MxMIndia

Ranjona Banerji: Watch the media allow PM Modi to get away with his diversionary tactics

"The Rafale deal has several questions around it, but once again, there is no scattered media scrutiny on it. On a show on NDTV earlier this week, the focus was on the Congress’s accusations but not on the questions themselves. As journalism is normally practised, the journalists themselves would ask the questions. Instead, we frame the discussion around the Opposition’s questions and allow the Government to get away with no answers,: writes Ranjona Banerji

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By Ranjona Banerji

 

The first leader in the edit page of February 9’s Deccan Chronicle, is headlined, “Clear bid by government to avoid accountability”. It ends with these words: “In specific terms, the PM’s parliamentary reply is proof of a massive diversionary exercise to enable the government to duck answering questions that affect the lives of ordinary humans.”

In essence, this is the crux of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Parliament, in response to the President’s Address. Modi concentrated on everything that was wrong with the Congress, played up on his pet subject of Nehru versus Patel, made his now characteristic number of factual errors and skimmed over his government’s achievements since 2014.

In any other media universe, the concentration would have been on the Budget, the repercussions of the Budget, the fact that the PM was off-subject in his Parliamentary speeches, the pointlessness of this constant hammering on the past and the deliberate attempts to ignore or gloss over the achievements of his government. Instead, most of the Indian media either focused on Modi’s oratory or on his attack on the Congress or skimmed over Parliament and concentrated on the Supreme Court hearings on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case.

A ready distraction to the media was provided by Renuka Chowdhury of the Congress who laughed during Modi’s speech in the Rajya Sabha, when the PM mentioned the word “Aadhaar”. Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, when Chowdhury said she had a problem, retorted, “If you have a problem go to a doctor”. Modi asked Naidu not to reprimand Chowdhury (for laughing) and instead said that such laughter had not been heard since the Ramayana was shown on TV. The Treasury Benches then thumped their tables and laughed uproariously. Union minister Kiren Rijiju later put out a tweet making it clear that Modi’s Ramayana reference was to Surpanakha, Ravana’s sister, who has her nose cut off by Laxman.

The intricacies of Hindu mythology apart, this was an ideal sidestep for an Indian media, particularly television, to avoid any criticism of the Modi government or to question Modi’s speech. Instead, we have gone into several explanations about laughter, about kinds of laughter, about sneers and jibes, blatant misogyny and Modi’s eternal cleverness.

Modi’s various factual errors, about Nehru and Patel and about who signed the Simla Accord (Modi claimed it was Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto when it fact it was the Simla Agreement signed by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Benazir’s father, for our millennials and colleagues in TV) in 1972 (he Simla Accord dates back to 1914), were also skimmed over. In fact, given our lack of history, some very childish discussions took place on this. I thought that TV was no longer a millennial pastime but maybe TV journalism has not twigged that it has been replaced by an online universe.

Swati Chaturvedi lays the speech in perspective here, with more gumption than most of the TV media:

https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/with-gandhi-bashing-speeches-pm-modi-sets-agenda-for-next-election-1810105

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The Rafale deal has several questions around it, but once again, there is scattered TV media scrutiny on it. On a show on NDTV earlier this week, the focus was on the Congress’s accusations but not on the questions themselves. As journalism is normally practised, the journalists themselves would ask the questions. Instead, we frame the discussion around the Opposition’s questions and allow the Government to get away with no answers.

Hearings on Aadhaar are on in the Supreme Court but get more coverage on Twitter than in the media.

Times Now obviously prefers to focus on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case because it fits in with its new Hindutva image and allows it to ignore everything else including Parliament.

**

Meanwhile, back to the Deccan Chronicle and the local Times of India, since I am currently in Hyderabad. The main focus obviously is on the anger against the BJP within the Telugu Desam Party and on how Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is handling the matter. The alliance is still up in the air although the BJP is trying to patch things up.

Check where the national media is going on this.

 

​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia.​ The views here are her own

 

 

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