Cynical of Democracy - Whom to blame ?

Recent reports and discussions on our Main Stream Media post phase 3 of polling has been at most hilarious and Hypocritical, the appalling 44% odd polling in Mumbai has sent the Media on a fact finding mission or to be more precise, another fault finding mission ??

After 26/11 and all the Media "activism" with Jaago re , Aamir khan and all the Glamor, what we all get is a couple of percentage drop in polling over last elections :) . The fault finding mission has implicated and convicted everything that could have been possibly done The list starts from the political class , talks about the summers blames politicians again for the schedule and ends again with the political class. Every one is to blame but for the Media, and they can be really quick to in fact take credit for the 44% who exercised their right (duty ?).

I feel this is the first major success our media has had in their attempt at destroying our institutions. I feel the Media should take full blame for creating unfounded cynicism in the political class and the system, instead of trying to get people take interest in the political process the media has actually forced people to only take interest in ridiculing politics and politicians .

In the entire political process in the current general elections the media was successful in making the elections issue less when every politician in the opposition was trying to raise genuine issues of national interest the Media could only find Varun Gandhi as a worthwhile issue to hog prime time space, they could only pick up the "My daddy Strongest" rhetoric of all poll issues, they could only find the nose of a certain Priyanka Gandhi of prime time interest (is she even a primary member of a political party ? ) , of 48 pages of a manifesto , an IT vision , an Infrastructure Vision, all the media could find is a paragraph on Cultural Humanism worthwhile of debate, of Hour long political speeches what only enthused the media was a drunken man flinging projectiles aimlessly.

Where were the issues which actually people could relate to, where was the debate on which political formation had a better vision / plan to get India out of the terrible economic crisis we are going through , where was the debate on food price inflation, where was the debate on unemployment, Infrastructure, development, Internal security, external threats. Why wasn't the sadak, bijli Pani given the importance it deserved ?

When Varun Gandhi spoke of nationalism and forgetting about caste identities (after release on parole) where was the same media which hounded him for a fortnight when he allegedly made communal remarks ??

Kudos to the Media for its success in demonising Politics and politicians as a class and giving democracy a body blow.

NSA on the Media ?

Indian politics has always been interesting, but the media coverage of specific aspects of our polity has made it ever more fascinating, and if i look at my blog most of my recent posts seem to have centered around the media which, believe me, is purely unintentional, somehow the media has been able to evoke the strongest emotions in me lately.

Now this post is about the alleged "Hate Speech" by Mr Varun Gandhi and the events leading to his arrest and subsequent imposition of the "National Security Act", as his actions were considered to have endangered national Security.

Recollecting the sequence of events, this is what has happened -

1) Varun Gandhi makes the alleged hate speech at a Pilibhit rally attended by a few 100 people, apparently the speech is recorded by someone. (we have no idea about the identity of this "someone")
2) For the next 12 odd days things are as normal as they always have been in Pilibhit and the rest of the country, no signs of communal disturbance reported or attributed to Mr Gandhi
3) Suddenly a CD appears which is directly sent to the main stream media by "someone" (Now this "someone" can be the same "someone" referred to in point 1 above or can also be "someone" else, the identity of any of the "someones's" not yet known.
4) Now every one in the country can see the alleged speech 24X7 , and it is played and replayed over and over again by our active Media.
5) Now instead of one of the "someones's" mentioned above the EC asks the media for the CDs.
6) In a couple of days the EC assumes the role of the judiciary and pronounces Varun Gandhi Guilty.
7) Varun Gandhi courts arrest in Pilibhit and by now thanks to the media everyone in the world has heard the speech, and there is a show of support for Varun Gandhi , also there are reports of rioting.
8) The UP govt declares Varun Gandhi a threat to the Nation and charges him Under NSA.


In view of the above there are 2 distinct possibilities -
a) The CD was doctored as proclaimed by Varun Gandhi

This clearly makes the Media guilty of playing a fabricated Video over and over again leading to communal tensions and a possible threat to national security.

b) The CD was not doctored and Varun Gandhi actually made the speech.

In this case Varun Gandhi is guilty of delivering this speech to a few hundred people, with apparently no effect as there is no word of anything happening in the 12 days since the alleged speech was made.

Logically speaking even here the Media is guilty of showing a hate speech over and over again on national TV in an attempt to raise communal passions directly responsible for the kind of rioting seen in pilibhit and endangering National Security.

So, in my unbiased view,either way, based only on the facts listed above the real threat to national Security and maybe to our nation has been our Main Stream Media, Shouldn't it be charged under NSA ?