Last year, during the monsoons, I had taken photographs of the road where I have stayed since birth, R.R.T. Road. The photographs clearly showed layers of muck and slime and numerous potholes. I emailed these snaps to a reporter from Mulund Plus (Mulund supplement of Times of India) and invited her over to get a first-hand experience of these roads.She did drop in and took my views on this issue. Just before leaving, I was surprised by the statement she made. "Why is that you are the only one who is complaining from this area?", she asked. Point to be noted is that she felt that a citizen who is asking a question, is, in fact, complaning! I had to be outright rude and tell her that if voicing your concerns is called complaining, then I am glad that I am the only one complaining as it shows that I am awake.
The point I am trying to highlight is that if reporters and journalists treat concerned citizens so shabbily, WHY will a citizen come forward to the media? I am not insinuating that all the reporters are the same. However, this Mulund Plus incident is case in point.
The reporters also need to understand that what concerns citizens, who normally speak anonymously, are two points - PUBLIC RIDICULE and SECURITY.When I filed three RTI petitions, I had my family members saying all kinds of things. They feel that I am a credit-hog and they feel I am a weirdo. Most of them feel that there is no point in figthing against the Government as the popular opinion is that we cannot win. To them, I say, If you fight, you may sometimes lose. If you do'nt fight, you've already lost.
I stay on the most arterial road of Mulund which is occupied more by hawkers than there are residents. There have been instances where our security is at stake when we go fight against such people. The hawkers issue is a case in point. I stay with my wife and mother. When we come in the limelight because of these stories, we have been threatened in the past. Who will come and protect our families?
I had a friend who passed away in October last year. He died in a gruesome accident, which is largely attributed to MMRDA negligence. I emailed ALL leading newspapers and news channels. Sadly, only ONE newspaper deemed it necessary to cover this incident. After all, would the death of ONE man have increased the sales of the newspapers and increased TRP ratings of their channels? I even came out with a chain email, to which I received replies from ALL OVER THE WORLD, which were subsequently forwarded to many newschannels. Sadly, it did not make an IOTA of difference to them. Is this not an anomaly?
There is one more factor which is a large contributor to this attitude. We need to acknowledge that there is a major NORTH-SOUTH and an EAST-WEST divide which exists in media coverage of events occuring inMumbai. During the recent downpours, NOT A SINGLE channel covered the central suburbs beyond Sion whereas just about every square inch of the western suburbs and south Mumbai was covered in the media's coverage. Can any one person give some kind of a justification to this divide? Why will a normal citizen want to come forward when we know that we are talking to the biased media?
I think some introspection needs to be carried out on behalf of the media houses, before they term the attitude of Mulundkars as anomolous.
posted by Save Mulund @ 5:19 AM
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