ROLES OF POLITICS, MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA
-By JAYANT
The quest for human rights has always found its expression in the politics, media. Now social media has become quite instrumental for people to voice their concerns and to question the establishment. But at the same time there have been instances in the past and the recent times when politics, media and even social media have posed serious challenges to the human rights.
BACKGROUND
The Magna Carta was declared in 1215, thereby promoting the rule of law and defining rights and liberties of citizens.
French revolution marks the real awakening of this consciousness of human rights in politics when people began to question the atrocities of the monarch. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1791) was codified. This movement went on to serve as an inspiration for similar movements round the globe.
Indian freedom struggle saw people from all sections of society put aside their ideological differences and they came forward to free India.
Mahatma Gandhiji, Netaji SC Bose and Bhagat Singh were the main flagbearers of the three ideological fronts on which movement was being fought. Their ideologies might have been different but they shared the same vision i.e. emancipation of the suffering masses.
On 26th Jan 1950, Constitution came into effect. It serves as the guardian of our democracy and protector of our human rights which we have gained only after our freedom fighters sacrificed their everything even their lives.
But even after so many years after the enforcement, the ideals envisioned by architects of our constitution have not been realised. As Dr. Ambedkar rightly remarked, “ However good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot."
EMERGENCY: A CASE STUDY
The most controversial instance of violation of human rights in India remains the national emergency(1975) imposed by the then PM smt. Indira Gandhi. She had become intolerant and imposed emergency citing " Internal disturbance" as the reason which was not true. The real reason was that she got unseated from her lok sabha seat. The constitutional values and human rights were heavily compromised. People went through extreme hardships. Forced mass-sterilization campaign was reported to have been headed by Sanjay Gandhi, the PM's son. Most of PM's political opponents were jailed without any offence. Jaiprakash Narayan was the leader of the movement. Thousands of students carried out the protests in the every nook and corner of the country in a non-violent manner. Many of these young students went on to become influential leaders in the national and state politics few decades down the line. Censorship was imposed on media ; Newspapers were asked to take permission before publishing anything.
We, the people of India, have to take lesson from the emergency, that dissent and debate are two integral pillars of democracy and we should never support any political leader blindly. Raising a politician to the cult status is quite dangerous for human rights. A leader who cannot take criticism in the right spirit and has a dictatorial nature has no right to hold a position as responsible as that of the PM or any post for that matter. Leaders should promote the culture of questioning, debate and dissent and if they don't, people should be prepared to oppose them in every possible way.
Around 40% of human rights violation cases lodged annually by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the past three financial years till this 31st October (2021) were from Uttar Pradesh.
The total number of rights’ violation cases in India lodged by the NHRC reduced from 89,584 in 2018-19 to 76,628 in 2019-20 and to 74,968 in 2020-21.
In 2021-22, till 31st October (2021), 64,170 cases were lodged.
According to a report released last year, crimes against Dalits increased by 6% from 2009 to 2018 with over 3.91 lakh atrocities being reported.
MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA AND INTOLERANCE...
Social media has frequently been used to propagate fake news and rumour mongering in the recent times. Riots are incited by some politicians for political gains. Innocent people loose life in these riots. Since fake news and fake videos are used to spark communal violence, one should avoid any spread of misinformation by all means.
Media is supposed to be the voice of citizens. There was never a golden age of press freedom in India. Political leaders all over the world have tried to challenge the press freedom to suppress the voices of dissent. In India, press freedom was heavily compromised during emergency. The present situation in India is quite an alarming one. Due to corporate ownership, these media houses have no option but to be biased. The concerns of common man hardly finds any mention in these news channel. Those anchors and news channels who dare to speak up have lost their jobs and they are tortured in every possible way.
Offices of the Dainik Bhaskar group, a Hindi-language news daily, were raided by tax authorities. Dainik Bhaskar had reported on the mass dumping of bodies of Covid-19 victims along the river Ganges due to high cremation costs. Between 10 and 16 September, the offices of media outlets NewsClick and Newslaundry went through similar fate. Recently, NDTV was taken over by Adani group. With mainstream media abandoning people and their issues, citizens have found a new hope in social media platforms like twitter, YouTube, Facebook etc. Parties will come to power and will loose it but the tradition of debate and dissent should not stop. Today opposition parties are all for press freedom but if they come to power in the future, they will do the same thing. Because the media, corporate and politics have become so aligned to fulfil their selfish needs that no party will ever try to break this system. Who will break it then? We, the people. We have to worry for ourselves. People should stop supporting those media channels which spew hatred and divide country on caste and religious lines. Only those journalists who stand up for our concerns and issues deserve our support. People should stop being emotional fools. Politicians are very aware of this weakness and therefore they end up polarising every election with ease. This is true for all parties. If we want to safeguard our human rights, we should stop getting influenced by false narrative of polarisation that is built in every election. United we stand,divided we fall.We need to build an India where people from all castes and religions live in peace. We need inclusive politics. When there is no harmony in the country, it will not prosper.
CONCLUSION
In case of any adversity, the same spirit which inspired the movements round the globe in the past will manifest itself again.
So long as there is injustice, the quest for human rights shall not stop.
It is really unfortunate that people from SC, ST communities still continue to face discrimination and abuse even so many years after freedom. A 17-year-old Dalit boy was shot dead by dominant-caste men in the city of Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. The victim had previously lodged a complaint with local police after the men objected to him entering a temple, but the police had not taken any action. Another such incident was reported from Rajsthan where , a nine-year-old Dalit boy from Rajasthan’s Jalore district died on after he was allegedly beaten by his teacher for drinking from an earthen pot. He was taken to hospital where he succumbed to injuries.
Similar incidents continue to occur across the country. This should stop immediately.