The editor never even sent me a message asking me to write on the Union Budget today. Both of us belong to the newspaper era which really created excitement around Union Budgets. Every small bit of taxation on bobby pins and rubber bands was carefully dissected. Post-economic liberalization, the excitement reached peak limits. Massive graphics dominated the front pages, Marvel and DC super heroes most often.
A couple of years after India’s economic liberalization in 1991, I was sent to cover legendary jurist Nani Palkhivala’s much sought after annual post-budget speech. This was at the Brabourne Stadium in what was still Bombay. Thousands gathered to hear the great man depose on the Union Government’s annual expenditure. At the end of his analysis Palkhivala however announced that he would no longer be dissecting the Budget. Liberalisation he said had changed everything and the Budget no longer had the same significance as when the economy was controlled and restricted.
Newspapers however took no notice of the great man, and carried on with their massive spreads. I cannot describe the tremendous excitement which consumed newsrooms. Every department and desk from city to crime to sports to glamour was on Budget duty. The graphics and art departments were stretched to their absolute limits! Is it a bird or a plane, no it’s Budgetman! This was the 1990s when print still set the trends in media, so television followed suit, with their split screens, graphics and talking heads spewing their psychobabble. Since then however, everyone has calmed down a bit.
And although we have had 10 years of the Best Government and Best Governance and Best Overall Life EVER in the history of India, Bharat and so on, not even the most diehard fan of the dispensation in the media has managed to sustain excitement over the annual budgets. A cursory look-through of yesterday’s news suggests that even the stock market, usually so loyal and overjoyed with everything this government does, did not in fact rise to massive, unprecedented heights?
I picked up the basics from a couple of comedians. Some guff about women, farmers, youth and something.
For clarity I would go no further than Vivek Kaul:
https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/01/what-the-finance-ministers-budget-speech-tells-us-and-what-it-doesnt
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What is happening, which obviously the mainstream media will not focus on except when it can blame the victim, is the palpable increase in attacks on Muslims ever since the Ram Temple was inaugurated at Ayodhya in January. Once again, Hindutva mobs have been given a free pass. This in an election year, Jai Shri Ram was been turned from an expression of faith to a war cry and the Indian media is a happy participant in this war against democracy. This week, the Supreme Court of India allowed Hindu prayers in one more “disputed” mosque, covered by the Hindutva movement – Gyanvapi.
The daughter of an Indian politician and diplomat disagrees with the state participation in a temple inauguration. For this, she receives a letter from the president of the Residents Welfare Association, for a property owned by her father which objects to her views and then demands that she and her Father apologize and if not, move out of their property. At least this absurd bit of majoritarian bullying got some publicity. But only because the Father in question is the redoubtable, outspoken Mani Shankar Aiyar.
Umar Khalid will obviously never get bail for his terrible twin crimes of being Muslim and of being pro-democracy. The chief minister of Jharkhand has been swept into the Enforcement Directorate’s clutches for not being BJP – is there another explanation? The election for the mayor of Chandigarh displayed public snatching and defacement of ballot papers by the presiding officer and the BJP to ensure that the BJP won.
These are a few small stories about today’s India…
There is no media graphic which will put the overall picture in place for we the people.
I wonder why. Or do I?
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.