The rising intolerance - debate

The raging controversy whether India has indeed become more intolerant refuses to die down. It is now difficult to decide whether the debate is arising out of growing intolerance or vice versa.

In a recent interview Union Minister Shri Rajnath Singh voiced concern over the growing influence of social media on the youth of the country. Many of them do not understand the vested interests of various groups involved and believe in whatever goes by on social media blindly. A vast majority of population still believes that whatever is printed in media or circulated on digital media is absolutely true.

Given the above scenario, the more we debate the issue on public forums, the more polarized these gullible section of the society becomes. And no wonder that the so called 'paid media presstitutes' are having a field day.

Maharashtra CM Shri Devendra Fadnavis in a public broadcast rightly appealed to everyone to simply ignore and not pay attention to the unnecessary coverage in print as well as audio visual media. Doing so will automatically push these items off prime time coverage since media ultimately works on TRP.

Moreover it is also the moral responsibility of influential people in all spheres, to uphold the spirit of unity in diversity in their public discourses. They must refrain from making statements that would serve to divide the population along communal lines. Not only does this hurt people, it also tarnishes the image of the country.

Unfortunately, in our country, instead of doing that, some celebrities continue to stoke further controversies by not only making insensitive statements, but having the audacity to further go and say that people have vindicated their earlier statement by mass responding negatively in the way they have. They fail to understand that celebrities have huge fan followings and the same fans also appreciated them when they did good work. Mass followings imply mass responses, positive or negative.

To add to this, selective and biased coverage by the media further adds fuel to the fire. One gets the impression that a large section of the media is continuously working to undo all good done by the government in power at the center. There seems to be a concerted effort to drown all the pro development work in the din of noise made to overly publicize issues like intolerance, communal harmony, eating preferences, etc.

The 'Intolerance Debate' isn't about to die down any time soon.

The need of the hour is to rise above short term personal gains and work in cohesion towards long term national interest.

The only way to rise above the debate is to always put INDIA FIRST and be INDIAN FIRST.

Setu Gandhi

Source : articlesbase.com