Mahadeep Singh Jamwal
There is nothing wrong with intellectual differences flowing from freedom of thought as long as such differences remain confined to intellectual debates. Debates on major TV channels have become a regular feature where they want to show off their debating expertise even if the topics don’t merit a healthy debate. Night after night the same participants and hosts pit their wit against each other.
How much better it would be to have more hard hitting discussions between an environmentalist and an urban planner, or a pro- growth economist and socialist, or a whistleblower and the institution. Instead we have regular shouting matches between 4-5 politically linked persons.
‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very little debate within that spectrum’ -Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. In today’s status, classic media is working to adapt to a world in which digital content is increasingly a primary authority of advice for commoners.
The debates on TV channels needed to be conducted with the very objective to enlighten the audience about mindset of certain subjects of public importance in an intelligible/clear way to calm down the tickling from the public domain. Debate has been for long revered as one of the greatest forms of institutions.
In real context the debates if positive and meaningful, enrich the viewers to structure and organize thoughts, as to improve viewer’s ability to form balanced, informed arguments and to use reasoning and evidence, confidence, and gaining broad, multi-faceted knowledge cutting across several disciplines. Debates empower citizens with greater knowledge that prepare the citizens to more effectively participate in the democratic process.
They provide a platform to find out intensive analysis of significant contemporary problems. But the trend of managing ‘political debates’ on a daily basis by some TV channels is nothing more than rowdies gathering.
The panelists invited to the debates as spokes persons of political parties just project the flashy picture of their parties and accuse others. But, what we yield from the much hyped debate shows now-a-days, is the filthy use of language, unwarranted remarks, calling names to one another, mud-slinging, hardliners projecting their ideology, vilification, spitting venom on the social culture of democracy and hot words to downgrade one another and sometimes slapping also and nothing positive that make us proud in viewing these frivolous nonsense.
The defining of word ‘Debate’ and the spoken words by the participants on TV channels require redefining in perspective of the quality of debates being carried on by some national private channels that are wrangling in ruckus, altercation, dissension, quarrelling, controversy, and mud-slinging; that is thrown in the public domain now-a-days in number of debates that we are regularly witnessing on variety of channels.
The other aspect of the present trend of debates is the way they are conducted by the anchors. The basic and only role of this linkage in debate is regulatory in nature, to act as a neutral participant in a debate or discussion, to hold participants to time slots and to keep them from rerating away from the topic of the debate and questions being raised in the debate and to ensure the debate moves at pace.
Barring some extra fine anchors, they adventure themselves as the only wised up, perspicacious, qualified and only available intelligentsia fully loaded with all knowledge of the world. The view projection of the participants is dubbed and his right to air his opinion on the subject matter is snatched by the anchors in a very ticklish manner by switching over to another panelist, and thus favoring the participant of a particular political party, whose face is represented by the channel.
The maximum of the time is consumed by anchoring himself to advocate his superiority on the subject in discussion. Sometimes the debates appear to be a scripted drama and the anchor plays a hero in it. A co-founder and Executive Co-Chairperson of a famous channel has expressed a deep concern and asked why ‘every news anchor wants to be Bill O’ Reilly (the host of a show that focuses on political commentary called The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News). The intensity of the Television Rating Point (TRP) driven war is mostly responsible for lowering standards of debate shows. Perhaps the most prominent role of anchors in political debates, that has become a common feature of TV channels, is to have complete control over which questions to be debated as the agenda of political spokesperson on such occasions always carries two aspects; one to project his party as only savior of humanity, only available option to public to adhere to the ideology and policies of his party and other aspect is to expose the other party in a way as its own party is as pure as water of Ganga. The viewer’s fraternity has viewed the ugly fight between the two panelists on live TV. Some ethics supposed to be followed by the participants of the debate such as; be respectful to the viewers, be moderate in speech and behavior, refrain from creating disturbance to other on the panel, take responsibility for personal behavior, speech and actions, and practice active listening when other panelist is speaking and try to understand his view point for rebuttal with your views, make ideas and feelings known without disrespecting others, but we find all these ethics missing from the participants in the present standards of debate. Concluding it becomes more distressing when we find anti-nationals, pro-separatists, Pakistanis both from army and political fraternity on the debate as panelists having only agenda to call names to India and its country men and Indian panelist’s being badly rebuked by them, just giggle before them and they even do not lack behind to rebuke the anchors, who become helpless and unable to do anything except shouting and warning shots, a futile exercise.
The standard of our political representation as panelists on debates is so low that they go to the extent of condemning our freedom fighters, brave soldiers’ role in defense of the country, and even those occupying constitutional posts, and indulge in stripping only one another.
Under the existing scenario it is not out of context to say that the debates on TV now-a-days are useless, meaningless and below the dignity of the discussion in context of its present form both by panelists as well as by the anchor.