MxMIndia

Tag: LK Advani

  • We saw how today’s media celebrated when the Supreme Court handed the land to the destroyers of the mosque to build a Ram temple in 2019, especially our friends in television, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Nation’s Shame, and Now?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    “The scenes will return, like deranged ghosts, to haunt those of us who were at the graveside to witness the burial of a secular dream. The screams of exultation with each blow of a pickaxe, each thrust of a rod, each dome that came crashing down…

    “3 p.m. Sadhvi Rithambara starts singing and dancing and, as if in a trance, repeats over and over again a mesmeric exhortation: “Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tor do” (Give another shove, and tear down the mosque). A village lad from Kanpur district rushes past with a piece of brick held aloft like a trophy. “These are Babar’s bones,” he shouts in unholy glee…

    “A red cloud of dust settles on the rubble, all that remains of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid shrine. And, all that remains of the myth of Hindu tolerance.”

    These are excerpts from Dilip Awasthi’s report, in India Today magazine, on the demolition of the Babri Masjid, December 6, 1992.

     

    The magazine cover read: “Nation’s Shame”, as I was reminded by my former boss Inderjit Badhwar on Twitter, who was then editor of India Today. He now runs India Legal and more.

     

    I only use India Today as an example to demonstrate that 1992 was a different India, for the media at least. You can compare this report to India Today as it is now, as well as to its TV spin-offs to see the change for yourselves. 1992 was 28 years ago. A whole generation and more have grown up in between and never known what that India was. A whole media generation and more does not know what the media was. No relentless 24-hour news television. No internet. No social media. Those who could, watched the demolition on the BBC World Service. But there were witnesses.

    A special CBI court on September 30, 2020 acquitted all the 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition, including the LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. The judge said there was no conspiracy and the demolition was not “pre-planned”. The CBI put forward 351 witnesses and 600 documents as evidence, apparently not good enough. The judge however did say that the demolition was an “egregious violation of the rule of law”.

    Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, who led the commission of inquiry into the demolition from 1992 and submitted his report in 2009, said this to Indian Express on September 30, 2020: “I found it was a civil conspiracy, I still believe in it. From all the evidence produced before me, it was clear that the Babri Masjid demolition was meticulously planned… I remember Uma Bharti categorically took responsibility for it. It was not an unseen force that demolished the mosque, human beings did it,”

    He also said his “findings were correct, right, honest, and free from fear or any other bias”.

    “For posterity, it is a report that will provide an honest account of what took place and how. It will be part of history.”

     

    According to Justice Liberhan’s report, the accused had either actively or passively supported the demolition.

    https://indianexpress.com/article/india/justice-liberhanbabri-masjid-demolition-6657370/lite/?__twitter_impression=true

    Between then and now, between the action and the decision, the changes to India’s population, sense of self, of identity, and to India’s media have been incalculable and not all for the better. The fact that the media itself now sees the likes of LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and the planners and implementers of his Rath Yatra and Ram Janmabhoomi movement to be comparatively benign speaks to how much we forget and choose to forget. The comparison is made to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as the fount of Hindu majoritarian hatred. But they are only the inheritors of a tradition laid down long before their time in power. Even the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat happened under the watch of AB Vajpayee as Prime Minister of India and his deputy, Advani.

    The role of Bal Thackeray and the Shiv Sena in the demolition and the subsequent riots in Bombay cannot be forgotten either.

    Already however, you will find from within the media itself, the blame being laid on the Congress government in power at the Centre in 1992 and PV Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister. And on Rajiv Gandhi who as Prime Minister opened the locks of the mosque to allow Hindu prayers. This blame cannot be escaped. But it is a sideshow compared to the RSS’s Hindutva agenda carried out by the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and all those of the “mob” that did the actual demolition.

    In the Indian Express article linked above, there is a photograph of the BJP’s Uma Bharti and Murli Manohar Joshi celebrating the demolition. It is possible that the CBI’s investigation was full of loopholes. But whatever the “mob” did that day, not all the acquitted actually wept with sorrow. Many were extremely happy at the actions of their own “kar sevaks” as we can see.

