Breaking Fast

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/breaking-fast/773642/0

So Indian TV watched Egypt, and decided Al Jazeera led a revolution, and wanted one for themselves. Meanwhile, the World Cup ended; the IPL had not yet started; nobody wrote a book this week attacking a national idol; but, fortuitously, a Gandhian activist was fasting in Delhi for relatively abstruse changes to draft legislation. Excellent, they exclaimed! We’ll televise a revolution, even if there isn’t one. As Sagarika Ghose on CNN-IBN asked: “Is Jantar Mantar going to become Tahrir Square?” before mumbling “...as someone has asked,” showing impressive self-deprecation in not naming herself.

Look, TV channels are entitled to run whatever stories they want, even try to appropriate “movements”, as in “Citizens against Corruption — a CNN-IBN campaign.” It is far from certain, though, when they cross the line between chasing a story and finding one where there isn’t even a hint of it. Do a few hundred people in Jantar Mantar qualify as a revolution? In fact, anywhere, do we get a real sense of what the people-to-TV camera ratio is there? The pictures don’t deceive. But correspondents and anchors reaching for words to describe a moment they want to create come perilously close to doing so. IBN’s round-up was particularly worrying: Pallavi Ghosh informed us that “an Anna wave has swept the nation,” although the shots accompanying this were of the same few dozen at Jantar Mantar. Priyanka Gupta, in Kolkata, tried to claim a dozen people on Park Street were a lot for a city where a protest against out-of-tune Rabindrasangeet could get three lakh to the Maidan. Raksha Shetty in Mumbai stood next to a photogenic little group of well-heeled youngsters that she informed us was a crowd.

Arnab Goswami, on Times Now, pre-emptively struck against this allegation. He attacked an unsympathetic journalist on his show for implying that this was “just some television show going on.” Of course not, some superbly heeled young chap from Mumbai agreed: “This is not a media revolution... I am not a fool, I am an MBA graduate. I have left my posh job at an MNC to join this revolution. You can test my intelligence any way you want. I can tell you, this is a revolution of the people.” Please, nobody hire him for a marketing job.

Which brings us to the crass classism that has coloured TV’s debate and reporting. A random, superlatively heeled type in a Gandhi topi informed us on Times Now’s News-hour, angrily, that “these people are not like people at a political rally. They’re actually educated people, taking out their time.” Yes, agreed someone named Bharat Dabolkar, apparently a very busy actor: “Lots of professionals adjusted their daily schedule.” My, my, the revolution is totally upon us.

Newshour’s host seized upon this. “The groundswell is there!” he declaimed to the Nation. “This is spontaneous!” (Spontaneous = following appeals from a dozen news channels.) “These are not people turning up for 50 rupees and a bottle of liquor!”

The comfortable, contemptuous, self-congratulatory middle-classness of the coverage and TV’s chosen representatives of the protests were truly depressing. Meghnad Desai to Sardesai, shouting over chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” at Jantar Mantar: “The quality of our MPs is very low.” Right, perhaps we need a few peers, my lord. A panelist on Times Now, differentiating these rallies from others: “We pay taxes, it’s our money.” Chetan Bhagat, who otherwise managed to actually raise the quality of every debate he was in, and he was in them all, said one of the bills was like a “rubber stamp that you get at the airport”, inadvertently revealing that he lived the sort of life where you never saw rubber stamps except at airports. Swapan Dasgupta wryly declared that the crowd was diverse, “from all sections of the middle class.”

Neutrality, of course, was dumped by Times Now long ago, but CNN-IBN seemed to have decided to Times Now-ify itself, too, with Sagarika Ghose asking people to “fight”, and asking Anupam Kher, “Will you leave your comfortable life and sit with Anna?” (Kher replied, “People have to speak up”, which is certainly true on IBN, if you want to be heard above the anchors.) Ghose then asked Barun Mitra: “Why should you cast aspersions on the people’s movement?” Because you invited him on your show to do so, ma’am.

