What happened yesterday at Bandra in Mumbai was the result of an utterly irresponsible rumour mongering on social media as well as inputs published by some news channels. But more importantly the role of the Indian Railways and the Rail ministry should come under a scanner in the whole episode. Immediately after that vacuous speech by His Hollowness announcing extension of lockdown , the Rail ministry and the divisional Rail administrations should have come out with clear instructions . But it seems they had locked down their senses and had no whereabouts of the course of action needed to be taken. In fact IRCTC had merrily issued tickets .
This happens when there is no planning, coordination or empathy from the government for the citizens. The Rail Minister is otherwise busy on Twitter , mostly retweeting posts by others . But he didn't have the common sense or inclination to issue a statement about the extension of discontinued rail services immediately after his boss extended the lockdown. Not even on Twitter.
Another disconcerting feature with the lockdown and Covid-19 pandemic is how the ruling party at the Centre is playing politics with the entire issue. Anybody with a little common sense can see how the Bandra fracas was created to put the state government under pressure and malign them using a Central agency (Railways) . There is no doubt in my mind that this is a deliberate act of misinformation.
The same strategy of misinformation through a central agency has been used to create doubts about the West Bengal government. The ICMR-NICED says it is getting lesser samples than its capacity to test. This statement from a central organisation is given wide publicity and presented craftily as a failure of the state government. Which is a half truth actually. The real position is that more samples are being tested now at different centres in West Bengal as mandated by the Central government instead of the ICMR-NICED centre which was the only one at the beginning of the pandemic. It is just a statistical misinterpretation being used as a sort of indictment against the WB government.
The news channels have lost their credibility totally. They are now tools to further the interests of the ruling party and spread the agenda of hate and divisive rumours , untruths and fake news. The sad part is that people are not realising it or even if they do they take the media solely on its entertainment value for the titillating news that is being served. I am pretty certain that in addition to the economic cost of this pandemic , we will have to bear a far greater social cost once the lockdown is lifted. And the weakened institutions particularly the morally corrupt and ethically defunct media will be the reason for that.
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