We have reached a new paradigm shift!
Media has become the activist participant in the battle!
All sacred cows have been taken out and laid in the open! Every citizen is now drawn into the battle and so it seems this time we might succeed.
Very likely this time we might succeed!
The way the latest corruption scandals have exploded on the Indian political landscape, it seems that we have now reached a new threshold in the political discourse.
Gone is the old goody-goody talk of fighting corruption. A new paradigm shift has come about.
Media has become the activist participant and media by trial is what we are witnessing.
The name and shame game or approach Arvind Kejriwal and his team has taken to seems justified in a very serious way.
What is the other alternative?
We have seen for the last 65 years how corruption had evolved.
In 1948 with the “jeeps scandal” we started. Now corruption is running very deep into our practice of politics, democracy is very cleverly used to perpetuate the evil-doers. We do this shamelessly, with very hypocritical manner. We know the practitioners of this high voltage corruption and also the pretensions of the leaders.
Of course, Kejriwal, in his latest attack on Nitin Gadkari had become rather a bit cynical and calculative or call it by any other name. As Y.P.Singh, the police officer had revealed Kejriwal knows the full story of Gadkari, Ajit Pawar and also Sharad Pawar in the Lavasa scandal. Yet, Kejriwal chose to concentrate only on Ajit Pawar. Why?
Asked the police officer.
The explanation can be varied.
One thing is clear. As revealed in an op-Ed page article (The Hindu dated Oct.19 2012) columnist, a former senior editor of the Outlook magazine notes how so far all the exposes in the media didn’t produce any results.
When the Outlook exposed Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law ,the magazine was raided and even the owner of the magazine, a big real estate baron, advised the magazine to pull out the cover story before it was to go to press!
Only this time we are seeing such self-confessions by the media hands.
When the Radia Tapes surfaced we saw how the role of the media hands were involved in high corruption, the media hands were playing active roles in facilitating Tatas or others in getting the telecom licences.
Even then, the media hands didn’t express any remorse.
Rather they went ahead and conducted themselves it was no shame to be exposed themselves in these high corruption roles.
In fact, high corruption deals brings you often unexpected rewards, much glory and social status even you can rub shoulders with the high and mighty and it is exhilarating when you find yourselves in the close proximity of power and publicity.
Thus, we have now come to a situation where more glory, more wealth, more good life and more recognition, Padma awards to what not. You get all these things in quick succession once you get drawn into the high corruption circles. So, we have now seen every son and son-in-law, every daughter and daughter-in-law is in the news.
Thus every political party head, irrespective of the name of the party is in the high corruption deals. And yet, so ironically, no one from these families had been caught red-handed and sent to jail or served jail sentences!
Except of course by some inadvertent slips, only lately one or two high profile names went to jail and that too not on conviction, this stage hardly comes through the lengthy court procedures.
So, what is left now?
The Indian hypocritical mind is best suited the present cosy relationship. The high profile leaders are all glorified by various descriptions with suffixes and what not. If you go to the grass roots, the party propagandist’s uses still more flowery language and words. So, it is not just mango people in banana republic. The leaders whose kith and kin lap it up with so much unaccounted wealth, the special helicopter rides to special private planes to corporate planes, ask for it, they are at your disposal.
So, you can fly out and indulge to your statisfaction, no questions asked and no accounts can be forthcoming. So, the political class is now the guilty class and much criminality and much crime is attributed to this new exposes. So, this time, corruption in the Indian polity can be fought for what it is now available so much indictment in the public domain.
With so much mud in the faces, let us see how the very same faces come out on tours and faces the public and the voting public. One thing everyone can be clear. The mood in the country is now far from comfortable with the very corrupt gangs of the top leadership. The leaders themselves, never belief in any democratic values, they converted the parties into family fiefdoms.
So, they may have to pay a heavy price this time. Who knows with Kejriwal and other civil society groups we might oust some of the entrenched corrupt gangs out of power. Once they are removed, the public might forget about them forever. India is not a family fiefdom. India is a vibrant democracy and a very powerful democratic Constitution.
So, the public, the poor and the not so poor, the middle classes for one can create a new society and a policy that would be a serious threat to the weak-minded corrupt and the unethical manipulators who had stayed for far too long in the public eye.
Image Source : articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com