A Banal Public Sphere?

The language of rights as the source of individual empowerment, if not entitlement, and the value of equality and justice as spheres of opportunity to realise empowerment, among other things, form the basic assumption on which the liberal government stands. Such language and value premises, such as equality and justice, therefore become operational through policy formation and its implementation. It becomes the constitutional as well as moral responsibility of the gov­ernment to protect the rights of people and provide adequate opportunity for the realisation of equality and justice. Similarly, it also becomes the responsibility of the people to hold the government responsible should it fail in its responsibility. A country requires a vigilant public sphere to establish a critical standpoint for the government, which is likely to deviate from its basic responsibilities.

However, in the given situation, the way the public sphere is unfolding, we cannot say with confidence that the Indian public sphere is reasonably vigilant. Ironically, it is producing destructive vibrations through superficial public imagination and destructive vibrations that can be experienced through cacophony, which is continuously produced by a large section of “social media.”