The ‘internal’ Political challenges
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 2nd Jan 2018
The politics within the country now seems to be going to ‘tailspin’. The challenges for the Netas in the government seem to be rising with ‘tests’ around multiple sides almost simultaneously. From Dalit fire which brings forth old fault lines, to issues pertaining to defaulters depicting ‘equal treatment for all defaulters’ which is rather new issues and then some one or two guys crying hoarse about victimization of idols by Mother Nature. Then we have elected governments not very enthusiastic about laws such as RERA or GST or brewing ‘fights’ about ‘water’, quite likely as elections approaches closer. The municipal and local bodies not ‘knowing’ anything about ‘reforms’ are not even being mentioned for that may make the ‘issues’ unsolvable. No wonder Indian politics tests almost all fault-lines rather than maintain focus on ‘core issues’, and the response of the Netas in government would be under watch. We shall definitely also see the usage of language along political lines rather than promotion of Huduku (Google it for Kannada). While Mysuru is struggling for a Metro coming ‘in time’, however no political Neta seems to be concerned about greater usage of Panambur as a domestic port or better usage of other minor ports to use them for international or internal cruises/passenger movement so at to bring down some logistic costs. Instead of putting together an agenda of development, the political parties put out energies for exposing each other’s fault lines and these aging might just pertain to ‘social issues’ rather than delays in allocation of funds from say the ‘center’ besides other biases or a lack of progress in centrally funded schemes.
The facilitation of business and jobs, conditions of rural and farming communities including tribal populace, social sector deliveries like state education institutions, healthcare institutions, distribution of subsidies like Ration, cooking-fuel, fertilizers and the scrutiny development projects is seldom taken up by commercial news media. In fact political parties and Netas are seldom ready to have them discussed and happy looking at ‘international issues’, ‘ideological fault-lines’ or ‘specific events and response to the same’ rather than say ‘performance’ or a ‘report on relative performance’. In fact the local data collation and projection by say internet based media companies has hardly progressed in spite of all the cheap manpower and employment related issues, thanks to such polity which wants to depict ‘skill gap issues’ rather their ‘internal fault-lines’. The social related dilemmas of the political Netas is evident as parties almost openly go ahead to neglect the ‘oppressed’ by bringing in filibusters rather than substantive positions on even some social issues where the stance of Apex court was rather ‘clear’, whenever such ‘issues’ were brought to it for consideration. There are no journos in the commercial news media to question that why the Netas and parties feel that the parties legal stance in law-making bodies should be in constant clash with the directives of the court which might be based on through deliberation of the constitution.
There might be many in the country who may prefer the ‘economy’ to be debated a bit more but for the political Netas who would not, since that gives away their ‘performance or the lack of it’, a bit more easily than what may be desirable. And this may not be any one party or Neta being responsible for such a situation but almost all sides. The failure of the commercial news media in this case seems appalling in the face of human crisis in the rural farm sector often leading to suicides, falling standards of educational institutions failing to keep pace with the contemporary needs and demands of a rising population, falling metrics regards delivery of judicial remedies which seems facing neglect as well as contempt of the Netas and a gradual decline in quality of discussions in public discourse. Please note that the last point will/may get taken up as means to flog the quality of language being used in the media or by general population, but the author would point to the time spent of issues in media whereby sensationalism (which is specific events/identities) or socio-cultural issues get a priority over say an assessment of public works and delivery by the Netas or even a discussion on how things can be improved further.
We have commercial news media which can go gaga over the policy of some country regards some other country, rather than concentrate on development agenda within or concentrate on supportive factors or discuss market access, trade deals etc. The failure of the country to be able to receive support for ‘almost suicidal farmers’ receives lesser drumbeats than castigation of terrorism, While action against terrorism is important but so is the enhanced ability of the farmers/producers/small manufacturers to be able to get requisite support as well as market access. The relative calculus of ‘time spend’ of the commercial news media over issues shows where its sympathy lies. This might be biased for the ‘businesses’ who gain out of favourable policies or celebration of mundane with the ‘rich and prosperous’, rather than discussions on ‘issues’ that may hold clues for the poor to come out the labyrinth of myriad rules and policy bottlenecks. The lack of penetration of education as well as say of the skill for appreciation of the laws, rules, policies and their implementation mechanism by the ordinary audience, helps keep the discussion further confused and the scales tilted in favour of those whom the commercial news media may want to support, although they would deny any set mechanism or pattern being consciously followed.
To be developed further…