The level of political rhetoric in our country is falling day by day. The recent statement of Arvind Kejriwal against the Prime Minister which is going viral on YouTube is the latest example of this decline. In the Indian democracy, the constitution has provided freedom of speech to the citizens, but it does not mean that one can openly violate it and say anything about someone without proof.
Educated people are expected to know the law and the consequences of their baseless statements. We live in a media society where lies are constantly told in very insidious ways and public perception is shaped by the number of times a lie is told.
In the present times, the meaning of politics is to create such a story by telling lies and fooling the public which is far away from the truth.
As soon as possible, stop establishing the lies of our politicians by sold media institutions, pro-anchors because what they say is accepted as truth by the gullible public. Spreading lies and misinformation has become a habit of new and old politicians. Arvind Kejriwal is advertising the honesty of his governance while the bitter truth is also easily visible that his cabinet ministers are behind bars on serious charges of corruption. are behind. Kejriwal, whose neck is entangled in the thousands of crores of excise scam in Delhi, is daring to accuse the Prime Minister.
Arvind Kejriwal seems to be scared of the arrest of his close aide Manish Sisodia and apprehensive about the outcome of the CBI and ED probe into the excise scam. In the functioning of any democratic government, when policy decisions are approved by the cabinet, the responsibility falls on the chief minister. Kejriwal will have to answer a lot regarding this excise scam worth thousands of crores.
Accusing the Prime Minister or anyone else will not give him any relief. Rather, his difficulties will only increase for which he himself will be responsible. He must remember that his habit of leveling false allegations against several politicians and industrial houses has caused him irreparable damage in the past and has forced him to tender unconditional apologies several times.
During the last decades, such people have mastered the art of lying so much that they make mountains out of nothing. These days a myth is being propagated that India has the best education minister in the world in Sisodia. The kind of lies that Kejriwal has promoted with the active aid and connivance of the paid media is astonishing. During Sisodia's tenure as Delhi's education minister, the Delhi government has allegedly done miracles which is not true because Official data analysis shows that misinformation was presented to the public in the name of the Delhi model. The Chief Minister of Delhi has loudly publicized that free treatment in government hospitals and free education in government schools are his The so-called Delhi model has been recognized. However, they have deliberately left out the basic fact that all state governments across the country have been providing free education and free medical care to the people for several decades! Excise scam, bus purchase scam etc. have completely exposed the real face of Kejriwal's anti-corruption campaign.
It is an old political art to fool the gullible public to get votes and win elections. All the political parties of our country are guilty of maintaining this culture since decades. But spreading big lies, misusing thousands of crores of public money to spread wrong things is such a weapon, in which today's leaders have mastered very cleverly. They know that the lie which is told again and again and does not even get challenged, then the public accepts that lie as the truth.
Unfortunately, the media has become a companion of those who spend crores on advertisements.The time has come for people to become aware of the lies being spread by such people and reject them. The media should also realize the huge damage being done by these false narratives being spread by our political class. They cannot suppress the truth under the burden of paid advertisements and shirk their responsibilities as the fourth pillar of democracy. They have to realize that democracy cannot survive without an honest, vigilant and pro-people media. Serving the interests of media houses is not ethical journalism. They have to come together to end the culture of lies and lies being spread by such politicians. Leadership is about unity, integrity and accountability. We should encourage contrary facts. Politics should be defined by morality. Kejriwal and people like him should consider this.
Vijay Shankar Pandey is former Secretary to the Government of India