Really, if TV says so, it must be a revolution. All we need is Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Wait! Breaking news! Talat Aziz is reciting poetry on Times Now! Yes! It’s Faiz! The revolution is here!

Until the IPL, of course.

When the media gets hold of a cause

By Sreelatha Menon Lok Pal may be the first step towards the formation of new institutions, as the old ones get ineffective Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi April 10, 2011, 0:57 IST http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sreelatha-menon-whenmedia-gets-holda-cause/431642/ Recently, Pappu Yadav, former member of parliament, went on a fast-unto-death in a Patna jail to show support for Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption. Yadav, who faces murder charges, demanded that corruption be weeded out of society. Also Read Related Stories News Now - Realty, Auto weighs on the market - Banana fibre paper for lasting currency notes - LG India unit sees revenue up 25% in 2011, 2012 - Sun Pharma up 3% on tie up with Merck & Co - Industrial output growth slows to 3.6% in February More The case of television channels vying with each other to support the “people’s movement” against corruption is also similar to Yadav’s impulse to show support for a cause. Incidentally, the media did not lose a wink of sleep when Lepchas were fasting in Sikkim against the taking over of their sacred valley and rivers by the government-aided private companies to build hydroelectric plants. Later, the courts thwarted this without much assistance of the media. The media did not lose sleep when last month between March 11 and March 16 in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh’s Koya commandos, the Central Reserve Police Force and CoBRA battalions burnt more than 300 houses, raped five adivasi women and killed five men in Timapuram, Morpalli and Tarmetla villages of Dantewada, accusing them of being Naxalites (even Naxals don’t deserve to be raped and killed). It also never raised the plight of missing persons in Kashmir whose court cases are stuck in the home ministry for want of permission to proceed against officers. Anyway, with or without the patronage of the media, the masses are angry with politicians and sooner or later they would get wise enough to get angry with the media too, for taking a stand only when it suits them. Meanwhile, the achievements of the people who backed Hazare have been substantial. They have got a gazette notifying a joint committee, including people’s representatives to draft a Bill against corruption. Also, the Bill once passed, would guarantee quick action against the corrupt. People have embraced these remedies following a total loss of faith in the governance system, comprising elected people and selected bureaucrats. While there is no guarantee that vested interests won’t creep into these joint committees, there is an advantage in the presence of activists who have an expertise in the law of a particular subject. For instance, the seed bill now in Parliament, if drafted in partnership with farmer groups would have provided an outcome that would have helped the farmers rather than the seed industry, as it is feared to do now. What the Lok Pal promises is a short cut to justice. For public servants (such as the government employees, judges, armed forces, and members of Parliament) can also be prosecuted for corruption under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. However, these require the investigating agency (such as the CBI) to get prior sanction of the central or state government before it can initiate the prosecution process. Lawyers wonder if an all-powerful Lok Pal would endanger democracy. For instance, now the judiciary and legislature keep a check on each other, but once the Lok Pal comes with powers to try government members and judges, it would be putting too many powers in one basket. Says lawyer Sanjay Parikh: A system has to be in place to ensure that the cure does not become worse than the disease. Also, the Lok Pal cannot break the nexus between the government and the private sector and restore the trust of the people. However, an ombudsman like God, is an attractive idea and as decades would go by, there may exist one for each sector, for example for real estate (drafted by home dwellers rather than the real estate companies), one for educational institutions, one for health institutions, one for labour rights, etc. The lesson to be learnt is that new institutions would replace the old, if the latter don’t prove effective and accessible to the people.

