Knowledge is power
The ongoing (or rather, just over) nuclear debate in India left me, like most of us, exasperated and furious. While I won’t comment on the issue itself in this blog, the point which I really want to make is this. Ours seems to be a polity which simply does not believe in informed decisions, and more importantly, informed debates. The public is taken to be too dumb or disinterested to understand finer details about important issues. Everything is fought and decided on the basis of mere rhetoric and drama.
I always used to wonder why is it that while the US always has a live presidential debate between the candidates before the elections, we never have any such thing. Why is Sonia Gandhi or Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh never there on any panel discussion pre-election, when it is them who are going to decide the fate of this country and not the Kapil Sibals (Min of Ocean Technology after all the footage he takes) and Arun Jaitleys. And the nuclear issue only makes the point more blatant.
Here is (was) a pact which could catapult India to the nuclear league. Fine, there was a lot of misgivings on the deal from the Left and the BJP. But then, was the issue discussed at all in the Parliament? I saw the debate..the poor PM was trying to speak amidst a drone of ‘nahi chalega nahi chalega..’ from the opposition; they allowed absolutely nothing to be spoken, let alone debated
Fine, so the Govt is not allowed to discuss I Parliament. But does it try to force a debate. Does it ask for a live televised discussion? Does the PM come on TV and state all the facts about the deal in fine detail, explaining all the pros and cons to the nation? No.
What about the Left. Mr Prakash Karat actually states that the Left opposition is based on aspects of the deal which the public will not be able to understand! Besides using terms like the Hydes Act, does he explain anything? Does anyone still know what is the stated basis of the Lefts opposition to the deal? Nope. Sitaram Yechury writes a weekly column in HT. During that month, he wrote on the US and its hypocrisy, on poverty and common man, on communalism, on everything except the deal. These few handful of Karats and Bardhans and Yechurys and their 1970s stuck comrades who have never even fought an election are holding the country and its govt ransom for reasons which they decide not to explain!!
Think of it. Whatever we know of the deal and its ramifications is only through well-researched articles by various journalists. No official has written or spoken in black and white about the deal. Isn’t it sad? And what is worse is that all channels and we citizens seem to have accepted this without much of a fight. Really, these RTI campaigns suddenly seem so useless. What right to information are we talking of when the govt can be brought down without anyone knowing the reason.
I believe that its time that we force the government to involve the public much more in the decision making process. And it is the media that needs to take a lead on this issue. We don’t need needless histrionics and high-decibeled debates on TV. We need more concrete facts and hard data about various issues. And we need them to be drilled into the common man’s mind by the media till he is forced to think about them and come to informed conclusions and decisions. That’s what responsible citizenship is about. That’s what responsible reporting is about. And that’s what responsible governance is about.
I always used to wonder why is it that while the US always has a live presidential debate between the candidates before the elections, we never have any such thing. Why is Sonia Gandhi or Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh never there on any panel discussion pre-election, when it is them who are going to decide the fate of this country and not the Kapil Sibals (Min of Ocean Technology after all the footage he takes) and Arun Jaitleys. And the nuclear issue only makes the point more blatant.
Here is (was) a pact which could catapult India to the nuclear league. Fine, there was a lot of misgivings on the deal from the Left and the BJP. But then, was the issue discussed at all in the Parliament? I saw the debate..the poor PM was trying to speak amidst a drone of ‘nahi chalega nahi chalega..’ from the opposition; they allowed absolutely nothing to be spoken, let alone debated
Fine, so the Govt is not allowed to discuss I Parliament. But does it try to force a debate. Does it ask for a live televised discussion? Does the PM come on TV and state all the facts about the deal in fine detail, explaining all the pros and cons to the nation? No.
What about the Left. Mr Prakash Karat actually states that the Left opposition is based on aspects of the deal which the public will not be able to understand! Besides using terms like the Hydes Act, does he explain anything? Does anyone still know what is the stated basis of the Lefts opposition to the deal? Nope. Sitaram Yechury writes a weekly column in HT. During that month, he wrote on the US and its hypocrisy, on poverty and common man, on communalism, on everything except the deal. These few handful of Karats and Bardhans and Yechurys and their 1970s stuck comrades who have never even fought an election are holding the country and its govt ransom for reasons which they decide not to explain!!
Think of it. Whatever we know of the deal and its ramifications is only through well-researched articles by various journalists. No official has written or spoken in black and white about the deal. Isn’t it sad? And what is worse is that all channels and we citizens seem to have accepted this without much of a fight. Really, these RTI campaigns suddenly seem so useless. What right to information are we talking of when the govt can be brought down without anyone knowing the reason.
I believe that its time that we force the government to involve the public much more in the decision making process. And it is the media that needs to take a lead on this issue. We don’t need needless histrionics and high-decibeled debates on TV. We need more concrete facts and hard data about various issues. And we need them to be drilled into the common man’s mind by the media till he is forced to think about them and come to informed conclusions and decisions. That’s what responsible citizenship is about. That’s what responsible reporting is about. And that’s what responsible governance is about.
posted by Akshay at 1:37 PM
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