Self Regulation-Does it really work?

Television in India particularly Broadcast media enjoys unfettered distinction.  In 1959 when Doordarshan was first launched till the advent of Cable Television in the mid 90’s broadcast services was a government owned enterprise. Basically Doordarshan was the government’s mouth-piece. As long as it enjoyed a monopoly in the air wave people had no choice but to accept it.  But the dawn of 24 hour news channels opened new vistas. News content was unregulated by the government and people craved for more of the “real thing”. Channels like NDTV, Star News, Aaj Tak delivered hard core truth to the audiences and in return earned their respect. The broadcast media played a major role in ensuring justice for ordinary people like Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo who were victims not only in life but even after death at the hands of corrupt bureaucrats who did their best to prevent justice from being delivered by pulling the strings on their marionettes. But slowly as we progressed into the 21^st century news became more of business than a pillar of democracy.  Cases like those of Uma Khurana, Aarushi Talwar murder and Mumbai Terror Attacks shamed the ideals of the fourth estate. Inexperienced and in some cases corrupt journalists tried to settle personal scores through the media. The government had since a long time proposed to formulate a bill to regulate the contents of news channels which have been met with vehement opposition. The government has been accused of trying to gag the media. In the past the government of India has faced flak from the public in the aftermath of sting operations carried out in public interest. But with time sting operations became a trend than a necessity to ensure justice and equality. The detractors of the Broadcast Services Regulation Bill have proposed that the media organizations themselves regulate the content of the news, a proposal that was met with benevolence by the government after much debate. Till now the self-regulatory authorities of the media bodies have set up and engaged in grievances redress of their own.

We cannot ignore the government’s concern about the unregulated content that is being aired by the broadcast media organizations. True that the government might want to edit any content that negatively reflects on it but we also have to take into consideration that within the media bodies itself there are scores of people with vested interest. The same people who accuse the government of being draconian might have an ulterior motive in preventing the Broadcast Services Regulation Bill from becoming a law. There is very little discussion about the power of the media amongst common people. Broadcast media has an uncanny ability to mess with people’s head and spoon-feed certain information from which it stands to benefit.  A large majority of the population tends to believe whatever they are being told without analyzing the pros and cons. Self regulation in such circumstances appears farcical. Therefore a balance between the two parties needs to be reached. An independent body can be set up to probe and verify the arguments of both parties. Regulation is best when done by a third independent party. That way transparency can be ensured and people will have access to genuine information. But the proposed third party should feature members from neutral background to preserve the sanctity of such an organization.

Faded Memories

History. Slowly but surely that’s what everything becomes. I had graduated from high school five years ago. I had taken my school memories for granted. I believed that they were always going to be there as a part of me, my identity, forever etched in my memories.  But my belief was met with colossal disappointment. A few minutes ago I was browsing through Facebook and on my homepage I saw a link of our school’s ex-students association. Pictures commemorating teacher’s day had been posted. I clicked on the link hoping to take a trip down the memory lane. I was grief-stricken and disbelief washed over me. I don’t intend to offend my ex-teachers or my fellow batch mates. But I am going to get candid hereafter.

 I recognized the faces; they were omnipresent in the school corridors. I remembered them walking down the corridor with important papers in their hand or hurrying towards a class. But shockingly couldn’t recall most of their names. The picture of an old lady with white hair was so familiar.  Yet I couldn’t recall her name. This was the case with most of my teachers except for a few whom I remembered due to some reason both good and bad. Slowly realization dawned on me. Time didn’t stand still for the past five years. I have moved from school to college to university. I went through numerous changes, acquired more knowledge about the world, gained new experience, moved to an alien city, made new friends, and carved a niche for myself. But somehow time had stood still for my teachers. They still go to the school every morning, take class after class, teach the same subjects, and inculcate the same values in their students. Each year they guide new group of students. But the essence of their lesson remains the same. We are the ship. They are our sailors. They guide us, lead us and prepare us to face the unknown ocean called life where we will be met with lashing waves or deathly calm. Physically I have grown from being an awkward and shy teenager to a woman who is prepared to swim in the ocean in quest of that magical island where dreams come true. Whereas their beautiful faces have been assailed by wrinkles, their luscious black hair now has specks of grey in it. In the intervening time my head had been filled with innumerable data ranging from Chemistry, college, new friends, career, journalism, travel.

