Ignoring Real News

A few days ago, the Indian media was ravenously feasting on a controversial statement made by a ruling party minister. This time, it was the ageing but furious issue of Hindi vs multilingualism in India. Already, the national and sub-national dailies have eloquently adduced the vitality of linguistic plurality by dedicating their editorial and op-ed pages for weeks to this matter. Notably, the Indian mainstream media and the intellectual civic society have once again proven that it is astonishingly easy to divert their focal point of discussion and the spotlight from real issues to frivolous controversies, like shooting fish in a barrel. While the Indian economy was wriggling through a caliginous atmosphere, unemployment was soaring to new heights, and the manufacturing sector was in a dilapidated state, responsible media was devoting its prime hours and opinion sheets to cover politically inflammable contentions rather than discussing real issues.

Interestingly, this is not the first time these media mavericks have fallen prey for the shenanigans of the ruling party members. Satyapal Singh (former police commissioner of Mumbai) had refuted Darwin’s evolution theory in 2018. This absurd statement was made by this former Indian Police Service officer, days before Narendra Modi participated in the World Economic Forum. Palpably, the media, which was preparing to report on the plummet of Indian economic growth and the pernicious situation ahead for the country, voraciously jumped at Singh’s statement. Similarly, when the government had shown the audacity to erect a ₹3,000 crore statue, while the Indian economy was facing a dire situation and the main arrow in the quiver of the opposition was unemployment and the stagnation of economic growth, against which the government lacked any proper shields, the bomb blast in Pulwama occurred, which turned the media’s attention away. Calling people termites and making dramatic statements regarding cows are literally keeping the focus of the people away from the big picture. Whilst the well-informed, witty intellectuals of this country are making puns and memes and laughing at these futilities, the real question is: Who is actually having the last laugh?