Over the past few years of social media evolution, I don’t really know how many are benefited, how many problems have been solved. However, I have had a good exposure to the amount of outrage and hatred it has created amongst the people around.Topic-based Selective outrage, to doctoring the statements said by some celebrity and misusing it, creating an opinion poll about one statement made in general is the media way of creating news these days. For example, In his address at town hall, PM Modi had spoken about Gau Rakshaks. It was just 2 lines in the speech. But the hype that was created, the speculations which were associated with these words were tremendous. The national media, the regional news channels, and the social media was split into two halves, one in support and one against Modi. You must be thinking why am I speaking about the same “SELECTIVE Topic”
The answer is simple. This is what happens when a breaking news of this kind makes rounds in and around news channel reports, The real work was done, the real news gets sidelined and shadowed by the TRP generating Sensational news. Let’s see what really happened on that day of Modiji’s address. He was actually addressing a selected group of citizens about the MY GOV initiative of the Government of India.
A good Samaritan from Moodbidri, Mr. Prasanna Kaakunje was one of the invitees to this program and he had got a chance to be a representative because of his active participation in the PM’s most sought after “Mann Ki Baat” program. Mr. Prasanna had once suggested the PM to turn his attention to the increasing road rage incidents and road accidents. PM Modi had lauded him for his social concern and had promised to address this issue after consulting the experts in the field.
This is what Mr. Kaakunje had to say about his experiences with “Mann ki Baat.” “ I was not very much interested in the program initially, but the number of accidents, road rage in my surrounding shook me up. More importantly, the issue which hurt me the most was that most of these incidents involved youngsters and college kids. The deaths of a few hurt me and I wanted to do something. The problem with us is that people don’t follow the rules. All these rules have to be taught in the home and implemented from the grass root level. So I wanted Mr. Modi to deliver this message to people. I suggested him to advise people to follow rules. He took it in the most positive possible and he decided to act accordingly. There was no way that one could involve directly in the decisions taken by the government. There was no platform to do so. But now with My Gov, everyone can speak their opinions give suggestions about how the government has to work. And that really is a great initiative. We should all make the best utilization of this facility and to what best we can to improve India.
I have seen people who say Digital India, Make in India are all big schemes and the common man is hardly benefited by it. But all these schemes are helpful and beneficial when we look at a distant future. This kind of planning is required to succeed in future. And the Prime minister is not a magician to change the situation in a day. If we were patient enough to tolerate the other governments for so long we are to be patient to see what Modi can do, Let’s give him his tenure of 5 years and then decide. To make the long story short, “KEEP CALM & TRUST MODI.”
And before blaming the system and the government for what has happened, we should question ourselves how much are we involved in making the system better? What have we done to make our nation better? If we stay the way we do and do things we did before and then blame the government for it, we are at fault.The system can change only if we decide to change. The system will change only when we change. We have to understand that and evolve.
Who is to be blamed if the Swachh Bharath mission fails because we litter around? We can’t expect the system to change for 20 years if we are doing the same old mistakes that we did 20 years ago. We have to evolve, we have to learn, we have to support the government, then only we can expect the nation to change.” By the time he had said all these there was overwhelming confidence and a noticeable glow in his eyes.
Original article in Readoo Kanada by Shivaprasad Bhat.
Translated by Ashish Saradka.
Leave a Comment