The older memories gathered dust and were moving towards decay when I got a cold reminder- How can you forget something as integral to you as a person? How can you forget those people who were everything for you outside of home, whom you desired to please, whose acknowledgment you so much craved? How can forget the people whose appreciation had at a point of time made you so happy that you jumped in joy for the entire day and disapproval made you miserable for days at end? So I picked up the old memories, dusted them off and neatly arranged them. My head is filled with visions of classrooms, the ubiquitous chalk, duster and blackboard, the smell of new books at the beginning of each academic year, the wooden benches on which we were forever scrawling messages, an inheritance of sorts for our classroom descendents. We may be gone but out names would forever remain carved on those desks and posterity would further add to it. Those benches are likely to be gone and replaced by new ones them but we like to believe that they are still there with our names carved on it and will be there for a long time to come. It’s a way of permanently attaching ourselves to our beloved alma mater. So we live in denial because in our sad times these memories bring a smile to our lips. And our teacher’s preside in the classrooms filled with the mementos of the ancestors. With the gradual passage of time our children will replace us in the same classroom. Some of our old teachers will remain to guide them through the same path but most will have taken leave by then. It difficult to admit but by our twenty-fifth reunion many would have crossed over from this mortal world. All that would be left behind would be memories. Memories in the form of pictures, notes, old textbooks and those images involving little classroom incidents, spoken words which altered the course of our lives, words of wisdom which comforted us in our distress which were never captured in camera but have a photographic presence in our minds.

I do not know how to give a beautiful ending to this write-up. All I can say is the words came straight through my heart and I do not want to give it a picture perfect ending with ostentatious words or pseudo-expectations. Life is imperfect but we still chose to live it. Similarly memories however perfect or imperfect forever remain with us. As we grow old some of the old memories start to decay no doubt. But there will always be a feeling of familiarity when we come face to face with them. We might feel jubilant or petulant. But feeling is what matters. It confirms that the past holds a place in our present lives. 

Our Tryst with Destiny

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

The famous speech by our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru marked a new era in the history of India. India has been attacked, plundered, ravaged for centuries. Our gold stolen, our crops siphoned off to feed another nation, our men toiled for a country which was not their own. But through it all we emerged victorious and resilient. The foreign powers could not survive in the face of a nationwide agitation by the people who decided to take no more of the atrocities, the oppression. So at the stroke of midnight on the fifteenth of August 1947 we were given what was rightfully ours- India. Today as we approach our 65^th independence let’s look back to the past sixty-four years of Indian independence.

           Economically India has progressed by leaps and bounds since independence. With the growth of industry India is slowly becoming a self-sustaining economy. The infrastructure network has improved. The remotest of villages can today dream of electricity and education. All this has been made possible by the hard work and vision of the leaders of independent India. Average longevity has increased, incidences of child mortality at birth has improved, India is a super power in the making and a booming economy with economic statistics suggesting that India will be among the top five economies in another forty years. In spite of these apparent achievements there lurks a deep divide in the Indian society.  Not everybody gets a fair share of the financial windfall, not every child gets a fair opportunity at education, the public health sector is crumbling and the private sector is exploiting the situation. The truth is very different from what meets the eye.

It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

    

 Poverty remains the biggest problem in India today. Poverty breeds illiteracy which in turn perpetuates ignorance. Thousands of children leave school and add to the burgeoning number of child labor if they are not already earning to sustain their families. Girls barely into their teens are forced into prostitution. Others are blinded or maimed and made to beg. For them it is a childhood lost. For us they are just another domestic help, or the pestering child beggar or the boy who cleans Daddy’s car on Sunday. For adults the scenario is not much different. Rural Indian people slog in the fields day and night just to earn two square meals a day. Many leave their home behind and come to the city looking for better opportunities. Our infrastructure is not adequately equipped to cushion the increasing population in urban areas. Thus slums flourish. Decaying tins roofs, open sewers, stagnant wells, and debris strewn lanes have become a ubiquitous sight in major Indian cities.

