The familiar trope in the Indian media that what Modi , BJP & RSS is doing wrong is b/c @RahulGandhi led opposition is ineffective. Blame RG 4 Modi’s failures & excess.

@bdutt reinforces that dominating trope in the media in her latest column.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/from-kashmir-to-ayodhya-the-bjp-s-total-domination-of-politics/story-XXRbe3ZHjQ0Xo4NNQnPw8I.html

1/2

There is little doubt that Congress hasn’t yet found a powerful argument against the politics & economics of Modi although Dr Singh @PChidambaram_IN could shred Modi’s faux narratives in minutes as they output shows. The thinkers in Congress & RG need to get on the same page.

But the trope used by the media is more a device to cover its own inability to question [& speak truth to] power than to ask 4 a more effective opposition.

It is the media job to ask the questions that they want @rahulgandhi to ask of the Govt. That’s why media is privileged.

Media’s job is to keep public informed of the wrongdoing or failures of those in power. The job of the opposition is to oppose those in power but opposition can only follow when the media informs the public with unbiased information.

Neither opposition nor media can work alone.

The reality is that on any given day when @rahulgandhi does make a valid point, he is either ignored or shouted down. The media is the harshest critic of the opposition every ready to speak the truth to those not in power. @rahulgandhi is the target 4 everything, wrong or right.

Modi’s stark failures meanwhile get a free pass every time. Xi with his legions is sitting on our side of the border in Ladakh? No problem. Economy has shrunk by about 8%, millions are out of jobs & MNERAGA has failed 2 cover urban poor & migrant workers? No problem.

People are being lynched in the name of religion? No problem. Kashmir is under a lockdown 4 over an year & the centre has rendered every Kashmiri with out valid residency? No problem. Covid-19 out break is creating world records in India? No problem.

Oh the clever in the media do mention these in passing but always in way that these unfortunate things do happen and Modi is doing all that he can to meet the challenges. Not that most of these crisis are a foreseeable consequences of his wrong choices.

The ultimate trope of course is to blame the ineffective opposition forgetting that people rely on the media, and not the opposition, on the information and that they use to validate the narratives put out by the ruling party as well as the opposition.

That info is missing.

Media cannot walk out of its job & duty of [a] questioning power regardless of the state of the opposition. [b] Nor can it make light of its obligation 2 inform the public of the crisis that the polity faces.

This trope needs to be buried 4 good. U can’t blame RG 4 yr failures.

The media has failed the opposition. But more than that, the media has failed its duty to the public in a democracy. Indeed media has also failed democracy itself.

The trope is merely a facade to cover abject submission before power. I wish @bdutt had avoided its use.