Promoting non-issues

A little while ago, I was discussing with one of my friends regarding the sequence of incidents when the Shiv Sena and its allies in Maharashtra sought a ban on actor Shah Rukh Khan's movie "My Name Is Khan" over some remarks by the latter on India-Pakistan relations. My strong feeling is that the whole thing was stage-managed to promote the film. This brings me to the present spectre of promoting non-issues.

Around the same time, there was this issue of Chetan Bhagat demanding due credits for his book in the film "3 Idiots". His main grouse was that parts of the film were taken ditto from incidents in his book. If some law had been violated, he could have approached a court of law without raising a hue and cry. Again, I strongly feel that this issue was hyped up so that his book could ride piggyback on the success of the film. 

What are the standard tactics to promote non-entities? Get them into the thick of a controversy. Generate a debate with sparks flying all around. If possible, inflict damage to the the physical and the mental. This way, a general curiosity will be raised in the public mind. The concerned book or film or media element will pick up in popularity and sales. The owners of the media element will laugh all the way to the bank.

This is just one of the ways of promoting non-issues. There are a number of other ways to do it also. Most of the controversies that do not concern the general publics' welfare and are sleazy by nature are also artificially created and stage-managed. 

The sad part of the whole story is that We, the Gullible, repeatedly fall prey to these tactics. We don't even seem to think what might be the motives of the concerned parties and who might be reaping the benefits of this controversy. For us, all of this is entertainment value. We are happy as long as our base nature is being satisfied. There is no question of us thinking a little over the matter and asking ourselves whether all of this is really necessary.

But, in attending to these non-issues, we seldom bother about the issues that are really confronting us and need immediate attention. We are far from being a perfect society or nation. Pressing problems need prior attention; deep-seated wounds need drastic measures. We need to work hard on all of these, instead of deriving entertainment value from these and other kinds of non-issues.