The tide of female feticide and infanticide shows no signs of ebbing. In spite of banning the corrupt practice of pre natal sex determination the government has failed to bring to an end the phenomenon of skewering sex ratio of boys and girls. As long as this dark cloud of ignorance and misinformation is not dispelled, inequality will persist. So our boys will get ahead in life. They will go places while our daughters will be confined to kitchens and the local markets. Women’s Reservation Bill can do little good to women in a society where they are regularly suppressed or where their husbands see this as an opportunity to field their wives to earn goodwill and pull the strings on the marionettes to achieve their objective.

India is experiencing an AIDS epidemic. Illiteracy, ignorance and taboo breed the endemic disease. Half of the rural population remains unaware of the basic preventive measures to be adopted. Basic healthcare facilities in rural India are missing. The few who opt for the city are thoroughly disappointed where the scenario is not much different. Making the most of this situation is the private health sector and their escalating profits. Medicine has become a sham where an unsuspecting, docile patient is manipulated by the doctors who aren’t much different from modern day butchers.

Globalization has changed the face of India. The booming economy has ensured a comfortable lifestyle for many but that’s where the deception lies. The farmers of Punjab and Haryana got richer and richer whereas the tribal of Orissa, West Bengal got poorer and poorer. One hardly is surprised to know that these tribal people have taken up guns and rifles and joined the Maoists in quest of a better life.

This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others.

Isn’t that exactly what happens every time there is a terrorist attack? The BJP blames the Congress; the Congress blames the BJP while it is the common man who bears the brunt. Limbs lost, relatives killed, children orphaned, women widowed, certain religious communities face retaliatory attack. The security of the country is in an abysmal state and the leaders whether ruling or opposition lacks the sensitivity towards common people. It’s always about the power never about the nation.

We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

MF Hussain certainly wouldn’t have been banished from the country of his birth and made to live and die in exile if the ideal behind those lines were followed.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good ill fortune alike.

                                                  

There is a writer named Tasleema Nasreen who came to our country seeking refuge after being exiled from her country for practicing free speech. She was our guest. We ought to have taken care of her. But what did we do to protect her from humiliation? Nothing. Instead we too asked her to leave. Another lady Aung San Suu Kyi had been urging us to let go of our commercial interests and help the people of Myanmar achieve freedom from the oppressive military junta. So far her requests had fallen on deaf ears.

                             
Interestingly we abided by those very lines when His Holiness the Dalai Lama took refuge in our country. We proved to be a wonderful host taking in more refuge Tibetans and allowing them to settle as per their convenience, helped them establish business and ultimately they were absorbed into the mainstream India. We let them voice their protest against Chinese atrocities. As Tibetan author Tenzing Tsundue writes after being arrested by the police for staging a surprise protest on the high streets of Mumbai when the then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited the Indian business capital. “The police were sympathetic to the cause. More so for their benefit. They knew that once Tibet becomes Independent they needn’t bother about difficult protesters like me and the one lakh Tibetan refugees would go back to Tibet. With that, a better promise is that the Indian border along the Himalayas will be safe. It was only after the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1949 that India came to share borders with China for the first time in history.”

We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

 This has been the toughest ideal to follow so far. In recent times the Godhra, Gujrat and Kandhamal riots reminded us time and again how religiously intolerant we can be. With human rights violations in Kashmir on an all time high, repression has become the order of the day.  Through it all has emerged a new generation where religion is slowly losing its clout. Instead the Indian middle class are slowly embracing a broader outlook. Inter-caste marriages are on the rise. The popularity of our Prime Minister is soaring as he leads us to a better tomorrow.

