By Ranjona Banerji
The worst insult that a BJP-paid IT Cell troll can pay you on social media is: “Islamo-Christo-commie-Congi-Mamata Banerjee-darbari”. None of these so-called insults actually match each other, but logic is never a strong point when it comes to the Sangh Parivar. Frankly I am insulted that not a single party from the South of India has been added to this list of political affiliations. I feel that “Ambedkarite” or DMK should be added, just to start with.
In any case, I would rather be all those disparate things than a supporter of the BJP, the RSS, the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and all the fascist, exclusionary, violent, Hindu supremacist thinking it stands for.
And how the media and its individual components responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the Lok Sabha shows us where we stand. Modi arrived in Parliament late, after most of the speeches were over, having not attended the earlier two days. The Prime Minister is too busy to answer a No-Confidence motion against his government over his inaction on the civil unrest in Manipur. Not busy in Manipur: his captive media has at best informed us via other BJP ministers that he was kept informed. There has been no evidence provided that he has actually done anything. And even less evidence that his captive media has questioned him on this.
There are several photos with this column, which give you a sample of the print media’s coverage of Modi’s speech. Only two are worthy of any aspiration of a free and fair media when it comes to showing truth to power and not falling at the feet of the prime minister and the BJP.
The Telegraph with its “blah-sphemy” headline has scathingly encapsulated the sheer self-obsessed tedium of Modi’s 2 hour 13 minute speech in the Lok Sabha, where he blamed the opposition, made a few cheap jokes and reached Manipur after an hour and a half of speaking only to say that peace will be restored.
The Deccan Herald presented him with a mirror in its “Speak out” section, showing up his braggadocio for political posturing.
The others shown here – The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Hindustan Times – presented bland reports of what he said. No context, no question. HT made it a little easier for its readers who may not have the patience to read through a report of an over two-hour speech about nothing with a little box of salient points. The Hindu’s report is so bland that I could not even waste my time taking a screenshot. Why do senior journalists take bylines for such saffron-wash copy?
The picture before India at the moment is bad enough with this government at the Centre and in Manipur the situation is dire. Three months of inaction, deaths, rapes, destruction of property, looting of government ammunition stores, suffering and loss and all the media can do is blandly report – or cheer – the stupendously insensitive response from the Prime Minister.
As for television, I am going to rest my case with veteran journalist and author Tony Joseph’s tweet (or more correctly, X post). All my words cannot sum up more succinctly the nonsense that TV channels spew out:
“Listening to Indian television media’s political reporting is like listening to an agitated, drunken gambler on the race course who has put all his money on a particular horse and is trying to report on the race.”
This is who we are. Shameless punters.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.