The fate of our national symbols…who is to be blamed?
I had written the plight of tigers a few days back in this forum, after noticing the drastic decline in their numbers in the recently concluded census. And now when I start to write about other issues. completely different, I found that they are interrelated in many aspects..
Its all about the fate of our another national symbol called Hockey ..the sport which propelled India into the international arena in the early years of free India..the sport which brought a unique identity to a nascent nation, the sport in which we were invincible..is now in an abyss of infinite depth and it seems that it will be years or even decades to bounce back to a respectable stature..and our national occupation seems to have stagnated with the number of farmer suicides touching an all time high..but the government seems to be interested in only temporary solutions
As in any other problem or a conflict, an entity has to take the blame, responsibility and make sure that corrective measures are put in place..But in this case, which is the one?..Is it the government for its lack of apathy?..Is it the media for channelizing public attention onto another sport? Or are the inefficient, corrupt and erring officials of the federation/department to take the blame?..
NO…NOT AT ALL..I feel it’s the public.. we are to be blamed for the abovesaid unfortunate state..
Its perfectly reasonable to blame the media for excessive focus in some issues..for devoting almost a quarter of their time in covering the incidents around a cricket match..(infact more than the real stories of how people performed in individual innings)..another quarter for covering the private lives of film stars..one for the advertisements..most of which are for their own programmes and the rest for other issues ..
We need to introspect why the media is acting this way..After all it’s a business venture and they would like to make the most by showing programmes/incidents which are of utmost interest to the people…and WE as true Indians are more interested in gossip than the real issues of concern..Had the media turned its attention towards the declining numbers of tigers or the disastrous state of Indian hockey or agriculture some time back there might have been reactions…but then the most likely scenario would have been that readers/viewers would have turned away from the publication/channel to something else that interests them more..and the publication/channel would have its ratings go down..So indirectly we have to take the blame for the inappropriate deeds by the media.
Our governments should be really credited for the ferocity with which they improve foreign investment and develop infrastructure. But again where?..A major chunk goes towards cities and helping other industries , whereas our primary occupation has been left reeling for the past two decades with a growth of less than 4 %. Its quite shameful to read reports of India importing food. Apart from the temporary solution of loan waiver, governments have not invested in any major irrigation scheme for many years..Thoughts of interlinking rivers have been put aside due to the enormous requirement of funds..But why can’t the centre start the same with minor works here and there..like linking rivers within a state..or encouraging states to link rivers within their states..Parties which fight for and against deals with foreign governments are surprisingly silent on this issue..And again the obvious reason for this is lack of pressure from us and we are to be blamed ..
Now considering these facts is there any valid reason for us to have the above as our national symbols, when we are completely disinterested in them? It’s a matter of time before we are completely devoid of them and consider officially IT as our national occupation, cricket as our national game and filmstars as our national symbols..No offense to them..but we should realize that we are running out of time unless we put our thoughts together and act in an appropriate way to save dying things.
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)