A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Socialist country, capitalist policy, feudal state

S P Singh

In a country called India, which is legally a socialist republic but is being run along publicly announced capitalist policies called currently 'globalization' and 'liberalization', there is the state of Punjab where the best of the debates are stuck in a semi-feudal morass: whether the government should take over the farmers' land or not and whether the farmers should get higher MSP or not. Should the government waive off the long due loans of the farmers since agriculture is increasingly becoming a losing vocation?

Even the Left has left debating the relations between the landless and the landlord, the conditions of the tenants and fate of the landless.

Claims of developments are often punctuated with talks about shopping malls, beautification of city suburbs or creation of new districts. "I turned this place into a district because my ancestors had established the town in the first place," the state CEO announced recently without eliciting a single murmur from the journalists crowding around him.

In such a matrix, politics has been increasingly reduced to theatre. Vaudeville Punch and Judy shows are currently on in Punjab and those tasked by civil society to be the guardians of reasoned debate -- the media, the intellectuals, the watchdog forums -- chose mostly to content themselves by publishing information. "Govt to foot bill for Congress show called Vikas Yatra" is reported as if someone has merely asked for an undeserved second helping of potatoes.

Media comment on what Punjab stands to gain from the rally-counter rally tradition is missing from the debate. But there has been a new entrant. The advertisement masquerading as an event photograph. Top newspapers routinely carry huge photographs on front pages which are paid for by politicians. The newspaper comment is missing perhaps for obvious reasons.

Cerebral reasoning has come down to the level of terming one party's electioneering pitch as 'Antim Yatra' of the Chief Minister.

One would expect the traditional Left to have found ample space for at least making its argument, if not garnering votes. But it was a pity to watch Punjab CPI state secretary Jagroop Singh at a seminar in Patiala last Sunday when a scholar challenged him and the rest of the gathering to name even a single reasoned critique from the Left's perspective in recent years.

Punjab currently is embroiled in one of the most serious phases of agricultural and ecological crisis, but the debate is not even turning towards real issues. Akalis and Congress exchange statements dripping with bitterness everyday, and the Left is happy if it can get in a press release into the papers edgewise. At least Nawa Zamana and Desh Sewak still oblige. It is often said a people get the political establishment they deserve. What have the people of Punjab done to deserve these intellectuals? ■

November 20, 2006

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