Of Didi, Modi and Zardari

Channel surfer

By

Randeep Wadehra

Pakistan President Zardari’s visit was news television’s major faux-event last fortnight. Nobody in the media, including the World View’s (CNN-IBN) panelists, was sure about the visit’s political or geostrategic utility. Various news channels focused on one issue: Hafiz Syed, as if his arrest would resolve all Indo-Pak disputes. It is really amazing how our news TV presents quasi-issues as core issues.

How yesterday’s rebels become today’s tyrants! News TV was awash with Mamata Bannerjee’s “bizarre” diktat that TMC workers should avoid marital alliances with CPM workers – are we witnessing the rise of neo supremacist/exclusivist ideology? Earlier, the Didi Cartoon Episode featured battering and arrest of a Jadavpur University Don for privately circulating a caricature, which was discussed on News Hour (Times Now). One always thought cartoons were a mature polity’s symbol. Remember Nehru’s message to Kesava Shankara Pillai, the father of Indian political cartoon, “Don’t spare me, Shankar”; but today’s politicians are regressing into juvenile intolerance.

 

Rajdeep Sardesai’s interview with Shekhar Gupta (CNN-IBN) was absorbing for its cuts and thrusts. While responding to Rajdeep’s charge that his newspaper had acted as the “Establishment’s” surrogate by front-paging the army units’ movements Shekhar looked uncomfortable; his assertion that the paper felt duty bound to bring the said information into public domain was can’t be gainsaid; but, perhaps, there was room for editorial discretion? Meanwhile, on Insight (Lok Sabha TV) Major General Ashok Mehta asserted that, for fear of corruption charges, neither middlemen can be eliminated nor defence preparedness compromised; the priorities should be right.

Has Modi become politically stronger within the BJP? The Buck Stops Here (NDTV 24X7) evaluated Modi’s political status after the recent court verdict, and the SIT’s clean chit to him. While it is true that Modi is the current Mr. Invincible in Gujarat politics, he has yet to acquire a national level status of substance. Our TV channels’ constant focus on him goes contrary to the media’s supposed distaste for politics of intolerance. One would rather see the hitherto spasmodic attempts at reconciliation being given the much needed boost through meaningful TV debates/talk shows.

Just when the Russian built Koodunkulam nuclear power plant was being primed for generating the much needed electric power the anti-nuclear lobby got into protest mode. When Sri Lanka’s Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka lodged a protest with the IAEA – dubbing the plant as a threat to the island nation – News Hour telecast a full-fledged debate, which eventually deteriorated into trading motives and innuendoes that barely fell short of insults. We were informed that Sri Lanka was retaliating against India’s anti-Sri Lanka vote in the UN. There was also a suggestion that China was behind Sri Lanka’s move. Nevertheless, if the anti-nuclear lobbyist was vociferous in opposing the very existence of the “dangerous” plant the pro-nuclear debater described it as one of the safest in the world – far safer than the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear plants that were cited as prime argument against the Koodunkulam nuclear plant; mercifully the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown was not cited. But little was added to one’s knowledge except that there’s a Bannerjee Report that’s being kept under wraps.

Published in The Tribune dated April 29, 2012