Last month, I watched a documentary on Vidarbha farmers suicide. It was certainly not for the faint hearted. It did not contain any "Raktha Sarithra"-esque bloody and gory violence but it gives repeated slaps on both sides of our faces.
Farmers committing suicide is not an unusual thing in India. It happens in every state but predominantly in Maharashtra, UP and Andhra Pradesh. This happens due to a variety of reasons. Corporates and Governments are the most illustrious names among that variety. Now I'm not planning to dwell into those farmer issues like Rahul Gandhi is doing recently. My concern is how the majority of us view those issues.
During the BT-Brinjal issue, SWAT (an NGO that I'm part of) had organised an awareness programme on the ill-effects of BT-Brinjal. After the programme, we have to split into groups and campaign against BT. The additional nuisance was to paint your face with a brinjal. Sensing my reluctance to do it, Vivek Muralidharan pulled me and made me do it that day. My experience while campaigning in Anna Tower resulted in some conclusions.
1. No one below the age group of 30 know anything about BT Brinjal or GM foods.
2. I'm part of that same set of people.
All the newspapers ran stories about these GM foods but the participation television media was quite poor until Jairam Ramesh burst into the scene. So now we come to the important part, most of the people under 30 would have known the GM issues if our TV channels had given some sort of importance to it. This could only mean that we're idiots because we relied on some money-hungrey Rajdeep's, Barkha's and Arnab's for Knowledge Transfer. We all agree that our media is irresponsible especially the crap 4 (NDTV,IBN,HT,Times) but our reliance on those people for Justice and other things is very scary. Its not that Rajdeep or Pranoy doesn't know the issues of farmers, Jharia Coal mines' Child labours or the other issues. They know it better than any one. But restraint in reporting it is irritating. They're maintaining their habbit of reporting such news only when Rahul Gandhi comes out to support the farmers or YSR's son fasts for the farmers.
A short description on the title of the article
Nero, a roman emperor invited many to a party in his garden. To entertain his guests, he burnt all the prisoners in his garden. That burning created a illumination in the night and his guests thoroughly enjoyed it. They thought it was a spectacle.
We're the guests of Nero. You,me, Rahul, Pranoy, Barkha, Arnab. We're silently enjoying the spectacle Rahul Gandhi is creating in UP, the coverage our media gave to him, his publicity stunt in getting arrested. We're enjoying everything. Its not just Rahul alone, it includes everyone.
Do we really want to act like Nero's Guests?
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