Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Sorry State of Bihar


March 1990: Lalu Yadav took the command of the state. His party ruled the state for fifteen year(10 year himself and 5 year his wife as a CM). During this tenure he did nothing for social development(needless to say). Instead, he promoted casteism, protected goons and indulged in corruption. Unemployment was huge,roads were full of potholes. 
November 2005: Nitish Kumar took the charge. People voted for him in desperation. It was anti-incumbency that gave him chair. First thing he did was deployment of "shikha mitra(friend of education)".His objective: improve the quantity of those getting education. He improved condition of roads(especially in PATNA),ornamented PATNA. Well, his development also percolated down the villages. Condition of electricity has improved. colleges are running their sessions almost on time. Development rate in current fiscal has reached 14%. 
Everything looked good. And then came Markandey Katju. In an open college visit he said "no press freedom in Nitish's Bihar". He also appointed three member committee to investigate the matte.
I am vindicated! Last summer when I was there, I saw newspapers(local) for almost ten days and I reached at the same conclusion. Even the bestseller dainik jagran seemed biased. I especially noted its inclination towards BJP-JD(U). 
so, finally here is the true picture: Nitish too involved itself in fooling biharis. What can be more worse than censuring the press?  Lalu promoted caste politics to be in power and Nitish is killing the very foundation on which democracy is standing for the same cause. 
Let me explain why i am saying he is killing the democracy. Media is involved in creating opinion.Journalists are opinion leaders of the day.So, their inclination towards any party or partiality will kill voices of opposition. with time it will create one party system and then an authoritative government. 
And thus people will again lose as happened in the past.  
People has a lot of expectations from Nitish. After his latest victory in election he told media that he asked people to elect him on the name of development and if people won't support him nobody will dare asking for vote in the name of development in comming time. People responded by giving him almost 85% seats in Bihar assembly. 
Now its his turn. And I request him not to fool Biharis again because people might not dare to cast for his party again. 

1 comment:

  1. It's fault of media also. Most of the newspapers do biased reporting. As media is being used as political weapon,it's natural for small regional parties to be afraid of them. Many media groups are owned by political families. you gave example of Dainik Jagran, if i am right, it's owner or chief editor has been a Rajya Sabha member from BJP.
    It's moral weakness of media houses who are more interested in dealing with corporate giants and feel more comfortable in doing paid news. They only do superficial stories(most of regional dailies and some national dailies also). Media should provide a deep and balanced approach on issues,leaving it on reader to judge the merit of arguments. By and large,this tendency is missing.

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