KAILASH SATYARTHI, I never had heard of this name until very recently when the name featured with famous Malala Yousufzai for Nobel peace prize winners. I knew from media of course how brave a girl is she for her age, how she has transformed many a lives of girls who would have never even dreamt of seeing themselves in Schools, how she fought death and took it in her stride to fight for the cause of girl education. Media you see, makes us all knowing (pun intended).
I knew though of this andolan called, Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Yes I had used it as a reference in one of my presentations in my UG class regarding child labor. I only came to know of the person behind the Andolan when the news flashed that Kailash Satyarthi along with Malala are the winners of the Nobel peace prize winners for their struggle for child welfare.
So why hadn’t I heard of this man who had left his job of an electrical engineer and dedicated himself to serve the society, most of the times also a threat to his life. I shamefully asked myself, is it really my fault that I don’t know about the man who is been there since years doing his best to bring a change in the society we all otherwise don’t want to talk about or is it the media who I depend on for all my information. Did I ignore him when the media showed his revolutionary work on TV, in news articles or had the media itself been ignoring him?
On surfing the WebPages I came to realize that it is not only me but there are thousand others like me who had no idea whatsoever who this man who has just won a Nobel Prize. So I tried giving myself this satisfaction that, okay, I am not the only one, there are thousand others. It is actually media’s fault. Media did not report him. Media did not entertain him. Media chose to think otherwise. It is all media’s fault.
Is Kailash Satyarthi the only famous someone who media had turned a blind eye towards? No, he isn’t. There shall be thousand stories of bravery, like that of Malala which would have gone unreported, they would be thousand others like Kailash Satyarthi who would have left their satisfactory jobs to serve the country in their own special ways.
Why is it that in world’s largest democracy whenever a person is shown as a standout from the rest in media the very first thing we as audience think of is paid media? Why are news stories sponsored in our country? We as responsible citizens- audiences need to raise a question over what is being fed to go through that TV screen, through that newspaper page. We ought to chose what we see, what we believe.
As far as Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mr. Kailash Satyarthi is concerned, the question is has media been bias towards this man, towards his efforts, towards his thinking! Kailash,Satyarthi, now Nobel peace prize winner has till now freed over 800000 children from child labor. Had the number been much more than what it is right now if he had been a much more known figure, which he in fact is right now?
P.S Bachpan Bachao Andolan was formed in 1980 by Kailash Satyarthi. The organization works towards freeing children involved in child labor. Do bother to Google the name.
