Re: Is India a model Democracy?

[Padmanabha Rao <kvprao@igidr.ac.in>]

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On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Srinath S wrote:
 Hmmm... I am not really convinced though that private radio would be a
 conducive to mischief mongers. Have a look at the ganesha drinking milk
issue
 that spread all over India within a day. Or more recently, the Hrithik
 Roshan's fake controversial statements. None of them really needed any
 broadcast media for their spread. In fact, by blocking out Indian
broadcast
 channels in Nepal, they lost the chance to even hear out the Indians.

Of course, as with the ganesha miracle and more recently (yesterday,
today
and maybe tommorrow also) the reports that all is well with indian
democrasy, masses have been led up the path rather rapidly. But in most
of
these cases it has resulted from the broadcasts by Newspapers, TV
channels
and Radiochannels, combined. Even then their spread not needing
(supposing)  Radio does not make a general case for them, does it ? The
Nepal episode was probably containable had the AIR reached them. That
would have been through AM and not FM of course. On the other hand, if
Kathmandu had an FM (I don't know if it does), one can imagine how it
might have unnecessarily put fuel to the fire by merely reporting on the

events wherever they sporadically happened and then making the axiom
"the
whole is greater than the sum..." true as more and more people would
conjecture and conjecture (probably, 50%) to worse and cause a huge
problem, even while the FM would get a lot of RRP (Radio Rating Points?)

that week and well, you know how it goes, ordinarily.

 It is much more easier to apprehend and check mischief mongers who
broadcast
 themselves, than the real mischief mongers who are all distributed and
 amorphous.

Yes, I agree. But before the court, witness or proof is what counts and
only when a participant says "Yes, the Saamna article provoked me to run

riot and lynch people" can we do anything about the problem.

Thanks.

Padmanabha Rao



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