various rambling thoughts: Media driven justices....another soap opera at the end...

The uproar in the media and the public general about the verdict of Jessica Lal case and resulting call for a re-trial is heartening to see. That people can actually raise their voices to protest against a trial which was compromised from the very start (which almost all trials in this country are…), a trial in which witnesses were turned hostile by buying them out or by threatening them, which is of course a run of the mill story in the country, is a positive development.

It is all good except for the fact that I get a nagging belief that the story would end with this

trial, whether or not a retrial takes place. We are much more media driven than we like to believe ourselves to be and we have, I believe, to a large or small extent, started depending on our moral outrage on what is construed as moral outrage by the media. The fact is that this is a very high-profile case, involving high visibility people and more importantly involving people who are deemed visible by the media ( a BMW can change into a truck in the trial but all we get are cynical editorials, no revolutionary calls for a re-trial)…..hundreds of criminals who have committed heinous crimes are being let off by various courts each day…who will give these cases visibility?

The fact that we need visibility to express our outrage is where, I believe, we think wrong. The problem is systemic. To expect the media to highlight cases and depending on that to express our outrage is an impossible task for the media or for any other agency.

What is needed is a systemic overhaul, so that justice is not stillborn, so that it is delivered properly. For that we need checks and balances in the system. We had recommendations by various people on TV and elsewhere on the starts that we can have, which involve witness protection system and an autonomous investigative body, since these are two absolutely necessary but absent aspects of the criminal judicial process in this country which are exploited by the powerful and moneyed to get away with every crime they commit.

What I believe however is that we should start with a complete overhaul of the legal laws of this country. It’s a shame that we are still following 19th century laws laid down by the British, which are, naturally, anti-poor, anti-woman and have many other aspects absent, necessary for the modern judiciary. We have even kept the fines intact, sometimes as low as a princely sum of Rs 5 for some offences, which might have been a deterrent in the days when the law was formulated but which would be laughable today if it wasn’t so pathetic.

We need laws which are more inclusive; we need laws which address the obvious and the very glaring holes in the judicial process. That might be difficult to do, given that the laws do exactly what they were intended for, protect the wealthy and powerful. We would need the media for this, which I believe is a dream of a tall order, seeing how transient and crisis driven media is today. Such an overhaul would need debates of all sorts and might take many months to get everything on the drawing board itself.

It can be done, however. All is needed are for all the people to not depend on media to provide them for the kick to get their outrage machine started.

Otherwise all that we would be relegated to would be crying foul everytime a rotten judiciary system delivers still born justice. But then, in that case, everybody gains right? The media has a fresh story for 24 hrs, the phone company are happy due to the lakhs of SMSes that are sent to register e-protests, the people are happy – a salve for their conscience, that they are doing something, anything.

The only ones who lose out are the ones who are never given that kind of attention (because they are not interesting – read deemed visible enough, or their cases don’t have that spice) or those from whom the media turns away its attention after they find a more interesting story after which they are left to fend for themselves.

So much for people power (or SMS power, as we should dub it now, e-protests are all that we have got relegated to)!!!!!

Cynical? Damn right, but may I add – realistic.

1 Comments:

At 12:21 AM, Anonymous said...: Ya I completely agree with you. Being the largest democracy in the world and boasting about the virtues of freedom, justice both of which r existing as namesake.
Its really shameful for the law and order of the country where a crime was committed in front of so many people, still the acquittal was given for lack of evidence.
With this kind of verdict making the headlines the first thing which came to my mind was, another high profile case another media uproar and another case forgotten with no result. But before criticizing the media and regarding the case as high profiled and a money spinner we must take into notice that today if we are sitting and discussing about this injustice then the credit goes to the media. Its only because of their making it so called high profiled that today the people from all age groups from students to old age people are talking about it. And the matter has been send to the parliament. Only for this media uproar Sonia Gandhi had to send a letter to the home minister to look into the matter. Only because of the highlighting of this case many other cases has come into the limelight. Many people became aware of the loopholes in our justice mechanism, to know how important it is to protect the witnesses and witnesses who change their statements should be fined as done in U.S.A and also the need of autonomous legal systems and speedy litigation which is the need of the hour. So before criticizing the media we really have to think that this is the only weapon we have in our hands to bring a change though half of the acquittal cases are not reported as in the cases of dalit killings, rape victims etc where there have been 99% acquittal. Im still proud that people came together in this case to raise their voice against injustice and to see that people with money don’t run away like this. I don’t know about the outcome of it but at least there is a satisfaction that the fiber of democracy is still intact, that whenever their will be a act of injustice their will be an uproar. We have to be optimistic and have faith in our system-by system I don’t mean the politician I don’t have any hopes for them but by system I mean the media the very essence of our democracy, which in the end will save this place from becoming anarchy. The fight is still on.