Jubilee Post News & Views
Abhigyan Shekhar
Last Sunday people lit candles for #9baje9minute event against corona virus, but like all other events planned by PM Modi even this failed its purpose. Visuals of crowds gathering in many parts of the country started floating on social media amidst the lock down. A News from Jaipur also confirmed that crackers set a house on fire.
Bursting crackers ruined probably the only good thing about this lockdown which was the improved AQI. Last week we saw a massive improvement in the quality of air across the country. The grand Dhauladhar mountain range were visible from Jalandhar city for the first time in three decades, but the bursting of crackers ruined that as well.
This is the melancholy of all PM Modi’s events. He asks people to come out only in their balconies to show solidarity, his supporters see it as an opportunity to come out and fail the idea of quarantine.
While there were reports of people coming out and houses burning, news channels were busy showing us visuals from different cities and leaders as if they were covering for Diwali.
We saw similar scenario during the Junta curfew, Modi asked people to come in their balconies to show respect for people in essential services, situation got so bad that at some places police had to come out and disperse people in its own way. PM Modi himself tweeted stating his disappointment with people who aren’t taking the lockdown seriously.
Now, some twitteratis are also joking how on 12th April which is the last Sunday before the lockdown gets over PM Modi might give us another task like chanting Om, then try holding our breathes for 12 seconds. This might not help in any other way but you will get an idea how healthy are your lungs to fight the corona virus.
PM Modi is a master of events and these events helps him to divert the minds from real questions. But no news channel asks him serious questions and just helps his government. What went wrong and why could India not stop the virus from spreading at the initial stage itself?
On January 30th, India reported its first Covid19 case from Kerala where a student who returned from Wuhan, by 3rd Feb three more people were tested positive by the virus. Initially the government’s response to the virus wasn’t tough enough. Most airports were allegedly not screening people coming back to home, even though corona virus was spreading at a very massive rate globally.
After 55 days On March 25, a nationwide lockdown was imposed. But the most miserable image of this lockdown was yet to come, in a couple of days post the announcement we saw despairing pictures coming from all over the country of daily wage workers walking back to their hometowns as far as 2000 kms away. These images were reflection of how are government doesn’t even put the marginalised class in its consideration and slogans like “Sabka sath Sabka vikas” appear as mere jumlas (fake promises).
While the country is in lockdown there are much bigger problems that we face from the condition of our public healthcare system to the immediate need of Personal Protection equipment (PPE) for doctors.
While all of this is happening the media, who should be asking the government these tough questions on their failure, is busy being a mouth-piece for government, diverting from real questions.
Some of them went ahead and chose to question the daily wage workers about “the necessity” to come out during the lockdown and posing a threat to others, none of these ignorant channels actually realised how their lives are in danger from two sides and if the virus doesn’t kill them hunger surely might.
With their 9 PM debates news channels have overtly spewed venomous narrative against the opposition.
Distress is that anybody who has relevant questions is either discarded or ignored. This bashing has just given the government a freehand in doing whatever they want without any accountability.
This has also been a reason in decline of tv news channels and many serious viewers continue to move to alternative sources like news websites who are more credible and social media has a term of these news channels Godi media which roughly translates as Lapdog media.
The opposition has been questioning the government about the economy and our preparedness for the slowdown and the media didn’t pay any head to it. There have been questions on crony capitalism and economic slowdown and the condition of our health care system in past as well and they have resurfaced with the corona virus pandemic at our doorstep, but the news channels have different priorities.
The latest example is of the Tablighi Jamat. Media was searching for the villain responsible for the mass spread. Jamat came out as the perfect candidate, as if they were deliberately trying to use the virus as a weapon and spread it.
Orthodox organisations like Tablighi Jamat have been irresponsible, but there is an important question.
why was the event allowed by the administration at the first place?
They knew there can be people from different countries, there is a contagious virus spreading across the globe. instead, the media continued with its hate agenda.
We know how news channels have played a key role in destroying whatever little culture of dissent and democracy was there in our system.
With a pandemic at our doors, it is time for the media to give importance to questions raised by the opposition and change the kind of image it has created of the opposition leaders. It’s very obvious that the corporate media cannot question Modi & his machinery, but it can give the space to the opposition that it deserves and save its credibility. At least in these critical times of Corona pandemic, isn’t it?
Modi’s tweet :
लॉकडाउन को अभी भी कई लोग गंभीरता से नहीं ले रहे हैं। कृपया करके अपने आप को बचाएं, अपने परिवार को बचाएं, निर्देशों का गंभीरता से पालन करें। राज्य सरकारों से मेरा अनुरोध है कि वो नियमों और कानूनों का पालन करवाएं।
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 23, 2020
Vaishali Nagar video :
Massive fire in a building in my neighborhood from bursting crackers for #9baje9mintues. Fire brigade just drove in. Hope everyone's safe. pic.twitter.com/NcyDxYdeFW
— Mahim Pratap Singh (@mayhempsingh) April 5, 2020
(Abhigyan shekhar is a freelance writer. The opinion in this article is his own view )
