By Nihal Parashar:

It is extremely sad that our part of the world is facing the consequences of a natural disaster, which some people have rightly termed as man-made disaster. Many people lost their lives and many are still stranded. Ideally, this should have been a situation where all of us-politicians, media and common citizens- should have been concentrating on relief activities and discussing our preparedness as a society to face the situation. But what are we discussing: Phenku, Pappu and Rambo! I never thought any society could be this insensitive in a situation like this.

Should we blame the media?

Give me a reason why Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi are the centre of discussion on most of the news channels? Because they went to have a “better understanding” of the situation in Uttarakhand! What value have they added to the rescue operation? I guess there is no point in discussing this as Arnab Goswami has been discussing it with more zeal than anybody else on this planet. But what are the news channels telecasting- an extremely insensitive and highly sensationalized coverage of a tragedy. I am sure the cameras are adding to the problem in the hill station. And to top it all, they are having serious discussion on Prime Time- Phenku Vs Pappu!

Should we blame the politicians?

I saw few debates (better we start calling them fights) on news channels. As a ritual, for every second issue, they have a spokesperson from BJP, one from Congress and few Social Scientists. BJP claims that it is doing better. Congress claims that it has a history of taking care of disasters. Social Scientists claim that both the parties are speaking only rubbish. Excuse me! Were we not discussing a national disaster? How can a disaster become so political that our politicians visit the place to make sure that people remember them as leaders who were there when the opponent wasn’t?

Should we blame ourselves?

We do not have answers to any question, and we will end up blaming the society. Let me take a stand this time- NO. Our society cannot be blamed for this. Just because elections are near and few people make us very agitated, we start thinking that the only problem in the world is the society. I cannot accept that it is the root cause of each and every problem.

Let us end this drama and bring forward the real culprits. Let us get out of the illusion that every problem is because of us and our leaders are only a part of the larger picture. There are a few people who are orchestrating a dance and we are just dancing like puppets.