Hazare meets a wet blanket

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hazare-meets-a-wet-blanket/H1-Article1-683304.aspx?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4da139a29d8f6745%2C0

by Shiv Viswanathan

Sociology as a vocation is often depressing. The ideas and theories one proposes go against the conventional grain. The recent events around Anna Hazare put me in that mood. The media are acclaiming the movement. TV commentators in particular have gone ecstatic with a ringside seat to revolution. Words like 'Ground zero' and comparisons with the recent demands for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia give India a feeling of global togetherness. Yet the more I watch it, the more puzzled I feel. Spontaneously, I am all with its demands. But sociologically I feel something does not make sense. What we are watching is a sociological simulacra, an imitation of a social movement that looks more authentic than the original.

The recent scams, the epidemics of scandals have left middle-class India tongue-tied. What is worse is that there seems to be no mechanisms either for outlining the truth or bringing the criminals to justice. Our institutional systems seem too slow or appear to be in the hands of corrupt politicians. Reform becomes an invitation for oxymorons. Politics seems to be a desert between India's achievements in sport and India's capability in technology. Our democracy seems to be emptying out in our ability to handle corruption.

Enter Anna Hazare, an old-style Gandhian. An ex-army havaldar who has introduced social reform in his village combating alcoholism and advocating drip irrigation. He is a Gandhian who believes in development and has the Magsaysay award to prove it. Hazare, who has been around on the fringes of the development debate, becomes an archetypal Gandhian. He decides to fast unto death if the Lokpal Bill is not passed.

The prefix 'Gandhian' always intrigued me. The word is used loosely. Even scholars who study Gandhi call themselves Gandhian. People influenced by Gandhi, involved in politics or social work, dub themselves Gandhian. All they imply is an ascetic life and an honest character. The complexity, the diversity, the chaotic nature of the Gandhian experiment is a distant memory. These Gandhians are simplified versions of the original. But the simplification is crucial. They are easy to grasp. They have a single-point value. Their morality is unquestionable, their social work visible; they become vectors of a middle-class dream.

Their message is simple: a fast unto death until the Lokpal Bill is passed. In four days, the fast is termed 'the second war of Independence'. People are galvanised and the media see in Hazare the makings of the second JP movement. Oddly there is little memory here.

The styles of politics are so different. JP worked with -isms and parties and fought both authoritarianism and corruption. Hazare's movement is anti-politician. His movement refuses to let any politician grab presence on the dais. Uma Bharati had to beat a hurried exit. The movement seems to be anti-politically political. Yet it encourages visitors from Anupam Kher to Meghnad Desai, who turns press conferences into quick tutorials. It is almost as if the movement originates on Page 3 with approval ratings from fashion designers, movie directors and the city glitterati.

There's a wonderful middle classness to it. Professionals drift to it; housewives, students, young professionals, a coterie of NGOs provide the voices for it. Although it's a mix of generations, there is a preponderance of youth. It almost appears a part of the new demographic dividend, a more youthful idea of politics. It conveys the right mix of professionalism, lifestyle and a need for a deep sense of integrity.

There is almost no sense of the usual agitations, with the violence of lathi-charges or arrests. This demonstration seems different. Politicians from Sonia Gandhi to Narendra Modi approve of it and the BJP and the CPI(M) express support. Yet to those who have watched Nav Nirman, or the Emergency campaigns, this one doesn't look like a movement. It's more like a happening.

The candlelight rituals publicised by Aamir Khan's movie and the Jessica Lall campaign also provide a difference in style. The excitement is high. An India proud of its democracy pans its politicians. There is something surreal about the amiability, the bonhomie. Even the answers sound like something from a market survey, endorsing Hazare like a brand name. He could have been a piece of toothpaste or a pair of shoes.

The space within which it is enacted seems magical. It is carnival time but it reverses no categories. It does not threaten the regime, triggers no violence. It's almost playful as a spectacle. It appeals to a whole beyond parties, claiming a politics outside politics. It is an invitation to a temporary utopia where actors enact new rituals of hope, new possibilities of empowerment.

