Social paralysis: Is Aamir Khan giving a wake up call?

A new jargon, policy paralysis, has rammed into our vocabulary recently.It denotes the negligenceof the government in taking right steps for revving up the economy. But no one has yet used the term social paralysis to symbolize our society’s slackness in attending to major issues which can be easily overcome.

Journalists, thinkers, activists and rarely politicians have raised them occasionally. Sometimes to follow news and sometimes pre-empting news.

But society’s response to it has been mainly consumerist – use if it lasts and throw when something more exciting surfaces. No wonder many a media experts and communication experts wrote off serious journalism long back. Journalists were forced to believe and say yes to whatever came out from the pundits. That people have too much negativity in their life, people have too much stress and all that readers want is some fun and positivity.
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This meant that the serious journalism which bordered on activism and resolving issues took a back seat. The banal and the trivial continues to dope the readers. Romantic dalliances and sexual exploits of Paris Hilton got more prominence and Maria Sharapova’s shrinking skirts helped us skirt the news on impending doom on many a social frontiers.Who wants Rona Dhona? This was the argument put forward to silence journalistic attempts.

For once I am glad that retro is back, not just in fashion but in being concerned about the world we live in. After his trail blazing Bollywood flicks, he shrunk his scope to fit the small screen through Satyamev Jayate. I don’t claim to be a film expert but as a student of Indian cinema I see a strong parallel in the cinema of Raj Kapoor and Amir Khan. Both have seen legendary success. And both the giants have delved upon social issues in their work, withoutcompromising consumer satisfaction derived from entertainment.

There are voices which rue that Aamir is stealing their thunder in less than one hour and that he gets more eyeballs and mindspace than journalists get after years of toil. This feeling may not be misplaced, but is certainly inappropriate. Aamir is merely showing that a celebrity with sense of social responsibility can sell even dull issues.

It is interesting that Aamir is setting drawing room debates on Sunday afternoons across India. If there is a billboard chart for top new conversation starters, after the perennial favourite weather, it will be his show. It’s the most interesting non-commercial break in the crassly crowded TV soaps and chat shows.

Probably researchers and social scientists would be working overtime to figure out why a celebrity succeeds where many an activists fail.But one doesn’t need to know rocket science to understand that in developing countries people expect much more than trivia from their newspapers, news channels and all other news delivery mechanisms.This is unlike the popular perception that like the West, even our readers are not interested in politics or social issues. This argument may hold true to some extent for developed countries with extremely stable and quality governance.

In such countries, it’s the government and the social welfare systems which do the worrying bit. This leaves people with enough mindspace for other pursuits which developing societies like ours would deem as trivial and luxury. Till our political system is not mature enough, India needs many more Satyamev Jaytes everywhere. I will be only happy if Aamir succeeds in bringing about a change!