Another unfortunate craving of the Media and the Press

26 OCT 2015

   There is another acute craving on the part of the Media and the Press and that is: Criticize India and Indians: I get a feeling that the Media and the Press feel a kind of depression if they don’t indulge in India bashing periodically. And the way they go about doing it seems to be with a missionary zeal of downgrading our own (and also their own) country.

I believe there is a large business gap in the media industry and that is letting people in the country and the world at large know what is good about India, great about India, what good is happening in India and how in the remotest corners of this country some simple unknown unsung people are doing great things. Has any in the Media taken the trouble of discovering such people and acts and bringing them to the notice of the people of this country? Has any press or media person brought to light such unsung heroes? Listening to India bashing by Indian Media and giving time to people who bash India (like the oppose for opposition sake politicians), I think they beat BBC hollow in India bashing. BBC as everyone knows by now has a syndrome of feeling sick if they don’t report something bad about India periodically.

Look at the way the media people quote statistics to prove their point: Sometimes they quote the numbers and sometimes percentages , whatever suits them to do their India bashing better. For example, let us take suicides including farmer suicides, rape, theft, looting, malnutrition, diseases, accidents etc. Why don’t they divide by the population of the country concerned and then report the percentage? Why do they make it look, by reporting numbers only or dramatizing “ every minute so many numbers of road accidents happen in India “ kind of statistics? Why don’t they relate it to the appropriate base involved and report bare numbers? Of course in a large country, the numbers of these incidents will be high. Why don’t they report expenditure spent on a foreign trip in dollars rather than rupees? Why don’t they report corruption amount in dollars rather than rupees, compare it with the rest of the countries also in dollars and report? Why do they report and compare the per-capita income in dollars when they do inter-country comparison? When does the Indian Press and the media take the trouble and time to go find out the reality that is India than to report on a few incidents that take place in the urban centres? If they do it, they will start highlighting what is good and great about this country rather than doing what they are doing now, how India and Indians are all but good.

There was an article written in the US by an unbiased and true journalist, comparing how nicely and effectively Indians reacted in 9/11 massacre in Mumbai, flash floods also in Mumbai and about how TN Govt. handled tsunami with how badly the US and Americans handled Katrina. We need comparisons such as this one by the Indian Press and the Media. The Indian Press and the Media have a record of denigrating India and Indians and not appreciating even when some outstanding work is done in India. When are they going to change to reporting even reasonably positive about Indians and India?

One affected indian Bakra/bakri in the service of the people of India.