Palace loyalties do public dis-service

We often want to believe that India is changing.  We take great pride in diving deep into the images of our society and sift through them to find those hints of change - that we don't hang from the trees our forefathers grew. We pride in our sense of maturity and impartial judgment to say that we form our opinions on the basis of context.  We want the world to believe that India is neither personality centric nor is a society of irrational old loyalties.  And when we try to paint the picture of change, we present proudly the agents of change like the media.

But a careful observation defies this bold projection of ourselves as an impartial, impersonal and ingenuous society that implicitly falls in line with the imperative change.

This phenomenon is more evident in the way the old guard of Press and some stalwarts of the media have behaved in the post May 16 Parliamentary Elections and Oct 19, Maharastra & Haryana Assembly  electoral results.  The whole world has noticed and accepted that the royalty of India, exemplified by the heir to the throne and his mother regent have been thrown into the dust bin of history and their palatial political party has been disregarded as irrelevant by the people of India.  But yet, there are senior journalists in the country, mainly based in Delhi and few in Mumbai, who have not shaken off their palace loyalties.  They refuse to recognize the change.  They fall deaf to the voice of people.  They continue to eulogize and empathize with the Congress Party which brought the Nation to its lowest low, its sublime masters and the glory of that old era. During result day debate, they were looking totally shattered, not ready to believe that People of India have voted for the change. These journalists use all powers in their disposal, the television channels they own, the newspapers they print and the platforms they coordinate to keep alive the glory or Congress that only exists now in their distant memory.

By all means, this is betrayal of the public desire for change.  This mindset of old faithfulness is an insult to the voices of democracy and in defiance to the popular will.  At a time when the vehicle of nation is trying to roll smooth on the boulevard of time, these irrational old loyalties are an irritant spoke in the wheel of progress.

V K SAXENA
PRESIDENT
National Council for Civil Liberties,
 Ahmedabad.

Twiter:@VKSaxena26