To Deny Our Nothingness: A Response to Contemporary Images of India in
the Media.
Readers will look askance at my
temerity to write this article- a daring attempt to release India from the
current humiliating images that the media- in particular, the electronic media -had
assiduously created in the last couple of years. While the ostensible whipping
boy is the Congress, followed by politicians of all hues, the images flashed on
our screens are only about us, We, the Indians.
One cannot miss the
overt glee in the news anchors’ almost daily litany that they have accessed new
CAG reports on one scam or the other causing a loss of many lakh crores of
rupees to the exchequer that would make all the preceding losses seem trifler
than a peanut. Almost every Channel (barring the Government owned Doordarshan) loudly
trumpets its claim for being the first to break the scam news. Indian media
seems not only ubiquitous; its detective wing outperforms the investigations of
the celebrated trio in CID- (the
longest running crime detective series on Sony TV Channel), Pradhuyman, Abhijeet
and Daya. Nobody seems to wonder (and
worry) how Media gets access to reports right under the nose of the CAG before
they are tabled in the Parliament? Why such leakages- and that too- from the
office of the chief Auditor of India go undetected and those who perpetrate
them go scot free? Are there no CID
stars in the Government to look into this open secret of quotidian leakage? No
one dares to question whether it is ethical for the media to red flag reports in
advance that are primarily the parliament’s privileged documents. Today’s Media
has appropriated to itself the roles of CAG, CVC, CBI and the Judiciary to go
hammer and tongs at all the dramatis personae of its daily soap opera SCAM. But
the truth is it cannot claim credit for exposing the scams as that belongs to
the CAG. Media’s scam news is by no stretch of imagination investigative
journalism. It is intrusive journalism- intruding into Government offices and
using underhand means to get the reports leaked to the Media.
The term ‘scam’ is
misleading as CAG reports cannot be called scams until they are examined and
accepted by the PAC after it is tabled in the Parliament. CAG assists the
committee during the course of investigation. None of the 22 members of the PAC
is a minister in the government and conventionally PAC is headed by a member
belonging to the opposition party. The
reports become scams once the findings of the CAG are endorsed by the PAC and
recommended for criminal investigation. The Media clearly jumps the gun when it
flashes in the Breaking News that another scam has broken. The old adage that
no one is pronounced guilty unless s/he is proved to be so, is now reversed as
the Media pronounces person(s) guilty till the ‘guilty’ prove their innocence. The
media ups the ante on alleged scams to the extent that India has come to be
seen as one huge cauldron of corruption. The government remains paralyzed as
all its efforts are towards countering the damning propaganda that goes on in
the Media. This is neither to question
the CAG reports –whether they are absolutely true or had erred on the side of
exaggeration- nor to question the need for Government to prove its
accountability. Media’s responsibility is to make public the outcome of
Government’s response to the PAC and to the Parliament but not to be
judgmental, leave aside jumping the gun to allege that Government is a
monstrous scamster.
For
the last two years this theatre of decadence has been on our news channels.
Behind rampant ethical correctness, the media has launched a blitzkrieg against
Indian government, politicians and businessmen alleging corruption here, there,
everywhere except in its sacred space. First it was the run up to the CWG games
that was marred by rains, dengue, delay, corruption, dug up
roads, dirt and filth strewn all over the city. The foreign press taking the
cue from the Indian media wrote off the CWG citing Indian inefficiency to host
a major sporting event. The dirty pictures flashed on the BBC website were
gleefully reprinted by the Indian media to show that India lives only in her toilets.
No one questioned whether this filthy reporting was the erstwhile Empire’s way
of striking back! For nearly six weeks we ground our noses in muck and filth
and looked gleefully at CWG as Corruption Wealth Games played in a Hall of
Shame. Passively we accepted the sobriquet ‘corrupt’ for ourselves and painted
our shame in all its stains! India
stinking had reached incredible proportion.
It was left to our athletes to lift India stinking into India
shining during the CWG games. But even before the victory bugle sounded the
Last Post, the First Post was heard to mark the start of the investigations.
The euphoria of a nation’s sporting success did not last even 24 hours as
reports about Games scam to the staggering sum of Rs.8000 crores started coming
in. India shaming eclipsed India’s momentary hours of shining. Media went
berserk with the scam story to make a Kalmadi out of every Indian.
