By Ranjona Banerji
We’ve moved on from the Giant Industrialist who has been accused of fiscal fraud. Some American-Hungarian hedge fund investor did it for some inexplicable reason. The accusation against a mining company fiddling with environmental laws barely made a dent in the national consciousness. Who cares about the environment, really? Just a few trees here and there and mainly non-influential people live amidst them.
The wedding of the fancy lawyer who is pro-BJP and pro-BJP governments had lots of fugitives from Indian justice drinking and laughing, but I don’t think we’re really allowed to get into the details of all that.
We can’t really name anyone.
Saw anything except elliptically.
Move on, move on.
Even the launch of our space observatory to study the sun didn’t get as much traction as our landing on the Moon. I feel the celebrators were a bit upset when they realized how tough it is to land on the surface of a star in a constant state of nuclear fusion. I say “tough” because, who knows about the future, right?
But I do know this about the future: as long as the Indian media hides in terror of retaliation, we’re never getting our democracy back.
Let’s look at the near total shutdown of the national capital because of the G20 Summit, scheduled for September 8 to 10. It’s not just about road closures around the meeting and accommodation areas for VIP movement and security, which one would expect.
But no. Almost all ingress and egress into Delhi stopped. Movement within the city stopped. Well, it’s not just one city. It’s a “national capital region”. Flights reduced and many cancelled from India’s main airport complex. Community halls commandeered from private building societies. Food delivery services stopped. Schools, offices etc, shut.
From many years of working in newspapers, the general pattern has been this: whenever the government – any government – takes the decision to inconvenience middle class India, the media goes up in flames. One city road block can create more rage than a 100 slum homes being demolished and 100 families losing everything. The needs of the middle-class reader come first (actually second, after the all-important advertiser), especially now that evil pinkos who once controlled news pages and wrote about trade union and worker issues and other such inconvenient-to-money things, barely exist any longer.
So what do our headlines say about the G20 Summit?
That the honourable Prime Minister has urged the people to make the summit a success. An integral part of this is to put up with the inconveniences. This is for the greater glory of India, as if this was a war situation. The PM said, the PM said, the PM said.
What did the people say? Obviously: PM, PM, PM.
What did the media say?
What do you think?
The other big subject would have been the conjectured loss to the exchequer. Government and private offices within the area, shut. Malls and commercial establishments, shut. Schools and colleges, shut. But we all know that if anyone talks about this later, it’ll just be little squeals.
Move on, move.
Did we discuss distress in the agricultural sector with the monsoon failing and flailing in most parts of India? You know agriculture, don’t you? Often out in the countryside, where they grow things?
No? I thought not.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.