A few weeks ago the media were running out of print space and airtime covering the Rahul Mahajan story. Rahul's sole claim to fame is that he is the son of a slain ex-minister; his own activities made no difference to most of us then or now. Yet in the midst of innumerable health and other bulletins about this 'celebrity', one of the channels had a constitutional expert voicing his opinion on the episode. <br /> <br /> The expert said that the other three 'suspects' in the case had done the right thing by going to a TV channel to make their statements rather than going to the police. The reasoning was that once these statements had been made publicly, the police would not be able to manipulate them the way they are known to do. This comment is a reflection on the loss of confidence in the instruments of the State - its inability to protect the innocent and its ability to protect the guilty. <br /> <br /> The Mahajan episodes bring out two things - the declining image of the State as represented by its various arms and the rising power of the media. The two are not connected and have occurred independently. If the rich and the powerful can go to the media and make their confessional statements or whatever we may call them, where does the common man go? Those who have the right connections are recognised as instant story-material, but where do those who are not deemed worth a headline go? <br /> <br /> This is precisely something a media-savvy crook could try to do - go public with his proclaimed innocence and let the rest be conveniently branded as manipulation by the police. How long will it be before the media begin to play God too? The more fundamental issue is that when a crime has been committed or people need protection, we have no confidence to go to the police and instead seek connections and influences before going to any authority to sort out our problems. <br /> <br /> Over time, those of us who can afford it and are tired of not being able to get what we feel is legitimately ours have resorted to self-help. If the State does not promise regular supply of electricity, we buy inverters and generators. The State does not give us water, so we dig our own illegal tube-wells. The State is unable to provide security or redress, so we outsource. <br /> <br /> Increasingly, the State is being seen as an uncaring entity that has begun to wither away in a very negative sort of way. The most decrepit building in a district is usually the primary school and the primary health centre where teachers do not teach, and doctors and nurses do not come. Substandard drugs, obtained at 'rate contracts', are the magic potions. <br /> <br /> Water, electricity, security, education and health are a citizen's everyday requirements, and this is where the State has failed. It is no use shedding tears and providing quotas at higher levels when 90 per cent of the children from this section of society drop out of school before they reach Class 12. This is happening in a country that prides itself as the future knowledge base of the world and is increasingly the flavour of the West. Images and perceptions are important, but need to be sustained. <br /> <br /> The average Indian associates law and order with the traffic cop, the man he runs into every day. But there is the long arm of the law in Dundahera, ruminating under a peepal tree as he eyes that young one in fluorescent pink drifting by, quite oblivious to the traffic mayhem around him. Try paying the government the money you owe it and you will be sent on a runaround. We have Chief Ministers who hurtle down national highways in 16-car motorcades - in a country that imports 70 per cent of its petroleum requirements, and at exorbitant prices. But who pays for this majestic munificence? Presumably it is R.K. Laxman's Babuji, who basks in political sunshine just short of elections. All this and much more, is the embodiment of an uncaring State. <br /> <br /> Leaders no longer lead and followers do not know what or who to follow. These are early symptoms of a general malaise of the weakening instrumentalities of State, and will one day become an epidemic. <br /> <br /> The rise of the Indian media and Bollywood in recent years, informing and entertaining the public while providing the glue for unity, has been exhilarating. They are the new image-makers and iconoclasts, creators of perceptions and kings of entertainment. Live TV reportage is a comparatively new phenomenon. It has the exuberance of youth and the susceptibility to peer pressure unlike the more mature and usually staid print media. Sometimes trivial pursuits in search of better ratings actually lead to viewer ennui. In this age of instant news conveyed by sound bites and images, it is the images that linger. The spoken or written word is sometimes forgotten. <br /> <br /> With this immense power comes a corresponding responsibility, for everyone cannot be as lucky as our Leftist comrades who are currently in power without having to shoulder any responsibility. Autocracies give some people the freedom to do what they please. Not so in a democracy, where the power and liberty to inform are automatically curtailed by the other man's freedom, rights and beliefs. The wise also understand that there is sometimes very little difference between supporting a cause and inflaming passions. <br /> <br /> Our TV reportage of the Kargil war was excellent. But as the IC-814 hijack drama unfolded on our TV screens, we saw grieving relatives and friends with their sit-ins and dharnas. This excessive exposure ultimately forced the government to accept a weak bargain while the terrorists got free publicity. Similarly, it will always be debatable whether live and extensive TV coverage of the ghastly Gujarat riots was an exposé that helped control the massacre or was a provocation. Of course, not reporting is not the answer. In situations like this, the perennial dilemma will always be - what to report, when and how. <br /> <br /> Bollywood is the other powerful medium that influences as it entertains. In a recent blockbuster, the main character is shown as noble and endearing and so much the boy-next-door that by the intermission, the audience is in love with him. Post-intermission, he turns out to be a vicious terrorist and resorts to killing dozens of Indian soldiers, proclaiming that his mission is to ensure that Indians and Pakistanis vacate Kashmir. The audience does not wince; it has already got the Stockholm Syndrome. Terrorism has been made respectable, even glorious. <br /> <br /> The answer is not to Talibanise the country by having a thought police - we have enough varieties of the khaki kind - nor is it to privatise instruments of the State. The media have the power to inform but not the power to implement. This lies, and will always lie, with the State. But the instruments need to be revamped, taken away from the whims of the politician and given a security of tenure at the district level. Then the young man or woman should be fully equipped to deliver, with a performance audit. <br /> <br /> Only then will responsive authority percolate downwards, without being oppressive or venal. We must give the civil service its soul, straighten its back and put steel into its frame if India has to keep its tryst with destiny. <br /> <br /> <br /> </font> <font size="2" class="greytext1"> <em>The author is Advisor to Chairman, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. <br /> <br /> Source: The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, July 5, 2006 <br /> </em> <br /> <br /> <br /> <em>* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.</em> <br />
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