India. Bharat. Hindustan. Whatever be the name the essence will always be the same. We will always be the people who greet their guests with folded hands and a garland. We shout and take to the streets to protest, scream to express joy. We create commotion on the streets all night when our favorite team wins a match. No police, no law can stop us from celebrating the victory of India as a team, as a nation. We are the source of intrigue for countless Westerners who came, saw and then shared with their fellow countrymen their experiences. The foreign exchange keeps pouring in the booming IT sector, Indo-US nuclear deal and countless other military pacts signals to the world that India has arrived as an economy, as a super power. The ever-increasing popularity of Indian cinema abroad particularly Bollywood announces that we are no longer a secluded part of the world. With tireless dedication the population is striving for a better India. A few hindrances removed and we are a step closer to Nehru’s dream India. Till then,

“There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be.”

Hippocratic Oath

Acting upon the invitation from my very good friend I visited her college recently. My friend is among the very few privileged people who get the opportunity to study in the esteemed Calcutta Medical College. The Medical College as it is popularly known is an architectural landmark from the British era. It was set up in the year 1835 with the aim of training the native youths in the fields of medicine and surgery. At first glance, while entering through the Ophthalmology department gate the buildings did not seem extraordinary. Some of the places were downright dirty and poorly maintained. My friend offered to show me the library. A wide staircase led to the door to the library. The library was not extraordinary to look at but I was informed that it boasts a pretty good collection of medical books.

On my insistence I was shown a few wards (pediatrics, gynecology and surgery). The pediatric ward is a nightmare for those who are ill-fated to have their children treated there. Right on entering the building you see walls sprayed with red betel juice and relatives of patients who are camping on the corridors with mats splayed out. In the toilet right next to the ward discarded food lies in a heap and the stench can be detected from quite a distance. I have heard or read about the crumbling infrastructure of the public health sector but to bear witness is a different experience altogether. The few beds that are there in the ward each have four inhabitants. Two mothers with their respective children lay horizontally, each trying to make best of the available space. Contrary to pediatrics, the surgery ward was very clean, well ventilated and well lit. The only eyesore would be the clothes hanged to dry on a wire in the corridor. On enquiring about the anomaly my friend explained that the departments mirror the efficiency of the heads. The Group D staff (doing the menial jobs) are the most difficult to control due to their proximity to political parties and are usually affiliated with the union of the college. Efficiency implies exacting the full co-operation of these group D employees with minimum friction. The campus speaks of a crumbling infrastructure which cannot be rectified by surprise visits of the CM alone. The only jewel in this age old stone would be the Out Patients Department which is equipped with modern facilities.

Mamata Banerjee is taking long strides and seems very determined and ambitious about health reforms. Detractors may discredit her moves as publicity stunt but this feisty lady has come a long way since her early days in the Mahila Congress. You may or may not agree with her political agendas but you cannot rule out her ability to shake things up. Already doctors of government run hospitals are anxious of any unplanned visit by the chief minister because they are well aware that if things don’t measure up to her expectations she is going to fire them at the spot. What plagued the Health sector most during predecessor Surjya Kanta Mishra’s time was politics, lack of funds and corruption. A family friend of my parents was made the chief administrative officer at a prestigious state-run hospital. During the course of his tenure he discovered a nexus between the top doctors and the lower staff involved in drug trafficking which resulted in shortage of medicine for patients. He was discouraged by his colleagues from exposing the ring as it would not only mean death of his career as a doctor but also the threat it will pose for his life.

If Miss Banerjee successfully implements the infrastructural requirements, if she  ensures proper work ethics with minimal interference from unions, if everyone is treated equally irrespective of their designations and if incidences of inhumanity (E.g. refusal to provide Oxygen cylinder to an asthmatic patient as his family didn’t have the money to bribe the orderly, which ultimately resulted in his death) can be rooted out, the countless number of patients awaiting their turn will see a ray of hope. But it remains a big If.

A Proud Slut

Slut Walk originated in Toronto in response to a police constables derogatory remark while delivering a lecture on women’s safety issues. To quote him, "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." The uproar it created had since spread like wildfire across the globe. The slut walks are aimed at redefining the term slut, a word which is derogatorily used to shame women. Debated have ensued. Feminism has been cheered and jeered alternately. The gesture was lost on some women who blamed feminism for destroying family values.

