The Media(o)cracy

The media revolution, in the late nineties, empowered the people of India with information and facilitated for more transparency in the system, or so I thought. The Mumbai carnage was kind of a revelation to me, though I was aware of incompetence of our politicians (there are exceptions, my regards for them), it was the media that disappointed me.

In terms of coverage of whole Mumbai episode, I must pay my respects to all the reporters who dared bullets and grenades for three days in row. There was excellent news coverage by almost every news channel. But good things stop there!!

First of all, I am frustrated about the way the things are presented. Some channels, presented the ‘sansani khabre’ of the attack as though they were presenting some local crime, with the use of presenters from the ‘midnight crime-reporter’ programmes. I see these trends in a lot of local (regional channels) and some hindi news channels (so much for the national language). Frankly, when I see some hindi channels, I lose interest in that language, which I regarded highly all these years.

The English channels are no exception, the news readers change their body-language, . Is all these necessary?, to get some extra viewership, can’t the news presented in a more professional and sobre manner? In these situations, I really feel the need for a sober newsreader just presenting the facts, with out adding ‘emotional flavour’ to the presentation. The miss the legacy Doordarshan News, though less frequent, seems more authentic in the content.

The most pathetic of all is the remix of news with old Hindi songs, playing patriotic songs during the cremation of a departed soldier. I am not sure whether the terrorists had watch Die Hard movie to plan the operation, but I am definitely convinced that, in order to gain some brownie points, the media is playing to popular emotions, a sad but rather discomforting fact.

I regard media as a positive feed back in the whole democratic process. It plays a critical role in making the ‘system’ of politicians and babus answerable to the people. In an ideal democracy, where India comes close, the media must be critical to the system, but (a big BUT) act according to the nation’s interest. I some how find the Indian media degrading in this respect, with all those sting operations, acting as ‘invitation cards’ for the terrorists. It’s ridiculous that some channels showed some footage of their sting operation, just to prove the lack of security in the Indian coast lines, not to mention another sting operation in Hazrat Nizamuddin, with days of terror attack.

The American media, in contrast, barring some satirical programmes, supported ( if not moderately dissented) the wrong doings of the Iraq and afgan wars.

Some food for thought for the media ‘Don’t sensationalize the news, and don’t evoke people’s emotions. Just present the facts, and the people of India are mature enough to understand the situation’.

The Deja Vu of Terror

The aftermath of any terror attack, in India, and the events following it gives me a feeling of Déjà vu. Everything seems familiar to me, the backlash of the media, the people and the opposition. Though, this time, I found some unity during the first day or two of the attacks in the political community, however, things were back to square one in the ensuing days. The state of horror, during the first day, makes way to a stage of restlessness and expectation (and of course! ‘Unity’), during the next few days, and finally comes a stage of anger over systemic failure from the people and the media together. How many times I have seen it on TV, but the same things keep on repeating over and over again, and still it continues, and I fear, for many more times to come. The only thing that is different in all these terror attacks is how the terrorists are getting better and bolder with every attack, coming up with their own innovative (sorry to use this word, but that is how it is) ways to spread terror.

The Mumbai carnage shocked me, partly because this was no hit and run attack or a fidayeen human bomb attack. It was, in fact, a war brought into one of the most populated cosmopolitan cities of the world. It was beyond my imagination on how a handful of people can take a city siege and bring a country to stand still. The siege went on for two days, and after 190 deaths and injuries to many more, the situation was taken under ‘control’ and life resumed its normality from Monday.

I was watching one of the news channels on the ensuing days, and after many interviews with the celebrities and after many debates later, the media thought fit to go to the people who suffer the most, the ‘aam janta’ (common public). One question, from a person, inspired me to write this article. He asked, ‘What were these politicians doing when they knew that attack was coming?’. How ironic it is? Isn’t it? Don’t we know what these politicians were doing when these terrorists were planning and training for their attacks?

I would like every Indian to remember the events, for past few months, following upto the terrorists attacks. When the terrorists were planning their moves, doing recce mission to India, we were busy ‘protecting our cultures’ by driving out ‘alien people’ just because they were earning their livelihood in Mumbai. Every politician of maharastra, from Raj Thackeray, to the chief minister was busy playing vote bank politics to get some extra political mileage from the riots.

How can we blame terrorists for spreading carnage? They were just doing their jobs (sorry for being blunt). I think our politicians should take the blame, for indulging in their petty politics, for having utter disregard for the lives of people, be it the lives 200 people or the lives of our brave Army men. We don’t require these events to tell us that our Army men are brave and be proud of them after their death!!! I am not calling for the politicians to take moral responsibility and resign, I request them to take responsibility of guarding the integrity and unity of what we call India, and rise above their parochial ways of vote bank politics.