The closest I can get to it is to say that it reminds me of the great millennial movements. These were usually led by prophets and these Christ-like figures promised a new reign of prosperity. The Anna Hazare movement as the Second Independence movement has shades of milleniality with those joining caught in an ecstasy of empowerment. The Millenialists felt bullets could not harm them and here protestors feel that authority can't touch them. They feel they are at the roots of law, creating law for a new era.

As a simulacrum, it seeks a different code of revolution through reform, of realism through innocence, by legislation through tantrums, appropriating Gandhian idioms. It seeks to create history without a sense of history, forcing global affinities where there are none. One meets it with a sense of celebration and doubt because standard categories do not quite capture the nature of this happening.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist. The views expressed by the author are personal.

The Jagran At Jantar Mantar

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?271279

So we had a Gandhian morphed into an advocate of Sindoor and Shivaji, who led a crowd that raised a slogan created in Bengal, with some desh bhakti songs thrown in. This was India’s modern revolution?

Saba Naqvi

Anna Hazare is a good man. After taking part in the spectacle at Jantar Mantar for three days I have concluded that he is a good man who obviously believes in the glory of Bharat Mata under whose giant depiction the famous fast took place. Bharat Mata and nationalism are sentiments that apparently make for an upright citizenry. My brain unfortunately has been warped by reading too much of George Orwell. In a thought provoking essay titled Notes on Nationalism (that I have perhaps read far too many times), Orwell wrote that “nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also — since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself — unshakeably certain of being in the right.” Such random thoughts immediately came to my mind when I noted that the most popular slogan at the show was Vande Mataram. Only once did I hear the more secular Inquilab Zindabad. I have nothing against Vande Mataram. I have always found it more beautiful than Jana Gana Mana but I am aware that some religious minorities are uncomfortable with a song that is an ode to the Goddess Durga. Yet here we were in the year 2011 with youngsters screaming Vande Mataram with great passion. None of them could possibly have been aware that Vande Mataram was first raised as a slogan on a large scale in opposition to the 1905 British sponsored partition of Bengal. In this mish mash of ideas and slogans, Anna Hazare too took me by surprise when he declared that the corrupt should be hung, certainly not a sentiment one would expect from an advocate of ahimsa. But then he was a Gandhian who said that “in this age things would not work with Gandhi upfront and Chattrapati Shivaji was needed.” The rhetoric was startlingly archaic. When the government met half the demands on day three, Hazare refused to break the fast saying it would be tantamount to a woman saying “pativrataa rahuungii lekin mathe pe tikaa nahiin lagaauungii” (I will be a devoted wife but will not put the vermillion mark of a married woman”). Presumably the young were too busy with their slogans (and Facebook and Twitter) to actually understand what was being said. So we had a Gandhian morphed into an advocate of Sindoor and Shivaji, who led a crowd that raised a slogan created in Bengal. This was India’s modern revolution carried out from Jantar Mantar which many TV presenters described as India’s Tahrir Square. Hyper TV fed into hyper nationalism and the post world cup victory mood. It was Peepli Live where a reality was constructed by a hysterical and competitive visual media. What the smart young things on TV forgot to mention is that Hosni Mubarak may be gone, but the miltary is still very much in charge in Egypt and is now engaged in crushing the protests. That was a real people’s revolution in the face of great oppression that continues. What we had in New Delhi was capitulation by a nervous government heading into critical assembly elections after a rash of corruption scandals. So they gave in to a motley crew of yoga gurus, ex -ervicemen associations, residents welfare associations, the Rotary club type do-gooders, combined with the odd celebrity or page three type who kept appearing at regular intervals. New Delhi has actually set the precedent of succumbing to a sort of blackmail just because it is conducted by people who have the rage of the righteous and get round-the-clock coverage on TV. Forget the many agitations over land and livelihood that are simply ignored by media. Those at the forefront of such movements do not worship Bharat Mata since they have nothing to be grateful for from the state. Certainly corruption is corrosive but the question now is: Which activists have the right to dictate terms to the government or the nation? There is certainly some merit to the argument that if Sonia Gandhi can pick some to sit in the NAC and dictate policy, what can stop Baba Ramdev, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar and Sadguru, mass healers of the mind and body, from claiming the right to be the national gurus?. And should the BJP ever come to power, one can now certainly expect the managers of the Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and other Sangh NGOs, from claiming the right to dictate to government. As it is, many Sangh organistion members were there in strong numbers at the Anna Hazare show. This correspondent lent a pen to an old man in the crowd and was promptly handed a publication titled “Godhan” on cow protection and the miracles of cow urine. Certainly there is a great similarity in the vocabulary and symbolism of RSS activism with the lot that led the Jantar Mantar movement. Yet it would perhaps be a mistake to see this as an RSS plot that legitimises retrograde forces. This was more in the nature of a mass jagran that provided a pravachan or a religious discourse and belted out desh bhakti songs. It was a made in India spectacle as kitschy as our popular culture. So is this just a flash in the pan till we switch to the next big story? Or is it a movement that has set a precedent and will have a policy impact? If this movement is here to stay then although it may have rattled the Congress right now, in the long term it presents a far greater threat to the traditional BJP/RSS who will be challenged by a more robust force that expresses itself in the same idiom even though it is not circumscribed by any ideological commitment to sectarian politics.ends

