The alarming fall in public discourse standards is directly proportionate to the speed and reach of communication today through Internet and social media. Apart from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we also have text messages, BBMs (BlackBerry messages) and other communication apps such as whatsap.
So even as Hurricane Sandy was battering the eastern regions of the US, causing misery and destroying homes and public infrastructure, it was extremely annoying to get this BBM: “I’m sure the US is regretting throwing Osama (bin Laden) in the sea…. That guy just won’t stop!!!!” The reference was to Osama’s body dumped into the sea by the US Seals, and the inference was that the sea waters were now ravaging the US again.
It was sickening to think anybody would rejoice or crack jokes at the misery caused to ordinary people during a horrific natural calamity.
Then of course, we had the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi making the extremely distasteful and sexist comment on HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor’s “50 crore girlfriend”. Addressing an election rally in Himachal Pradesh he said: “Bhaiyo aur behno mujhe bataiye, 50 crore ki girlfriend kisine dekhi hei… is garib desh mei? (Tell me if any of you have seen a Rs 50-crore girlfriend; and that too in this poor country?” )
Modi would have been well within his right to attack, ridicule, sneer at the alleged “sweat equity” not of Rs 50 crore, but Rs 70 crore that Sunanda Pushkar, – then Tharoor’s friend, and now his wife – is supposed to have received vis-à-vis the Kochi IPL team. But to refer to a woman, or a man too, if that was the context, as a Rs 50-crore girlfriend or boyfriend, is to stoop to a new low in political discourse. And for what? Thunderous applause and votes; he has anyway been getting the former and is all set to have a rich haul of the latter.
So it baffles the mind that the man all set to storm back to power on the plank of development, and is projected as the next prime minister of India, would need to make such a derogatory/demeaning reference to a woman. And he needs to take on Shashi Tharoor from the Congress camp?
Then there was this postscript in a column of Khushwant Singh titled “In love with Urdu poetry”. As usual, the veteran columnist signed off with a reader’s contribution, which was in gross bad taste. Meant to be a joke it went thus: A man from Bihar, working in Mumbai hadn’t met his wife for four years. One fine day he distributed sweets saying his wife had delivered a son. To a query from astonished colleagues he explained that in Bihar it was customary for neighbours to “take care of the wife” while the husband was away.
So, how would he name the child? It would be Dwiwedi, if the second neighbour had “taken care” of the wife; Trivedi, Chaturvedi and Pandey, in case of the third, fourth or fifth neighbour’s involvement. What if it’s a “mix of neighbours”? The name would be Mishra; if the wife was too shy to name the neighbour, it would be Sharma. What if she had been raped? Doshi.
If all this is not gross enough, here comes the last question. What if the whole country was responsible “for the happy arrival”? “Deshpandey”, was the reply.
In this shocking “joke”, forget insulting the woman with such innuendos, you are insulting an entire State. Bihar might lead the Bimaru States and might have been sending out its men for livelihood to other States. But surely Biharis, men and women included, don’t deserve such crude and vulgar abuse. As the man who put this on twitter RaghunathAS (@asraghunath) tweeted: “Khushwant Singh’s last piece in this column was in bad taste, even if it was not written by him. Avoidable.”
I fully agree.
rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in
Keywords: Comment column, Narendra Modi, Hurricane Sandy, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor, Internet and social media, twitter, facebook
Comments:
The misogynist mindset of BJP leaders and most of our educated males
is a well known fact. While in service many a times I have come across
a joke at the cost of pregnant female employees like superior officers
making the comment “ I am not responsible” when there was request for
replacement to a pregnant woman wanting to go on maternity leave.
Narendra Modi while promoting a particular pump set exhorted farmers
to gift the machine to their prospective sons in law in the form of
dowry. Arun shourie had the devilish mentality to attribute earth
quake in Kashmir to the sin of terrorism. Generally people undergoing
enormous personal suffering shed such mindset but shourie seems to be
an exception. You could have avoided repeating what Khushwant Singh
wrote in prestigious the news paper belonging to ‘The Hindu” group.
Khushwant Singh might have gone senile but the editor who originally
published the column should have been more discreet.
The timing of your article is most appropriate. Extensive reach of
the
visual media and easy access to media such as Twitter and Facebook
have suddenly offered a hitherto unimaginable opportunity for people
to express themselves.
It is only natural that many,like a child getting a brand new
toy,will
get excited and behave without discretion. Is there someone out there
like the parent to temper the child's excitement and behaviour ?
Punishment may not be the ideal solution because in the political
world the opportunity to benefit even temporarily is so high that
persons will be ready to take risks.
Do we have an opportunity to bring in these as subjects in classrooms
and educate the next generation of the benefits and pitfalls of these
wonderful technologies and gadgets ? While banning cellphones in
schools and colleges is a valid proposition teaching them the ideal
way of using these is our responsibility.
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