AKHILESH KUMAR
It seems that social scientists nowadays are more concerned about the upper section of the society and not sincere in terms of their analysis to the problems being faced by the poor who have always been deprived and marginalized in our society.
Recently, a seminar was organized in JNU where several scholars spoke on the theme “Sociology of Elites in Contemporary India”. There were several intriguing sessions which covered a range of issues pertaining to the elitism prevailing in our social order.
A sheer dichotomy could be sensed in their voices when the noted speakers came to defend in a way the Indian capitalism’s so-called success and its deep impact on the underprivileged class of the society while looking through the prism of financial prowess of some of the corporate in the country. The eminent scholars appeared to have been more impressed by the wealth a handful of business houses amassed rather than looking at the overall benefit to the poor from the rise of these corporate.
One of such references was made by Surajit Mazumdar a Professor at Centre for Economic Studies and Planning School of Social Sciences, about the diversified Reliance Group. He tried to elaborate his case for the Dhirubhai Ambani-founded firm by presenting certain one-sided glimpses of how a business aspiration of an individual in the pre-liberalization era took a shape to turn into India’s biggest conglomerate. Terming the Reliance’s rise a phenomenon, Mazumdar perhaps forgot or deliberately deviate from the harsh truth about the real costs a society has to pay in the making of such corporate. How can one forget to mention the efforts and sacrifices a society as a whole makes in the rise of business houses? But the real question that we need to ask is that has the society been rewarded or served by these elite corporate in the same manner? Perhaps not!
His paper traced the known facts of the rise of Reliance and discusses briefly the process, by which that story was constructed, but it does not say anything about the sudden rise and the means adopted for achieving that success. There was no mention at all of vital issues like K-G basin in which the Reliance Group was given a cake walk; the nexus of the group with political and bureaucratic elites; Its monopoly in various sectors in Indian markets.
At a time when all governments and leading economists keep on talking about inclusive growth, these renowned social scientists very conveniently preferred to ignore the hardships and challenges our society is facing on a number of fronts be it affordable healthcare, rural infrastructure, education, jobs, crime against women, and so on.
At the event, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a noted journalist and political commentator, while ‘decoding the Indian elites’ tried to exemplify his viewpoints through prevailing elitism in the media sector. He discussed in detail the current scenario about the Indian media. His longstanding argument has been that there is an irreversible decline in the quality and content covered by the print and electronic media.
For a number of years, he has been rightly pointing out the ignorance of the Indian media towards the harsh ground realities of our society and its people. He was hitting the right spot when he said the media elites are hardly bothered about the core issues we as a society are facing. It is quite apparent that media elites are more inclined towards their own quest for business growth rather than catering to the informative needs of masses in the society.
It must be said that the hopes and aspirations of Indian masses are being sub-ordinated and the anxieties of elites, rich, influential and powerful are being privileged by the Indian media elite.
It is high time that person of Thakurta’s caliber come forward and take action to reform the media sector as he has been preaching for years at different social and media platforms. He can also serve as a catalyst in protecting the rights of young, comparatively weaker and the non-English media personnel in India.
Ironically, we did not hear anything from him when in the recent past hundreds and thousands of helpless journalists were fired by the media houses. His silence on these critical issues begs many questions raises doubts about his true intention. It seems that he is running with hare and haunting with haunt. It means people like Thakurta want to have a cake and eat it too. This is indeed shocking and disheartening.
As Marx said that “It is not your consciousness that determines your social status, rather it is your social status that determines your consciousness.”
Let us hope that he will help us in achieving the Marxist goal of “workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but chains”.
