We and Media

 

We, the people, have ephemeral memory. We are being 24x7 served a sensational news menu. Sometimes when the conflict arises between Indo-Pak or Indo –Sino relations, you must have witnessed news readers (we may also call them news presenters) showing virtually how would- be wars be fought if the tension between the two escalated. The body language of news presenters is so articulative as if they themselves are going to take part in it. Spoken words ooze out with powerful emotions.

 Last year when one young and famous film actor passed away in some mysterious circumstances, how for months together it was telecast non-stop.Each movement of CBI was captured. Drug mafia was unearthed. But,now-nobody talks about it. We have forgotten. We watch and forget-watch and forget. This see-saw is in permanent motion.  

 A couple of days back a TV reporter from a leading news channel was frantically covering a story on poor rural health infrastructure from a village in Baghpat area of Uttar Pradesh. And on another day reporters from Madubani and Muzafarpur districts of Bihar were on their search of abandoned rural health centres. This is high time to expose it. Is it?

The Village in Baghpat was a huge village (I do not remember its name) which has 28000 residents. The cameraman was swaying his camera over an abandoned and dilapidated hospital building which was constructed 25 year ago. This once-upon-a-hospital had no doors, no windows, of course no doctors, no nurses and no paramedical staff. There were huge heaps of dry cow dung cakes in and around its building. Some rooms of this abandoned hospital were being used by the villagers to store dry straw.

 

The situation in Madhubani and Muzafarpur was also not less critical. Some elderly tall men in a village near Bhagpat, wearing traditional white cotton kurta pyjamas with turbans loosely tied on their heads were to be asked some questions by the news reporter who like you and me was apparently worried about the recent rise of deaths with corona like symptoms in their village. A black dog rubbed itself with the legs of an elderly onlooker and a cow mooed from somewhere. All except one in this group had put some kind of locally made masks on their faces. The fear of death was imminent on their faces. The government was criticised to the greater extent in their answers as the health infrastructure had already collapsed and the death toll was increasing every day.

 

Now this type of TV coverage and criticism of the present govt. has become rampant on almost all channels. But for how long will it continue? Will it really some purpose?

Interestingly media has recently started taking a lot of interest in the health infrastructure of rural areas. This is happening perhaps due to the spread of corona pandemic even in hinterlands. Some villages are being reported as super-spreaders. During pre-pandemic times media had no time to talk on such vital issues. The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war-is an old saying. Since we did not sweat in peace-no we are profusely bleeding now.

 I started thinking about the huge investment which the then governments must have made to construct and start these hospitals and how these national assets got continuously ignored by the local bodies, people and successive dispensations. Our media never got time to highlight the plight of such slowly dying institutions. The health of educational institutions in the rural areas is also decaying.  We do not bother much about schools as poor educational infrastructure does not kill us like corona.

 

Today I heard an MP from Punjab speaking to a TV channel that 60% to 70% posts of Medical Officers are lying vacant in his state-the land of five rivers-which once upon a time was considered a prosperous state. Now some other states have taken over. And the Health Minister of Bihar said that there was acute shortage of qualified doctors in the rural areas. He further added that the posts were advertised but there were hardly any takers.

 

Except paracetamol and some other bare minimum infrastructure-nothing is available in Public Health Centres which are considered to be operative. It is pertinent to mention that each Public Health Centre caters to a cluster of villages. And in some cases people have to travel long distances to reach there. If our villages are hit by corona virus the way our cities are, then how we will cope up is only known to GOD.

 

If electronic as well as print media honestly highlights the apathy of health and poor educational infrastructure on regular basis- I am sure it would lead to enlarged awareness in the people who would question the existing dispensations to set the things right. I have heard some aware and learned people saying that they no more watch news on TV anymore because nothing substantial comes out from there.

 

In her concluding remarks, the TV reporter said it was time for the present dispensations to get out of slumber. But I think-it is soooooooo late. Now let’s face the music with courage. Had media played the same constructive role in the past which it is playing these days-the situation would have been different.

We, the people, must learn to remember. Only then the snow will melt.