Your Mama! Or The Blitzerization Of Indian TV

http://www.countercurrents.org/selvam291009.htm

By Trevor Selvam

In the past two weeks, I have viewed three shows on NDTV 24/7 and one on CNN-IBN live. On one NDTV show, the moderator was Mr. Vikram Chandra and the other one had the ubiquitous Ms. Barkha Dutt. The CNN-IBN show was moderated by Ms Sagarika Ghose. All three of the shows had to do with Naxalites or Maoists. The NDTV shows had the emblematic war-drum like sound effects and graphic interplay that aped the “War on Terror” style of the Fox/CNN networks. The lead caption of the “Maoist Muddle”, the talk show hosted by Ms. Dutt, had an old Western badlands style letter font in use, which would swish back and forth, when Ms. Dutt took a break. (No! they did not play the theme tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Appaloosa).

Ms. Ghosh’s moderation was subdued in comparison and I would say, more interested in extracting a minimum possible new thought process in this discussion. However, the two guests on this show, Mr. Gautam Navlakha of the EPW and Mr. Swapan Dasgupta of trash-the-left-any-which-way-you-can fame, took off their gloves in no time and while Mr. Navlakha could have restrained himself a wee bit, I could understand the anger he felt with the asinine, Rush Limbaugh-esque harangue of Mr. Dasgupta. A third guest, Mr. Sudipta Chackravarti, writer of the book Red Sun, attempted to steer a safer line between the absurdly nonsensical right wing cant of Dasgupta and the enraged decency of Navlakha and got nowhere in terms of contributing to the discussion. While this particular show did make an attempt at clean lines and decency in terms of format, the NDTV show, as usual, was like a Vegas-style slot machine/ video game box circus with Ms. Dutt rushing around town-hall style, impatient as hell, and making shallow summaries from time to time. Mr Vikram Chandra used his stationary command centre approach to parse everyone’s unfinished thoughts, by interrupting them and making sweeping summaries and essentially telling off those who wanted to raise larger issues. Barkha Dutt’s pancake makeup and potty-designer clothes added further vacuous glitter and frenzy to the otherwise polyvinyl theatre that she now stages frequently. I think Ms. Dutt has run out of the chutzpah that characterized her initial foray into cable news and live reporting. She has bought into the ethos that employs her i.e be true to the status quo definition of the nation, no matter what, uphold some sanctimonious interpretations of “terror, violence and democracy” and mendaciously ignore the institutionalized violence that characterizes the Indian state and all its institutions, especially the police. I am sure the fact that there are at least one hundred criminals sitting in the Indian Parliament, does not seem to have any impact whatsoever on all these apologists in her show, regarding the greatness of “the world’s largest democracy.” One of the goofy guests in the show, named Tavleen Singh, gave an “Arey Baba!” style shpeel on how great it is to be part of Indian democracy and not be part of Pakistan or China. No jingoism there! And these are experts on “the greatest threat to Indian democracy”?

