Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Yarwada Experience – Hanging of Transparency !!



 The experience in the light of the recent events has been noticed with close attention by one and all. It was a mega event for the Indian Media and full-day was devoted to the event making it necessary for analysis and reactions.
The majority versus Minority Issue.
The step of hanging a culprit of a atrocious crime as proved in the apex Court of India was reason enough to punish with the most serious step however some sections of the society highlighted this as a major punishment for the person belonging to the minority community. It may look to be a step to demean our national spirit but rest assured that this was an event which never entered a point of mention in the social interactions on the day. It was the media who went crazy over the event so as to repeat it as “’’Breaking- news till the next dawn. It is ironic why the media goes to highlight such events which are very-matter-of-fact and have no major impact on , save a few thousand in the millions of Indians who are concerned more about their daily bread and butter efforts.
The Capital –punishment cannot be justified in a Civilized Society.
I am of the opinion that imprisonment –upto-death is much more punishable for a person than making “it a hang-till-death punishment. The right to life needs to be defended and the Judiciary should ask for proper amendments of the Law to abolish Capital-punishment. We can still manage to have a Central Jail like kala-pani in pre-independence era where the major offenders can be kept in an open jail on an isolated island which can be a final punishment for life-upto-death for the punished ones. We have to think afresh in abolishing the death-penalty in a civilized society. India has been supporting the trend of not abolishing the death penalty out of some fear of international backlash in the diplomatic circles. This is unfounded and the death can never end the kinds of crimes that are being perpetrated by the organized educated and trained criminals.
The Politics of Hanging is worse than the Hanging itself!
The ruling party members came out on TV with smiling faces of breaking the news which was already broken by the e-media. No details came out of these press briefings and all the political parties lost no chances of showing the valor and courage in criticizing their opposition parties. The balance was lost when the Kandahar event , Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, Smt Indiraji’ s  murder , fake encounters, etc  were reminded to the public in gory details and the Naxalites were also shown as terrorists in the media. The political parties do not respect the sentiments of the general public when they target a religious group in vocalizing their non-sense. The leaders have been making a joke of all these situations time and again.
Transparency in lost in the din !
The right to know and the RTI Act 2005 given to us by the UPA II Government were totally ignored in this event. The necessary details are not called for in such situations but when we were able to see live telecast of the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks, why were we denied the photographs / videos of the dead person?
The Media highlighted old tapes and showed the old photograph of the culprit which made the death of a culprit , a National Fiesta when the Government was hiding the details. We fail to understand the logic of preventing the citizens to verify that the death was there and the Government had done a good job. This is how we spoil the kill.
The rumor- mongers, the anti-national forces find these stories to generate more numbers of rumors but thanks to the desi News Channels, we had enough and sufficient details of the Yarwada (Pune ) Event and we can safely say that the Media is still , to some sensible limit, protecting the rights of the Indian- Citizens.
I am hopeful that more than 120 crore people will still raise questions on the stupidities of its democratically-elected Governments and vocalize the social- concerns in the future also. This is their fundamental right as enshrined in the Constitution. And believe that their Governments  follows --
“Let us not hang Transparency !”.