The 2G scam was the next that dragged the UPAII into deep mire
with the Media relishing the scam story to make a Raja out of both the PM and
the then FM- Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr. Chidambaram as the co-architects of the
spectrum allocations scam. The discussions ad nauseam in the TV studio painted
the entire UPAII as corrupt, in particular Mr.Chidambaram, till the Supreme
Court gave him a clean chit. Enough mudslinging had taken place inside the TV
studios and in the print media to leave Chidambaram wonder if the great Indian Ocean can wash this alleged stain off his hands? Anna came and Media raised the furore beyond perceived noise
decibels to tar all the PM’s men with the same brush. The Adarsh scam-milder in
comparison -was followed by the Coalgate that came as a relief for the Media suffering
a brief scam-free interregnum. The Media gleefully latched onto the leaked CAG reports
to affirm that Indian government is for the swindlers, by the swindlers and of
the swindlers. The news is coming in that the media has accessed yet another
scam report by the CAG on the Indian multi-national Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation.
Is this the whole truth about We, the Indians? Media says that as a watchdog, its duty is to
expose. But this is not exposition as that is the work of the CAG. Media preens
itself with the prosecutor’s robe and comes out displaying leaked papers with
fluorescent marking of the alleged misdeeds of the Government. The bias in
reporting is too authentic not to be missed. Every scam becomes ‘the mother of
all scams’ (I do not know why the feminists are not up in arms) and the present
government headed by an honest PM and consisting of quite a few men of known
integrity is dubbed as the government of scamsters. For the media, this is the
truth and nothing but the truth. But as far as it is concerned, it is above
board, even if it makes moles out of the government employees with cakes and
ale. Can the media honestly own that the fourth estate is absolutely honest and
all such ‘scams’ are not paid news and bought news!
The truth is corruption
is not just a UPAII phenomenon. It is a global phenomenon that has ballooned up
with crony capitalism. It is there in all walks of life. Even the mosquito
sprayer who visits your house waits for a wad of notes before issuing a chalan
that your house is the breeding place for mosquitoes. It is not a UPAII
phenomenon; it was there during the NDA regime and very much before that. What
is new is the electronic eye that with the sanctioned democratic latitude can see
wolves everywhere with absolute impunity. Media has become the Big Brother
where everyone is under its complete surveillance abusing
the freedom of expression to malign everyone in the establishment. An eerie
atmosphere of fear and angst pervades the government and the bureaucracy
resulting in inordinate delays to formulate and implement policies without inviting
the Big Brother’s bash. The current scenario is ‘if you do, you are damned; if
you don’t do, you are paralyzed’. The 1990s had seen bold steps taken by
Manmohan Singh to liberate economy when the Big brother had not become too big
for his boots. Not that there was no corruption then, but the BB chose to turn
the Nelson’s eye in the larger interest of freeing the moribund economy from
the clutches of Permit-license Raj. The government was then not hamstrung by coalition
compulsions and could go ahead with its reforms. No such luxury is available to
Manmohan Singh today and the government has been stopped from accelerating the
gains of the last decade. The UPA government of the last eight years is credited
with bringing in major reforms like the RTI and RTE. But it could not push through other reforms
such as FDI in retail, insurance, aviation etc, GST,GARR etc partly due to
coalition compulsion and largely due to the opposition not allowing the
Parliament to function. The Coalgate has recently paralyzed the Parliament but the
Media by trial goes on where media functions within the precincts of the TV
studios as the defacto opposition part. The truth is one Kalamadi or one Rajah
does not make the entire cabinet. No doubt, the summer of discontent of 2010-12
is too true to be washed away. But Media has revelled in presenting a theatre
of the Absurd that has made every Indian ashamed of his lineage and democratic
inheritance. As a citizen of India, I feel angst and humiliation when newspapers
and the electronic media in the name of freedom of expression indulge in
vilification of the state without any sense of proportion. For all their self
righteous talk that ‘no one shall rein us, we will ourselves rein in,’ the
anti-establishment tirade the media resorts to make me wonder if we are
deceptive recipients of paid news.
We have also seen how Indian Media felt
highly vindicated when the NYT and Washington Post joined the media chorus in
flaying the PM as an underachiever and a tragic figure. The irony is that the
Media does not understand the meaning of Tragedy. Tragedy is defined as a
colossal waste of the human potential. The tragic figure at the end rises up in
the esteem of the audience when against all tragic catastrophes, he walks high,
morally and spiritually triumphant. If Manmohan Singh is a tragic figure, let
us salute him. Time will tell who were responsible in hampering the PM from his
honest efforts to deny us, Indians, our
nothingness and the role of media in denying us our dignity and worth as
democratic citizens of India.
is
