Beguiling the Nation
“Objective journalism
is a contradiction in terms”
Hunter S Thompson
Beguiling the nation, which seems to be a policy of the
government, in the age of 24 hour, 7 days a week TV news channels in major and
minor regional languages, plus Hindi and English, is not easy.
Even the illiterate have-nots, the target audience, the
patsy and dupe for the predatory politician, for this discredited government
angling to be re-elected, cannot be fooled out of hand.
Even they, supposedly not bothered about anything large and
beyond their day to day livelihood, want
more than tokenism and promises. Such supposedly disconnected and disinterested
people are also bombarded by a lot of information, and many images and sound
bytes. By sheer exposure to all this, much is absorbed to inform their opinion.
Boasting, as in: I will turn Mumbai or Kolkata into Hong
Kong or London, or transform the economy into untold prosperity, does not work.
The mai-baaps and their
maternal/paternal postures are simply not believed, as the poor wonder just how
rich the politician speaking to them is. And how many of their relatives,
friends and benami buddies are in on the gravy train?
Public Relations practitioners, paid for their image
building strategies, are mining a thinner seam these days. Walking through
shadows, alleys, land-mines of paradox, and lies that contradict other lies,
force them to wear blinkers and be heroic in what they are projecting.
The image maker and his subject need must believe their own
thesis; viz. Congress is the default programme if India were a computer, a kind
of Canadian rocker Brian Adams rip-off.
And trust in paint-it-bright Bharat Nirman advertisements which are mildly psychotic in their
hectic gaiety, their subjects airbrushed to suit the frame.
But where are all these happy people giddy with satisfaction
the government is talking about? Do they exist outside the recording studio?
What we see with our jaundiced eyes is a procession of dysfunctional cheats,
rapists, murderers, frauds, and apologists.
Many, many paid and
compromised apologists, who insist that any other dispensation would be very
much worse. How they know that is a mystery, but one in keeping with projecting
the myth of trading better for worse.
And some of us are made to feel a little ashamed for being
cynics. But the government is experienced and thick-skinned. It thinks its work
is done if it aims its message properly. Rome was not built in a day and
neither was its propaganda. So lay it on thick.
The people are presumed to have been well prepared- their
attitudes induced to serve, like pre-cooked meals or instant noodles. Brainwashed,
ready to heat and eat when it comes to election time and voting behaviour.
But attempt to beguile reality is turning on its conjurer. This
is not the Doordarshan, All India Radio, the limited print media era. Everything came out pseudo-objective,
mandatorily upbeat then, tightly edited, like a police state bulletin on the
health and morals of the dictator.
Yeh sab chalta tha
in that comfortably insular world before globalisation in 1991 let the vendors
and internationals in via the tradesmen’s entrance. But now, there is no u turn
visible. People, the times, the roads, routes and pathways, have all changed
irrevocably.
But you can see the longing for those days within a
mercilessly pilloried government. You see it in clumsy attempts to regulate
internet commentary, websites, blogs and twitter, and even some alternate media
channels on You Tube, and the snooping on friend and foe alike through their
cellphones and GPS.
The idea of licensing journalists, like factories or lifts ,
was also a recently mooted idea. The intent
was probably to suspend the licence if things did not suit, like the moves of a
bad or drunk driver. The present I&B minister, frothing at the mouth with
impressive legalisms, is maybe hoping to seduce favourable reportage via the
recently opened swank media centre in New Delhi.
There are also if-you-can’t-beat-them-then-join-them
ideas, such as buying twitter followers even if they do hail from Istanbul and
Sofia and may not know how to spell Gehlot, or even Gaylord, for the too many
unfamiliar vowels.
Besides, there are soap operas and talk shows and the
occasional bold movie in keeping with the multiplex revolution that also serve
the awareness juggernaut.
But there is no going back or subduing this octopus. As a
former Information and Broadcasting Minister,
Shri Ajit Panja, said at the
start of the satellite TV revolution, that he knew no method to control or indeed
censor satellite broadcasts.
And this was in the days when neither mobile telephony with
its converged internet applications, nor the internet itself, had particularly arrived.
Today, every comment, gaffe, and public rally, is recorded
under the gaze of the news cameras and the highlights are sent over the airwaves
again and again. Talk shows discuss the news of the day. The print and online
media editorialise away . And all of it
is creates a new rumble of up- to- date
awareness. And there are major
changes afoot.
Picture this. Here
are Trinamool Congress goons from the Maoist badlands, wild as troglodytes,
roaming the corridors of air-conditioned malls in Kolkata. Their forest- dwelling eyes are blinking with
equality married to branding and disposable income too. This is the confluence
of revolution and lipstick/deodorant in designer clothes, and it won’t go away.
It is a phenomenon very interesting to observe but probably
worrisome for the party ideologues. It’s all going Maobadi to Market-badi
spontaneously. Are these people, the cadres, angry or hungry for more? Only the
polls can tell.
Who can stop it? Our politicians must deliver on aspiration
and not on potted grievance alone. How can this be done by ignoring development
and growth?
Our populists need to
go to school in China and change their thinking. Learn from modern day Maoists
who have made sure that nothing gets in the way of progress, meaning the
fattening of their billions of wallets. Besides, they are willing to work for
it in good capitalist fashion.
We are too soft here in India, expecting riches by gift
parcel. The new China is consumerist and has earned the money to pay for it.
Nixon knew what he was doing but probably had no idea how well it would all turn
out.
And yet, our government, lusting to be re-elected for the
third time in a row, keeps up its barrage of misinformation. But misinformed we
are not. We know things are bad and whose fault it is. And beguiled we are,
rich and poor, only if we want to be.
(1,101 words)
September 2nd,
2013
Gautam Mukherjee
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