By: Dr. Mohammad Aleem, Editor-ICN Group
NEW DELHI: Social media is playing nowadays a very crucial role in disseminating the essential information. We get the latest news even much before the dedicated channels start airing and broadcasting it. Our faith in this parallel media has strengthened over the time with this belief that it has provided an easy and uninterrupted access to the news in respect of the other print and TV platforms. Most of the time, we find that other platforms are heavily regulated and manipulated. But the social media platforms are mostly independent and free from any such vices. Because of this freedom, we comment and put our views openly on every important matter.
Of late, I received an audio clip on my Whatsapp. It was sent by one of my Whatsapp friends. Usually, I do ignore such audio and video clips knowing that in most of the cases it proves a rubbish one. But I played this clipping and when I heard it, I felt greatly surprised and disturbed.
It was a voice of a powerful politician. It was not known who he was and what power he commanded in the ruling circle. But, it showed that he was powerful and had his considerable clout in the power structure of a particular state.
He was scolding to a senior officer under his jurisdiction. I don’t know which department he belonged to. He was using all such slangs and rebukes freely and without any inhibition, which people usually use in India, while expressing his anger towards his arch-enemies and foes.
The matter was that he wanted to get a government contract awarded to one of his men. But the officer had dared to allot it to any other person whom he deemed fit for the job according to his own perception and wisdom. This was the reason for the anger and rebuke of the politician.
The officer had recorded the whole conversation on his smart phone and put it on the social media websites and now it was making the rounds.
It made me baffled to think that how our politicians have become so wild, irresponsible and ill-behaved these days. It was the days when they used to be admired as revered one as a great intellectual minds. They had led the best agitations and revolutions in the country with the best public interests in mind in their own times. Most of them were authors of some books which are still a greater treasure trove of wisdom. But, now the same flock is offering themselves as a rugged and most despicable one. Really! To what level we have reached?
The question comes that why it happened and how could it be stopped. Are we not equally responsible in making our democracy, weak, exploited and vulnerable at the hands of these irresponsible and reckless politicians? Should we not before casting our precious votes think carefully about the credential of the politicians?
In most of the cases, we see, these politicians take the people granted. They think that they can be easily fooled. They can be bought with some petty money.
I don’t say that all are the same. But, most of them are surely below expectations. Even, on the world level, this deterioration is on rise; take an example of Donald Trump. We can say that it is the age of Trump where civility and regard to others are negligible.
If we want to make our democracy strong and much more matured, we will have to act quite prudently. If we did not do so, we would not do well with our beloved country. Our precious wealth and resources would go waste. We can’t succeed as a great nation of the world.