    We saw how today’s media celebrated when the Supreme Court handed the land to the destroyers of the mosque to build a Ram temple in 2019, especially our friends in television.

    You could replay that 1992 India Today headline for the media now: Nation’s Shame.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays, except this week because it’s a ‘no edition day’ tomorrow. Her views here are personal. She can be reached via Twitter at @ranjona

     

     

  • Pradyuman Maheshwari reacts to the many claims made by the MIB in a 'Bharat Nirman' series ad

    Time to call Minster’s bluff. 6.5/10 performance by UPA-run I&B ministry

     

    By Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    It’s perhaps unfair to damn only Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari for his performance. Successive occupants of that office – under various regimes – have made a mess of things over the years. Right from the time of BV Keskar, the first mantri who banned Hindi film songs on Vividh Bharati to occupants such as LK Advani, IK Gujral and Sushma Swaraj who didn’t do much for the sector. Ministers like Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and Anand Sharma were on war with many broadcasters and Ambika Soni was by far the best of them all though the digitization execution process was messed up when she was at the helm.

     

    Earlier this week, as part of the Bharat Nirman series of ads, the DAVP inserted an ad making several claims under the headline “Empowering People Through A Liberal Information Order”.

     

    I think it’s important that someone were to call the minister and ministry’s bluff. The text in italics is my response to the points made in the ad.

    • Several policies issued and implemented for the liberalization of Print Media Sector in last 10 years

    Is it? Like? Save appeasing the sector with DAVP ad hikes, there’s precious little done 

    • Television industry grew from Rs 18,300 crore in 2006 to Rs 50,140 crore in 2014

    This would have happened any which way. No marks for the UPA 

    • Total number of TV channels increased from 130 in 2014 to 788 in 2014

    Again no credit to UPA for this. In fact, the government has been sitting on many applications and approvals over the last few months 

    • 3 Crore Set-Top Boxes installed in the first two phases of digitization

    Yes, Digitization is an achievement of the government. But look at what happened with it? Chennai is not fully digitized. Kolkata faced several hiccups. Phase 2 is nearly 90 percent, which is heartening 

    • New policy guidelines for Television Rating Agencies issued in 2014

    One is not very sure whether the government should be getting into policing television audience measurement. That should be left for the industry. Thankfully, the government hasn’t got into IRS or advising ad duration on radio and column centimetres/ad-edit ratio in print 

    • New policy guidelines issued for Headend in the Sky (HITS) Broadcasting Services and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)

    It is fine to issue guidelines, but an IPTV, for instance, has been a non-starter. And HITS is just about a nice acronym 

    • Radio industry grew from Rs 600 crore in 2006 to Rs 1540 crore in 2014

    Would’ve grown more had news been allowed. Isn’t it ironic that all and sundry can start news channels – on satellite and cable – and our radio folks aren’t trusted? 

    • 245 FM channels in 85 cities since 2005. In the next phase 839 channels proposed in 294 cities

    Phase III? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Phase III has become a joke. We’ve heard about it just so often. Even the Mumbai Metro would’ve started, but our government would be sitting on the papers. 

    • Community radio stations increased from 64 in 2009 to 163 in 2014

    For a country of a billion-plus people, 163 community radio stations is an apology. Not enough done to evangelise it.

    • Foreign Direct Investment for five segments of broadcasting sector revised in 2012

    And what about news? So FDI can be upped in critical segments like telecom, but not so in news. Just why?

     

    • Overhaul of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 by Justice Mudgal Committee

    Some welcome steps here? Implemented? 

    • National Media Centre with ultra modern facilities inaugurated

    No point having just one in Central Delhi. The Central Telegraph Offices in various cities which had press rooms should’ve been upgraded too. News journalists exist in other parts of the country too, Mr Minsiter! 

    • National Museum of Indian Cinema being set up in Mumbai

    Better late than never… but would’ve been nicer to coincide with 100 years of cinema.

     

    What the ad doesn’t tell us is the several things the government hasn’t been able to achieve. Make Doordarshan an independent and top quality pubcaster like the BBC, for instance. Some attempts to improve DD News were nullified by interference in newsroom operations.