What is wrong with these shows?

They all pander to a sensationalist, alarmist and finally a fabricated version of the facts on the ground to start with. In their rush to compete with each other they also use melodramatic terminology to describe events. During a Chukka Bundh or a Rail Roko (stopping trains during a general strike in an area, for example West Mednipur) , some channels in no time started referring to it as a “Train Hijack”. Chukka Bandh has been going on for ages. In fact in India it happens almost every day. People vent their anger by stopping trains. A hijack is something else and as a result in no time people are talking about the Taleban and prisoner swaps etc. Arnab Goswami’s Foxy network (Times Now) goes over the deep edge with Goswami almost leaking sputum from the sides of his mouth, calling the Lalgarh PCPA, a “ terrorist” outfit repeatedly during his so-called moderation of events. He invites people to speak and then trashes them continuously, hogging the limelight himself and repeatedly changing his “one basic question” several times. Santhals and tribals with traditional weaponry are called “armed Maoists and terrorists.” Even the CNN and BBC prefer to use words like militants, referring to these same incidents. Goswami, of course, is universally recognized in India as the yellowest of all TV moderators.

The primary problem, as I had stated elsewhere in a previous essay, is that these Indian TV channels have not gone through the stage of development that American radio and TV shows had gone through—of nuanced, thoughtful interdictions---that preceded the Wolf-Blitzerization of Cable news. The Bill Moyers and the Amy Goodmans of PBS, NPR and Democracy Now! have for a long period of time upheld decent, selfless, incisive, conclusive interviews and glamour, glitz and circus acts have not been their bag. A tradition exists in American radio and to a certain extent in Public TV that preceded Time-Warner’s onslaught on the mind waves. India’s Doordarshan, staid and unexciting as it often may seem, does not follow this bombastic TV style that Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra espouse. But, Indian TV has missed out on the tradition of the thoughtful radio show. It has taken a leap into the nightmare Vegas style, as far as intellectual cadence goes. Pretty much like the fact that India also skipped over (for the most part) the laying down of optical fibre-glass high speed lines and jumped into the wi-fi data card and satellite disc technology, at least in some regions. Convenient, but unnatural, in some respects. There is thus a missing link in India’s media development. It is not a matter of quickly leap-frogging into the newest technology; it is very simply a question of missing out on a stage of incipient intellectual development. And that stage requires some genuflection on what it is to be a real democracy. Having elections every five years or having law courts and elected officials (even without criminal records) amounts to drawing lane markers on Indian city roads. Nobody takes it seriously or avails of it with pride. It is like an attempt at showcasing the trappings of democracy. As simple as that. When Mr. Chidambaran cajoles the country’s intellectuals and so does the West Bengal government officials, suggesting that any sympathy for the Naxalites amounts to seditious behaviour, it is the beginning of a McCarthyite era of “Un-Indian” activities. In that sense the Americanization of the Indian polity has been seamless since the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is no wonder that the Indian state, once a champion of non-alignment and independent post-colonial political direction, has done a fantastic somersault into the lap of the United States. It is unthinkable that the same forces that have just decided to “phase out ”of Iraq, have now arrived in India and are engaging in what a US commander described, only a few hours ago on NDTV, “the most advanced counter-insurgency operations” with Stryker tanks and various elements of the US Army, Airborne and Cavalry divisions and paratrooper wings, right next to New Delhi! Does Barkha Dutt care? Does Vikram Chandra give two hoots that American boots that were kicked out of Vietnam and are being kicked out elsewhere and especially out of Latin America, are now stomping around in this country? When Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra and others invite Indian intellectuals, historians, economists and political scientists who wish to raise some fundamental issues about Indian democracy, they are swept away by the undignified hollerings of the loafers they also invite. So first rule: Do not invite more than three people, at a time. Let them speak to a very specific and elevated concept about the actual workings of Indian democracy. Let them conclude and do not bust them up, half way, with your own impatient and argumentative vox populi style journalism. If you need to invite other people, arrange for a Part 2 of the same debate, with others.

