There is a hell lot that is happening to the largest democracy in the world--a major divide that patently threatens to rip the slight, tenuous fabric of Indian Democracy into many divides. You name an issue and you would immediately have different sections favoring, opposing, blabbering, middling over the matter. Almost all sections speak and assert as if with authority and bears a command in their tone to make an impact. Is this the confusion?
Heck No! This is normal in a vibrant democracy. One important aspect is to analyze who are the observers, listeners and the --this is critical!-- subjects of such assertions. The media is playing debates on air where the panelists debate (I am focusing mainly on this one, single and probably dangerous nature of the confusion conglomerate) over every issue that is the hot topic of the day. The whole discussion appears to be hung in the air, not at all propped on the literary stilts of context and connotation which is the beginning of the worry. Often these panelists are urban, upper middle class, opinion swashing fellows; and very often the matter that is discussed relates with poor, lower-middle class sections that unfortunately have no voice on the (esteemed) panel.
Then, the moderator or the anchor is unqualified to actually converge the heavy debate towards a more constructive end. Instead what happens is that a rigmarole of varied opinions self-sticking to the image of the speaker ends up confusing the listeners to whom it should have meant something. Not only an issue is churned to loll at it extreme ends(which is usual) but those who stand at one end fail to support the cause of this end with good arguments. Cashing upon this the zealot at the other end shouts and blabbers only to meet a similar fate. At the end of the issue the listeners feel cracks in their heads while the opinion makers who contested in the debate would feel less assured about their opinions and would cringe, too.
The urban class who take a 'liberal' stance make all efforts to mean it. They would quote xyz from bards and novelists and would flash dissertation heavily laden with verbiage. They press, pontificate and shout/ shriek all the while sounding/ acting as if he/she is the conclusive authority over the matter. Mostly the anchor would go with these opinions. And on rare occasions when someone tries to take the side of under-privileged, sufferers they are mocked by sneers and taunts and laughs. Those who the sufferers (the major lot) feel that their repository could not put their point effectively and thus ended up being ridiculed. This adds to the confusion as not merely the true ground-reality of the case is not even put forward but had been adulterated and saddled with unimportant, farcical less important things.
What is more tragic in the whole frame of such discussions are played day in and day out where panelists with little (or no) knowledge of the issue debate and discuss purely on the base of semantics and their own mental model. Their picture of the worldly issues is largely distorted but it also, at the same time, ends up smudging that of others. The policy makes set to lose despite it being the only caring body (though only with insouciance) and the execution is stalled. The trivia of the media when magnified with the force of their presence actually turns out to be the constructors and contractors of the stalling.
The nation needs clearance--clarity of thought above all. The policy makers will function as they would be bored otherwise. They will blinker at corruption, inefficiency and ineptitude but will do something. They are not the new faces but the old, raddled ones and thus it is important to devise a way to milch them, their experience by letting them do the things. Of course, the leadership-change is inevitable but there is a wide gap that may result in if the transfer is not smoothened. Those who cringe, blabber, sulk, opinionate, vocalize are not the doers and therefore should shut themselves up for the sake of options of speaking for good times.
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