Just the other day, flipping through Twitter, I suddenly stumbled upon an interview of H H Sri Sri  RaviShankar where He was meticulously explaining His ‘out of the court’ solution approach for the Ayodhya Ram Mandir settlement. Proudly, I watched Him deliver a practical, harmonious, win-win solution with such a strong conviction, farsighted vision and spiritual mettle! Eager to catch the nationwide reach and response of this ‘Breaking News’ on the Television, I began browsing through the various ‘national’ news channels. And what I got to watch there was alarming! That, which was supposed to be applauded as a brilliant gesture of social harmony was ridiculously distorted into a threatening communal statement by blatantly playing around with words!

How can a genuine concern like ‘I do not want my country to see a civil war of the likes of Syria’ be woven to sound like a threat as ‘If court rules against temple, we will turn India into Syria’ ?!?! The fact that it is nowhere near His actual statement in the farthest of the vocabulary simply appalled me!! And then I recollected that this is not the first time the media is indulging in such mudslinging, in fact, they have been in this business of ‘twisting and turning of facts’ to suit their agenda for ages now. Recent fabricated interview of Anushka Sharma in a publication she never spoke to, distortion of pictures from Sri Sri’s visit to Kashmir for peace restoration and portraying the genuine local Kashmiri seekers of peace as greedy commoners eyeing sewing machines and cricket kits are just a few instances. Phew, they live up to their own standards of fabricated news, every single time… What an impressive consistency!

Media, specially news media, is one of the main four pillars of Indian democracy bestowed with a huge duty and responsibility of upholding the values of the nation and directing the citizens towards the right progress of the society they live in. By definition and profession, ‘Journalism’ is meant to gather the current affairs and ‘present’ them to the general public as they are first, before forming opinions and dissecting the right from the wrong. But, in our country,  how many of the so called ‘bigshot’ media houses are even aiming towards becoming this sacred ‘Dharma Stambha’ today?

Lured by the commercials, allured by the vested interests and tempted by the game of TRP entertainment rat races, they have turned themselves into a vicious circle of lucrative trade houses and amusing recreational melodramas!

While the ignorant and innocent section of the public believes in whatever gets published by the ‘branded’ news as a final verdict of truth, the media-literate intelligentsia either simply enjoys the whole saga as a piece of entertainment or conveniently ignores the deliberate mess of the agenda driven news as ‘how-does-it-matter-to-me’ lethargy.

Some great soul once said, ‘This world is ruined not by the evil actions of the bad people but by the inaction of the good people!’ and that holds so true even today.

While a fractional few who want the false news to spread far and wide, tossing itself into a true version along the journey, are actively doing all that they can day in and day out to achieve their motive, the majority ‘righteous’ section of the society that is aware of the ‘facts and truth’ is simply relaxing in the corners, watching all the drama unfold with a smirk.

But as responsible and constitutional citizens of this country, for a moment, let’s introspect, if we should let such divisive vested interests decide the fate of a nation with a stature as that of India?! Would we want to leave behind a legacy of careless bigotry and laid back attitude for future generations to come?! Do we not have the right for knowing the appropriate information? Is it not our earnest duty to urge the media to evolve itself from ‘yellow’ journalism  towards ‘responsible’ journalism?

Much as few media houses may have forgotten, the onus now lies on us – the intelligent, significant, actionable citizens of the nation to question the propaganda based broadcast being spread to destroy the social fabric of the society and ensure that the ethos of such a noble and dignified profession is safeguarded against malicious intents. So, educate yourself, wake up and awaken others to the ‘ground reality’ for now is the high time for raising our voice for truth and stand up to the real image of ‘Breaking and Making’ news!

The TIME to do this was yesterday, the question right now is…… Can we afford to slack further? 

Are we ready to spin the paradigm shift in the way we, as a nation, should be honestly showcased on the media space, minus the pepper coating of the selfish, divisive and ruthless forces? 

For a change, let’s gear up to create some noise for all the right reasons !