A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Post-ballotting,
it is time to take stock

S P Singh

Now that the balloting is over, sanity will hopefully return to Punjab which has spent several weeks listening to inanities posing as issues, falsehoods posing as claims, sheer abuse being termed political allegations and unachievable tagged as a promise. 

As the sun set on February 13, psephologists again crawled out of the woodwork to either

give a slight edge to one party or to proclaim the contest as a dead heat. 

Punjab's assembly elections seemed to be free for all. Pollsters behaved like family astrologers who tweak astronomical clouds to suit your marriage plans for a small fee. The media behaved like pamphleteering rags, and news columns read like party propaganda.

('Sukhbir Singh Badal prefers poached eggs to scrambled ones' school of campaign trail reporting has achieved wide acceptability.) 

Politicians of course behaved like creatures Oscar Wilde called unspeakable. 

But truly and honestly, where does that leave Punjab? And for that matter the country? At a time when India is pinning its hopes on its young generation, what example and what route to success have we set for the young? In a state where the very definition of development and the target beneficiary class question is hanging in the air, we have just seen an entire electioneering talking all the time about development without even once addressing the issue. 

At a time when the Sikh diaspora around the world is pulling out all stops to pull back its youth from the ways of moral deprivation, organizing community festivals, studying its traditions, arranging Dastar Diwas, sensitizing Americans and Europeans about the Sikh identity and symbols of Sikhism, we have seen the two main political parties contesting for the next turn at ruling Punjab by incessantly vowing to take care of the youth without engaging with the problems even once. 

Akali Dal felt threatened by the support of a dera to Congress and asked BJP-RSS leadership to try and woo back the baba who is facing murder charges in a CBI case. The media did not think it was a fit time to inform the reader about the case of the murder of a journalist in which the Baba is embroiled.  

Both, the Akali Dal and the Congress, fell back upon the power of liquor and drugs in enticing voters, leaving the candidates of third front to proclaim that polls should be free of such a menace. 

But are we to be left only to grumble and crib? When the leaders of a community trip, it is for the community to once again get together, band together, hang together and pull itself out of the morass. This is the time for the diaspora to make a meaningful intervention. 

Innumerable forums of the Punjabi diaspora must now engage in and trigger a debate that sets the tone for the next action. Gurdwara stages must reflect bipartisanship and encourage debate on issues which are impacting our future. Intellectuals must collectively question the media and the pollsters. 

One can understand when the rich and the arrived can afford to neglect the mundane, but how can a state where unemployment, poverty, basic amenities like toilets, drinking water, power connections, sewerage, even casteism are all burning issues afford to have elections fought in such a metaphor in which Punjab polls have been fought this time? 

Politics is too serious a business to be left to only the politicians. It is time people logged into the system, or the virus will lead to a crash down of our very future. 

February 14, 2007

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