India Media Smells Rot

The Indian media, specially the electronic media has been flooded with the story of the "Ruchika" case and it seems to be never ending. For the last four weeks there has been nothing but Ruchika. This Ruchika, who was 16 years of age, is alleged to have been molested by a senior police officer some 18 years ago, and the attempts by the family to register case against the family seem to have not worked out well in the midst of police resistance to register case against the police officer who was growing steadily up the ladder. Meanwhile, the girl committed suicide 16 years ago because of the alleged pressure and mental agony. And the government took another 14 years to register the case! And a month ago, the police officer, who had by then had received several awards from the government, had grown to be the chief of police in the state of Haryana, and had even retired, was sentenced to six months of imprisonment.

As it has come of the media, it always takes up cudgels in favor of the upper middle class English speaking people, this time round too, the media is heavily armed to get "justice" done. And so, you have so much of media managed justice being delivered out. Positively, it has woken up the government and administration to look into some of the lacunae in law. Negatively, it is all one big story of defaming and destroying the name of each other. But isn't the case of Ruchika a regular story in Indian villages ruled by landlords, moneylenders, and high caste muscle men?

I am yet to hear of media talking about these women, except for the stories written in some newspaper in the fourth or fifth page and forgotten after that. Wake up, media. Wake up.