Ranjona Banerji: IPL, drought and extreme hypocrisy

By Ranjona Banerji

If we were not facing impending doom, the outrage of English news channels over the IPL tournament and drought in India would be nothing short of amusing. It is true that drought conditions in Maharashtra are much worse than in earlier years. It is also true that at least nine other states are suffering from drought conditions. But it is also true that this drought has nothing to do with the IPL tournament.

The connection itself has only occurred to the television media because a public interest litigation asking for the tournament to be shifted out of Maharashtra came up for hearing in the Mumbai High Court. Long before that though water supply has been restricted, Section 144 has been imposed to prevent water riots and farmers have been complaining. How many years ago was it that Ajit Pawar of the NCP made that disgusting remark about urinating into dams of there was no water? Has the situation improved since then? Could TV journalists have ventured into the hinterland to find out what’s been happening since? The IPL after all is held every year at exactly the same time.

At the same time as TV anchors are spitting fire at this evil IPL that is stealing water from desperate people, their channels are running long happy, inspirational ads about the IPL and how it is India’s tournament. What is this but hypocrisy and a cynical manipulation of a very real and very frightening problem? Barring NDTV, I cannot recall any other English news channel doing any stories at all on the problems of farmers, rural India, water, wild life and anything that is not some political hoopla over which you can have a panel slugfest.

I can guarantee you that once the IPL tournament begins these same anchors will turn into simpering, fawning, skin-crawling fans if they ever come across a real-life cricketer in the IPL. They will also very easily forget about water, drought and everything else when they want to watch a match live or even when they have a shower or brush their teeth with running water. The problem though will not go away.

I suppose though one must be grateful at least that thanks to the PIL and the courts, drought and water-scarcity has got some attention before matters became even more horrific. I have some free editorial suggestions for TV journalists, even as they continue fulminating against the IPL for perhaps one more day.

They can speak to agricultural experts about the exchanging sugarcane for sugarbeet, which apparently will reduce water use drastically as well as allow multi-crop land use. They can question the sugar lobby on what they have done about better irrigation methods in their cooperatives. They can question the government of Maharashtra at least on what action they have taken about expected drought, given the experience of the last few years. They can ask about Maharashtra’s irrigation scam and what is going on there. They can ask people who have studied India and the world’s water problems to shed some light on what has happened so far and what can be done.

It is not enough to have some city-bred BJP spokesperson to tell us that the government is “grippling” with the crisis and that the BCCI should be “magnamous” or that the Maharashtra government so sensibly and conscientiously advised that people not waste water while celebrating Holi. We need someone less absurd to be questioned by our fearless fire-breathing TV anchors. We need to hear from people who know a little more about the problem than former cricketers.

The issue is not cricket and it is not the IPL. It is negligence and apathy and lack of understanding. And it is journalists showing complete lack of responsibility.

I have no cause to be sanctimonious here. We have all been guilty of such behaviour at one time or another. It’s just that this time, it sticks in the throat.