“Self regulation is no regulation.” – the statement of Sri Markandeya Katju, former supreme court justice and the chairman of press council of India , has enticed me to write something after a month long gap…................
Actually, he was talking of the regulation of TV channels, that if they do not want to come under the PCI they should choose another regulatory body like the Lokpal ; because these TV channels too should be answerable to somebody for any kind of professional misconduct . He further justified that for every other profession, councils are made to regulate e.g. Bar Council for lawyers, Medical Council for doctors, chartered accountants under their council, judges of Supreme court & High court can be impeached by parliament for misconduct; even the recently held and very well supported Anna Hazare movement also demanded that politicians, bureaucrats and judges should all be placed under the Jan Lokpal bill….. (Although, I have a strong averse for plagiarism, but here I have framed few sentences of him as it is….) then why should these press people be exempted from any kind of regulatory agency????......
Although, he is badly criticized for his recent sharp comments for Television media, but in my opinion our electronic media, (almost every channel) even the print one has crossed all the ethical limits; ironically at the name of entertainment, their beautiful protest behind that public pasand karti hai…..actually as per Justice Katju,we reside in a country that is passing its transition phase, almost 75% of our population lives in vigorous poverty, but why we try to escape the truth and like to watch news channel for sheer ENTERTAINMENT,a proportion of 90% entertainment and 10% socio-economic content of news is quite unfair… I can better explain this w/my personal experience.
Recently I visited my dentist and patients were watching a particular TV channel in the lobby, then a lady doctor came there and claimed that socio-economic survey (running on the TV);explaining the exact figure of children in Mumbai slums , an absolutely bakwaas and instead switched to another news channel, which was showing some Diwali celebrations event by so-called popular TV stars, I was absolutely amazed by this EXTRAAAA-SINCERE move, when the better 25% populace (or to be more refined, I can say within 10% of the most privileged citizens of this country) will behave and respond in this manner, then what can be expected from those remaining unfortunate gantry, who do not have access even to basic necessities e.g. proper food….
Although, justice Katju said in a particular context, but the same question can be raised to all those educated & elite people that do we possess the characteristic of self discipline????... I find an immense scarcity of the same, even in the daily life I find people extremely in-disciplined (actually they are very good professionals but all the truth is unveiled when they are out of their respective professions, I mean just as any other citizen), e.g. when we go at some market place we use plastic bags and throw them irreverently, even after knowing that they are injurious to land like anything, or whenever riding a vehicle in the middle of the road, use horn like the person next to us is a deaf and use all the mean tricks to overtake the fellow driver…. nobody wants to think of the fellow companion,WHY???
Why we always need heavy fines and authoritarian approach to remain in discipline, may be the answer lies in my opening statement “self regulation is no regulation…” That’s true!!
Recently, I read a beautiful saying ,”the success of an individual does not depend upon how successful the person is, instead it is determined by the number of people who became successful by him..!!!” What I can urge from the so-called padha likha class is to behave responsibly and to show some credibility whenever society demands the same from them…………
Well this implies for me as well, after all I too, belong to the same genre….gudluck (to me)
