Give the People Circuses if You Can’t Give Them Bread — Justice Markandey Katju’s Sharp Critique of Media Distractions

Bihar Elections and Cricket — Distractions from India’s Harsh Realities

• Media’s Role in Diverting the Public Mind
• The Real Issues India Must Confront
• Jungle Raj and the Crisis of Governance in Bihar

Justice Markandey Katju critiques India’s obsession with elections and cricket, calling them “circuses” meant to divert attention from poverty, unemployment, and social injustice. He warns that real national progress lies in addressing these core issues, not in celebrating superficial spectacles.

Give the people circuses if you can't give them bread

By Justice Markandey Katju

Of late, two topics have been prominent in the Indian media, and are being widely discussed--the Bihar elections, and the Indian women's cricket team victory in the World Cup tournament.

To my mind both these topics are intended to divert people's attention away from India's real issues-- widespread, grinding poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition (every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index), almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, over 400,000 farmers' suicides, oppression and discrimination against women, minorities and dalits, etc.

In my opinion, we should keep our minds focused on these socio-economic problems and think of ways of resolving them, as mentioned in the articles below, instead of allowing our attention to shift to other issues :

The Bihar elections and the women's cricket tournament totally diverted our people's attention from the abovementioned issues.

I have said in my interview to journalist Neelu Vyas that whether there is vote theft or not, and whether Nitish Kumar or Tejaswi Yadav becomes the next Chief Minister of Bihar. are wholly irrelevant issues, as they will not affect the miserable lives of most Biharis who are poor
In fact, I believe that jungle raj is coming in Bihar after this election.

As for the Indian women's cricket team winning the World Cup, I see no reason to celebrate.

I regard cricket as one of the opiums of the Indian masses, the others being religion, politics ( which has gone down to the lowest level in India ), Bollywood and the lives of film stars, the media, astrology, etc. Evidently, one opium is not enough to keep the Indian masses in a state of intoxication, so several are required.

The Roman Emperors used to say, " If you cannot give the people bread, give them circuses ". The Indian establishment say,s " If you cannot give the people bread, give them cricket, bollywood, the media, religion, astrology, etc "

The real problems in India are socio-economic, as mentioned above.

Cricket and the other opiums mentioned above divert the attention of our people from these real issues, and attempt to depict non-issues like winning a cricket tournament as the real issue.

So the real issue before the Indian people is not how to abolish poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare, etc. The real issue is that the Indian women's cricket team has won the World Cup

So celebrate the Indian women's cricket team's victory in the World Cup tournament as much as you like, but don't expect me to join you in this charade and pantomime. Such celebrations are an insult to the poor people in India, who constitute 75-80% of our population, as they divert attention from their real problems, and I refuse to insult my people.  

(Justice Katju is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. These are his personal views.)