I am delighted that an Indian — Abhijit Banerjee – won the Nobel prize for economics. It’s moments like these that strive me to work harder and be the best in whatever I do. He won the Nobel for his experiments on how to solve poverty and streamline measures for battling poverty.
He founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), with his wife, Esther Duflo, and associate Michael Kremer, where they conduct experiments to understand poverty and enhance the efficiency of development programs.
As soon as he won the Nobel prize, the media was after him for interviews and he dominated the headlines for the whole week like any person with that achievement should. I was glad that we had finally got a break from politics, which for some reason is always making headlines. However, it wasn’t mean to be as soon politics crept its way into even this.
The TV and social media in its unfortunate pursuit of eyeballs began asking him all sorts of questions and how could they miss asking questions on the economy and the government.
He candidly and innocently gave them his thoughts and comments on the state of the economy. This gave the media fresh ammunition to bash the government.
Banerjee is a Bengali and at a time when West Bengal is in a state of political turmoil with the ruling government aiming to capture power in the state, added more fuel to the fire that had already engulfed social media after he won the most coveted prize in the world.
I think the media exists just to bash the government and feel superior about themselves instead of offering suggestions and constructive advice, no wonder they get all the hate (You get exactly what you give!). Thus, it began a war on social media where people had to take sides and decide whether they supported the government or the Nobel-prize winning economist with a special place reserved in hell with people who didn’t choose either. Some were busy abusing the government while some choose to abuse the Nobel-prize and claim that it was biased and given out for further political agendas.
There is extensive lobbying that happens for a Nobel Prize as all nominees are worthy of one. However, the Nobel Peace Prize is definitely a scam and a tool to serve some vested interests.
There was no reason to give Malala Yousafzai and Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize when they didn’t give one to Mahatma Gandhi. The last time I checked, Afghanistan is still war-torn with no sight of restoring peace and everyone still has nuclear weapons especially America with one of the world’s largest stockpiles?
The official reason for awarding him the Nobel is stated as “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons”
Can The Committee give me a Nobel Prize “for my vision of a world without movie critics and my extraordinary efforts to ensure cheaper popcorn at the movie halls”? Will the Committee consider a giving me a Nobel Peace prize if I go to Nigeria for a trip with my friends and get shot by the Boko Haram there? If No, then why did Malala get one? I don’t think even the two of them know the answer to that question.
To be honest, both of them are great people but were their acts worthy enough of the Nobel prize. What am I saying? I should trust the committee’s wisdom who in their wisdom never thought that Mahatma Gandhi was worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Coming back to the incident, so on one hand, we had people trying to discredit the Nobel prize, Abhijit Banerjee and his work to defend the government while on the other hand, people were using his comments to serve their agendas and corner the government (Sometimes, I wonder if the media knows that it is not in the business of a contact sport like boxing but the business of information).
In short, things were getting ugly. Wait a minute, aren’t things already ugly? Okay, they were getting worse and uglier.
Fortunately, saner minds prevailed and Abhijeet Banerjee was invited by the Prime Minister to congratulate him and the statement he gave out finally put the matter to rest.
He very honestly said “The Prime Minister started by cracking a joke about how the media is trying to trap me into saying anti-Modi things. He has been watching TV, he has been watching you guys, he knows what you are trying to do.”
It shows how the media can pit two unknown people against each other without the two of them conflicting. Matters become worse if the people being pitted against one another have differing views on a particular subject – like in this situation the economy (Raghuram Rajan vs Narendra Modi). Instead of facilitating a constructive conversation that not only enriches the listener but also throws up solutions and ideas that can help solve policy problems and important issues, the media creates an A vs. B narrative that sinks all possibilities of constructive debate and makes the entire atmosphere awkward, bitter and acrimonious for everyone involved.
Does anybody remember Sehwag vs. Dhoni, Shahrukh Khan vs. Aamir Khan, Advani vs. Modi, Mahesh Bhupathi vs. Leander Paes and the latest, Virat Kohli vs. Rohit Sharma.
So much for “Media is the 4th pillar of democracy”. Yeah, right! (read: Ghanta 🔔) At least, show some accountability first.
First published on Medium.
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