What are some other reasons?

Aside from the two or three people at a time that PBS and National Public Radio invite, the calibre of the people invited also happen to be those with extraordinary historical acumen and analytical skills.

Mr. Chandra, amongst the hordes he invites, brings in loafer-type MPs from the BJP and CPM to trot out their standard rhetoric on behalf of “Indian parliamentary democracy, law and order, national security and non-violence”. The BJP fellow keeps ranting hysterically about how “criminal” the Maoists are with their barrel of the gun power politics and the wily CPI(M) fellow (typical of the Bengal CPIM) snidely jibes away, with a crooked smile on his lips, at the Maoists for not “following the example of the Nepali Maoists.” Also invited are a Maoist sympathizing poet, a Gandhian activist, another EPW editor, a retired police officer (who turns out to be quite sane, decent and at least logical, despite his law and order leanings). Surprisingly, there is also a young Congress MP from Andhra, who is quite lucid that the Naxalite problem cannot be a resolved by guns and choppers, when for sixty two years the State has been absent in the lives of the Adivasis. Anyone who is decent (and the Congress MP who seems very much like one) and waits his turn, does not get the chance to lay down the facts. He or she is either shouted down or stopped short by Chandra or Dutt. Such a procession of flag bearers and party hacks and straight laced law and order folks can never provide education to the masses, who expect to imbibe something from these shows. It ends up being a five-a-side indoor football mêlée and opinions, ideas are never developed. People go home, convinced that India is a flourishing but troubled democracy, Naxalites are violent idealists backed by foreigners and terrorists, that wealth will trickle down someday to the poor if law and order is maintained and the ultimate profanity ---that if Maoists participated in the democratic process (as some other Naxalites seem to be) then they could also have their day under the sun! All these sacred Indian cows are then chewed vociferously and then spat out like pan-masala on the walls of Indian media, for the next half hour in rapid-fire mode. By the time we are two minutes into these so-called forums, not a single assertion is made about the actual facts. There is no discussion on what constitutes “development”, no discussion on institutionalized violence, no discussion the existing statutes of the Indian constitution and how they remain unfulfilled after 60 years, no discussion on the role of the Indian Police force, dubbed as the world’s worst law-breaking and human rights violating outfit, no discussion on the charter rights of the aboriginal people of India, no discussion on the megalomaniac plans of P. Chidambaran to relocate 85% of India’s population into urban centres, no discussion on the devastating and stultifying environmental impact of damming India’s rivers and attempting to join them up (another Chidambaran hair-brained plan) and no discussion on the twenty five years of systematic development work in the Dandakaranya, which the Naxalites have engaged in from using shifting crop agriculture, innovative irrigation, land distribution, mobile educational projects, health clinics, where for 62 years the GOI has done zip. Mr. Chandra demonstrates clearly that he is not a moderator, not a listener, that he has come made up his mind and injects silly conclusions each time the bell rings for an ad and Barkha Dutt does the same with a proto yank mannerism-- “Don’t go away.” In reality, it is time to switch off. But I keep my patience till the end and until the swishing militarist/western sound effects that keep happening every few seconds, come to a final end.

When I sat down to write this essay, I was reminded of a time, in the early seventies when I was in the US and the Watergate scandal had broken out and Nixon was about to be indicted. I was sitting in a room with African American friends, when one of the TV commentators, mostly white at that time, declared that American Democracy would weather this storm and the rebels in US campuses were nothing but agents of foreign left-wing governments. My buddy, who sat next to me, spat out two words-- “Your mama”!