IT Desk
According to Prof. M.L. Stein, the media act as the nation’s conscience as per the situation faced by the society. Editorial, which is the voice of the newspaper condemns the venality of politicians and corruption in the office. If there is a slippage in public morals or slackness in national purpose, some newspaper, magazine, or broadcast station is sure to deplore the trend.
Now if the voice of the media house has been stitched using any means if the media fails to expose the venality of politicians and corruptions in the office – in short, if the voice of the media has been silenced using whatever technic, the purpose of publishing media to disperse news to the people will have no meaning. On the other hand, media is simply a medium with no power to check the odds that have been happening. They could not even punish a robber that they captured through their lenses. Thus, if the reported items are not taken seriously and ignore it thinking that it has no constitutional power to act upon them then, the very existence of democracy will have no meaning. To be précis everyone talks that media is the fourth pillar, but the people should understand that, Media has never been accepted or recognised officially as the fourth pillar by any of the politicians.
There has been report of social-economic and political critics getting intimidations for their criticism of the policy of the government. More surprising is the enforcement of rules to shun the voice of college professors from speaking to the public without prior permission from the higher authority.
Leaving aside the present trend going on in other parts of the state, the state seems to support vandalism towards the social critics who wrote to a newspaper. The recent incident about the burning of a newspaper – “Imphal Free Press”, in front of the residence of newspaper columnist RK Nimai who is also presently acting as the editor of a reputed Journal “North East Scholars”, is an indication of the intimidation to both social critics and newspaper houses. This is being said because those vigilant gang – around 20 of them were allowed to gather when the curfew is being imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic are still set free even as the media fraternity of the state have demanded their arrest and punishment as per the law of the land.
If any matter written or put up in an authentic way by a scholar is strike back with a violent attitude instead of giving counter argument using the media then, the sign shows the decline of not only democracy but also the falls of human civilization.
There is a government and it should act against all those law violators and make sure that any person, who comments, writes by criticising any act of the government in a scholastic way should be protected at any cost.
Let democracy triumph.
