the over-rated ‘commodities’, extensively marketed (not only by media, but also by political parties)this summer:
Rahul Gandhi
No one can argue the potential(political only, of course) of the Gandhi scion and Congess General Secretary. But how can the 24-7 news channels and some of the print media ever justify his taking up more airspace nad newsprint than the two prime ministerial candidiates put together?
The quiet, composed Manmohan Singh was visible only when accompanied by Sonia Gandhi and/or Rahul.
Wherever he went, the camera seemed to follow him. Special prime-time reports and special reports lauding his youthful spirit and vision(for a new, revamped Cong party and not the country, mind it…) were aplenty. Not very surprisingly, anyone -be it a national leader or a Congress karyakarta(worker) or a common supporter- who claimed that Rahul was(and actually is in a sense) the next PM was sure to get a byte.
And though he doesn’t seem to have as much charm as his father, Rajiv Gandhi, had or the vision and vigour to spearhead a IT-like revolution, he is often compared to the former PM. But what he has is the Gandhi name and support of a large no. of Congressis and voters(the latter apparently) both young and old. He should put it to good use, nay, the best.
Youth
Yes, 3/4th of India’s population is between the ages of 15-35. But that is no reason for columnists and ‘political experts’ and political advisers to account for as a major factor in country’s development or future politics. The ‘quality’ of youth should also be taken into account. Most of the times, the ‘youth’ or the ‘young generation’ referred to means the young, educated middle class of urban areas.
The urban ‘upper’ classes can’t be relied upon to be a part of constructive decision making or politics of the future. They would rather holiday in Los Angeles and go to Australia for ‘higher studies’, than get into the gutter of politics or administration even in order to do some cleaning and cleansing. Hey dude!! Its so f—–g messy…what difference can I make??
The rural youth and urban poor also can’t be expected to do much of well-informed choosing and decididng. Anyways, the population explosion and alarmingly high school drop-out rates among these can’t be neglected, apart from the quality of education in our sarkari schools and the shameful, dated definition of literacy in the country.
But all is not that dismal. Youth does have some potential and possibly it will improve in the near(or not so near) future. Anyways, energy and enthusiasm ,the youth will always have.
Narendra Modi
The Gujarat CM was the BJP’s answer to Rahul Gandhi. And more often than not, he was labelled as the PM-in-waiting and ‘PM for 2014′. Hahaha…..Allm those controversial discussions and comments seemed to have gone futile.
Perhaps the BJP and media under-estimated the aam aadmi, who was expected to blindly fall for extremism and the fact that investigations are still on for the Gujrat pogrom of 2002 and Modi’s role in it. Well, the election results say it all.
Third Front and Fourth Front
Both these fronts took up much of time, owing to self-created-hype.
Third Front assumed that the people will fall for the ‘alternative’ to BJP and Cong(read as communalism and weakness+pseudo secularism). But for the voters, perhaps ’stability’ was more comforting in these turbulent times than ‘novelity’. And so they chose Congress, instead of a pack of greedy ,opportunist parties who clearly appeared to be together just for ‘power’.
Well, either a chuckle or a laugh is escapes, when one talks of the ‘Fourth Front’ comprising Lalu Prasad Yadav, Paswan and Mulayam Singh. The UP-Bihar based leaders fancied themselves ‘king-makers’ before elections and shot themselves to few minutes of fame every morning and evening. Post-elections, they fell from heights of self-assumed glory to depths of humiliation, forced by the vox populi,jaanta ki awaaz - or the people’s voice.
