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Patna,(BiharTimes): “India has in the last few years witnessed the growth of consumerist middle class instead of educated middle class.”
This view was expressed by the Managing Editor of Tehelka, Shoma Chaudhury, while delivering Chandrashekar Memorial Lecture in Patna on Tuesday evening.
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She said that this middle class is becoming very impatient. The recent Anna Hazare movement is a pointer to the fact. What, according to her is shocking, is that men like Prashant Bhushan and RTI activists like Arvind Kejriwal are becoming very impatient.
She said that the change civil society is undergoing is really depressing.
She said that the Indian middle class want quick solution to the problem. “I never consider Maoists as our enemy. I would not call them terrorists. It is a political movement with which I am not associated. You have to fight them politically,” she said.
Shoma said that there was a perception that they should be bombed by helicopters and eliminated like the Sri Lanka government did (with the LTTE).
She explained in detail the impact of corporatization and market on media. “Tehelka did a story on the fake encounter of a youth in Manipur. The editor of a TV channel told me that they too have that story, but did not show it because who watches the news of North-East.”
She said that Tehelka, in spite of its great financial constraints, is championing the cause of journalism and continued to expose corruption and other misdeeds. She narrated how it was forced to shut down between 2001 and 2004 during the NDA rule (after a sting operation was done, which showed the then BJP president Bangaru Laxman, accepting Rs one crore from a fake arms supplier).
Denying that her magazine is against the BJP she said that it has done stories against Sharad Pawar, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chidambaram etc. However, she added that the BJP is in the process of re-inventing itself as there is no taker of its earlier Hindutva card.
The lecture was chaired by noted social activist Arshad Ajmal while Prof Apoorvanand of Delhi University conducted the programme. Theatre activist Vinod gave vote of thanks.
Prof Nawal Kishore Chaudhary and veteran journalist, Gunjan Sinha, were among those who also expressed their views on the occasion.
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