 Slut Walk has given women a platform to reaffirm their position in society, to voice their protest. The male-female imbalance in society is on a tethering edge. While men continue to dominate, women have long ago stopped giving in to the demands of a patriarchal society. The trend started in the West and has percolated into the conservative Arab world. Scores of female protestors camped out in tents along with male protestors in Tahrir Square during the revolution in Egypt. It invited a lot of criticism and the army dragged a few female protestors and forcibly performed virginity tests on them to secure themselves against any rape claims later on; acting on the misogynistic belief that only virgins can be raped. This move did not discourage the women and they came out strongly in large numbers demanding rights for women once the new government is formed.

Not all women resort to aggressive feminism to get their views across. Some women use sarcasm and humor like Jennifer McCreight. She performed the famous Boobquake experiment to poke fun at Kazem Seddiqi, an Iranian religious leader for claiming that immodestly dressed women lead men astray and cause earthquakes. Similar to Slut Walk, Boobquake saw scores of provocatively dressed women participating in the experiment verifying Seddiqi’s claim. Some argue that women use these occasions to dress provocatively in order to affirm their feminity. We don’t need to affirm our feminity. We need to affirm our already existing right to dress as we chose and not be harassed for it. It has been debated since the start of time yet no ‘consensus’ has been reached till today. First of all I wonder why we argue in the first place. Men and women both started out wearing nothing. Slowly with the start of family and society or maybe because of eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of heaven we realized about shame. Both the genders clothed themselves to protect their modesty. But somehow in the course of history or evolution or both, men established their right to wear what they preferred be it loincloth, skirt, jodhpurs or simply trousers. But women had to fight and fight and fight. Women wearing trousers is ubiquitous these days. But there was once a time when they were branded evil, whores (or simply sluts) if they were found wearing one. The logic was women shouldn’t wear clothes meant for men. Instead they were encouraged to wear skirts and dresses. Today the same society is saying that women wearing short skirts are sluts. I say no point listening to these confused and confounded people who can’t get it straight in their heads.

Very soon India will have its own slut walk in the national capital. This created quite a flutter among some men who were eager to participate in the walk for all the wrong reasons. Some wanted to photograph themselves walking alongside skimpily clad women. Others wanted to click high definition images. Their fantasies suffered quite a blow when it was decided that women would dress in traditional Indian attire to stress on the fact that they suffer harassment and abuse even when they are not “immodestly” dressed. India still has a long way to go as far as women’s rights are concerned. In spite of being a democracy with a stable ruling coalition, India has been named in the top five countries where women live dangerously. Other countries featuring in the top five are Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia. These countries can argue that they have been plagued by civil war, terrorism, hunger, unstable government hence women are in a pitiable state (though that’s no excuse at all) . What excuse do we have? It’s been more than sixty years since independence. How much longer do they want us wait and watch? And what do the men of country think regarding women’s rights to make her own choices?

Our voices can no longer be smothered by steely glares or fear. The tables had started turning a while back. We are no more afraid of giving voice to our thoughts or telling our daughters to live their lives as they think right. Societies have a tendency to stubbornly refuse to accept anything that challenges the established norm. Be it the Earth revolving around the sun or votes for women. But they accept it eventually when they can no longer resist the change. And therein lies our victory.

Incredible India

This winter holiday I planned a vacation with my family in Rajasthan.Our original plan was to take the Ajmer Satabdi Express from Delhi railway station.So on the 25th of December in the shivering cold we made it on time for our 6.30 train.As luck would have it,we learnt our train has got cancelled due to the Gujjar agitation.I was completely disgusted with all this reservation nonsense.The more priviledge you give people the more they want.In the near future there may come a day when every seat for job,education,health will be reserved for someone.There will no longer be any  provision for a person to secure something based on his abilities and thus we will become a mediocre nation.We had no other option but to go to the local bus service agency for a ticket to Jaipur.The tickets which would hardly cost two hundred bucks were sold for six hundred rupees. In exchange we were promised a deluxe bus which would start sharp at 6.30 and drop us at Jaipur by 10.30 am. On our way to the bus we met a young half-British half-Spanish woman named Dalini. We learnt that she has been charged 1000 rupees for the same bus ticket. I am quoting what Dalini said: " I dont like it here in Delhi. People are always trying to take your money away." Just imagine what kind of opinion foreigners are forming about us.

