Over
the last few weeks Social media servers virtually tore the fabric of Indian
Integration and held our sovereignty at ransom through its venomous morphed
inflammatory Information. The viral spread of misinformation led to a large
scale migration of our citizens from one region to other on a large scale
comparable to migration of the partition days. Callousness of Assam and
Maharashtra administrations or delay in deployment of central forces in Assam
or destructive intensions of a ‘wounded’ Pakistan: galore reasons may be
attributed for the wild Jolt that the nation experienced, but one important
lesson that the avoidable situation has thought us is “Power of Information and
of propaganda”.
Information
Technology has narrowed the Digital gap between the developed and developing
world. Mass access to the info world took its own time; nevertheless it served
as a weapon of mass destruction of many a dictatorial regime. Dictators
hitherto loved, worshiped, and respected were made to eat dust, decades old
unchallenged dictatorial Arab countries embraced western democracy. Countries
like Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt succeeded in establishing a Government of the
people. It was the social media that gave the world a Jasmine Revolution or
Arab spring.
The
rise and fall of Great Mutiny or the Indian Independence movement, flow of
information across the country played an immense role. The native press of
different colonies of the English empire exposed the exploiting attributes of Imperialism
and colonialism. If media activism could be acknowledged for the fall of
British Empire, media is to be faulted for the absolute surrender German
faculty to Adolf Hitler.
Given
the numerals of our population and the fragile affiliations of its Citizens to
the state on many counts like race, religion, ethnicity, and Language; security
of the state’s Integrity is always a challenging task.
Home
affairs, is a Joint responsibility in the concurrent list of the Indian constitution.
The central and many a state Governments failed to stop the exodus.
Pakistan
has always been a convenient excuse, our leaders and babus have popularized ISI
and accepted the successes their strategy more than the Pakistani’s. One
wonders whether the Paki’s are influenced by the weaknesses of Indian System of
Governance. Even if one agrees to the mala fide intention of Pakistan, the
reality is we lost and they won.
Morphed
pictures or malicious propaganda would not have hit the bull’s eye without the
willful participation of Indian nationals. Innocent victims of the campaign or
religious fundamentalists were certainly involved in the viral broadcasting of
hate messages.
An
intelligence failure or was it a real external cyber attack, Indian democracy
was stripped open and its inherent weakness was exposed to the world. Our
enemies would have had some merry making days at the time of our misery but one
is reminded of an old adage “what does not kill you, makes you stronger”.
Indians
echoed their protests in various forums and Medias. The Muslim intelligentsia realized
their vulnerabilities and evil designs of Manipulative right wing and religious
fundamentalists. Divisive agenda like Mumbai blasts and other events have
always strengthened our bonds.
Incidences
like these, gives the Politicians forever prepared for censorships and eternally
awaiting for opportunities to impose their whims, get some fodder to chew. IT has
facilitated the transformation of news paper readers to broadcasters, not many in
world have the infrastructure or freedom to exploit this engineering wonder. As
Elbert Hubbard once said “Responsibility is the price of Freedom”, responsible utilization
of Information Technology would further strengthen our freedom.