Still we were consoled by the fact that we would be reaching our destination on time. Little did we know that the Great Indian Tamasha was about to follow. It was 7.30 am and the bus was still static. Then after 15 minutes it started moving. After a few minutes it stopped again and for a long time. More passengers started boarding the bus. This time when the bus started we, the people who paid a premium price for the tickets were sitting on chairs. The aisle  was occupied by villagers who were remained unfazed by their environment. Now let me tell you the bus was far from being Deluxe. The state-run buses are more comfortable. So basically the local bus operators cashed in on the opportunity and I am sure by now they must have gained at least 100 lbs by feasting on our hard-earned money. The people from rural India kept having groundnuts and were unabashedly scattering the shell on the floor. On seeing this, Krishna and Manish, two Indian boys born and brought up in Spain exclaimed "Why are they dirtying the place like this? Dont they love their country?" Our concept of loving the country is very different. We make fiery speeches, hold rallies, shout slogans. We the people of India protest a lot and on every other issue. To show love for our country we behave as boorishly possible with the British who dared to rule us for 200 years (forget their contribution to education, society: sati, widow remarriage). But when it comes to some basic civic sense, we have none. It took us nine hours to reach Jaipur.

On our first day in Jaipur we had the privilege of visiting Chauki Dhani, a traditional Rajasthani village built for entertainment. The entry fee was exorbitant, five hundred rupees per person including food. Inside the pseudo village the "villagers" were performing to entertain us. The Hawa Mahal in old Jaipur stands proudly amidst the hustle and bustle of the city least affected by time and bearing witness to the resplendent Indian history. The passerby is just as mesmerized by it as once the Rajput women living inside it were with the world outside. 

From Jaipur we moved to Bikaner. In Bikaner we stayed at a B&B. Though the idea is very western but I must say there was a warmth in every little thing from the bed to the food. In spite of being a small towm Bikaner is surprisingly well maintained and clean city. 

 Jaisalmeer, a small town catapulted to fame during the 70's when renowned director Satyajit Ray made the movie Sonar Kella (The Golden Fort). Ever since then Jaisalmeer has become a major tourist hub though it lacks the basic infrastructure to support the tourism industry. Bengali tourists are aplenty, most of whom had come to see Mukul bari( Mukul's house). All houses in Jaisalmeer are built of yellow sandstone including the fort which gives them a golden hue in the strong afternoon sunlight. Another major attraction is camel ride in the Thar desert. Its an amazing feeling when the camel gets up and sits down. The camel gets up using its hind legs first. So you have to bend backwards as its body tilts forward and when it uses its fore legs you have to bend forward to avoid falling backwards. Many resorts have started tent and lodging facilities right in the middle of the desert. Its an added attraction for this small town and very expensive too. The main customers are mainly foreigners.

    Our final stop was at Jodhpur. My first impression on seeing this city from the Meherangarh fort was 'Blue City'. Many houses are painted in blue. It reminded me of Greece. In the Mediterranean countries most houses or the front door is painted in blue to ward off evil spirits. From the fort the houses seemed like tiny blue specks amidst the white and pink. It was New Year's eve the day we reached Jodhpur. I tried to do some shopping but failed repeatedly as my eyes could not adjust to the bright reds, pinks and yellow's of the Marwari culture. I felt strangely calm in spite of it being 31st December.The incessant road trips has taken a toll both on my mind and body. On my way back to Delhi we availed the Jaipur-Delhi bus service. I have to admit that this was the smoothest part of the entire journey. The bus was very comfortable and I fell asleep immediately after boarding the bus and opened my eyes only on reaching Bikaner House. Delhi seemed strangely calm and luminous at 4 a.m. As I headed back to the University I was thinking that it would be only a few hours before the city would wake up and the hullabaloo, the bargaining, the competition, the dog-eat-dog-world would resume. But for that moment, I laid back on my seat and took in the silent night, the holy night, the New Year.