     

    Ever since Manish Tewari has taken charge as the Minister, he has waxed eloquent on the paradoxes of the industry qua (his favourite word) exigencies of the business. He has even tried to police the cable trade on ownership issues since the networks in his home state of Punjab are managed by his political rivals.

     

    The government has tried its best to keep the issue of self-regulation issues alive by scaring the news media on and off. Under the pretext of protecting the interests of consumers, the 10+2 ad cap was introduced which saw much resistance from news broadcasters.

     

    The government hasn’t been able to do much on Paid News. Newspapers still carry paid content with or without disclaimers in fine print.

     

    So how would you rate the last 10 years of the UPA-run I&B Ministry? I would give it a 6 on 10. Okay, let’s make it 6.5, because it could’ve even gotten worse.

     

  • Senior leaders in the party ought to have asked Advani to retire a long time ago. The 86-year-old man is no longer a vote catcher, and his thinking is redundant. They didn't, and now find themselves in a sorry situation.

    Anil Thakraney: Shoot the Old Dog

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    Have been watching the ‘Sulking Advani’ drama on television very closely. Not because the man interests me, but because it’s a deja vu feeling, I have seen this before. Not in politics, in the corporate world. It’s the same story: When the grand old man of the organization is past the sell-by date, the board of directors and the young CEO have no idea how to get rid of him, they get badly stuck. I am sure you have witnessed this situation in your own career at some point or another.

     

    I once worked at an ad agency whose creative chief, a few years away from retirement, had failed to evolve with changing times and was stranded in the old school. Basically, he was burnt out. The younger creatives could not connect with him, but were compelled to politely seek his views. The client service people would guffaw behind the old gent’s back, and the clients stopped asking for his presence at important meetings. But the man himself, in complete denial of his loss of relevance, soldiered on, making life difficult for everyone.

     

    The agency leadership could not muster enough courage to ask him to quit. And yet, he was deliberately left out of meetings. Not even, and this is the most humiliating part, consulted on creative department reshuffle. The man was totally isolated, but he would not get the message. Watching it all happen first-hand, I felt very sorry for him. And I entirely blamed the organization for this mess.

     

    Why? Because in this situation, to save everyone the misery, it was the CEO’s job to make that tough call: Amble across to the elderly gent’s cabin, and graciously show him the door. Sadly, this step, which is actually the best and the most professional one, seldom gets taken in many Indian organizations. Which is a pity.

     

    The BJP faces the same conundrum today. Senior leaders in the party ought to have asked Advani to retire a long time ago. The 86-year-old man is no longer a vote catcher, and his thinking is redundant. They didn’t, and now find themselves in a sorry situation. The party, if it lets go of him now, will be perceived as one that does not respect its elders. This directly goes against Indian culture, and could prove costly for the BJP in the coming elections.

     

    ***

     

    PS: Speaking of old dogs, here’s a speech by Dave Trott, a huge inspiration for creative people. Not just for youngsters, for senior creative directors, oldies who have lost their way or feel burnt out.

     

    Anil Thakraney is a senior journalist and commentator. He is also Editor-at-Large, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached via Twitter at @anilthakraney

     

  • In Freaking News, which appears every Tuesday and Friday, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare in the morning papers and the nightly news. And sometimes the afternooners, the newsmags and all that's on the Web

    Bandh a ‘partial success’, no effect on petrol prices

    Ranjona Banerji

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Tracking Thursday’s Bharat Bandh protesting against the petrol price hike on TV led to a bit of confusion – was it a success or not. As it turned out, the Opposition-led bandh was what is known as a “partial success” so if you’re a half-glass pessimist, that’s the same as a “partial failure”. For Mumbai, TV showed us a bus in Mulund being attacked by a man in a BJP T-shirt – who either did not have the good sense or was just to brazen to hide his face from the camera. But social networking sites seemed to suggest that people did go to work. The morning papers said 60 per cent turn out in private offices and slightly more in government offices (really!). The commercial loss, said The Times of India, was Rs1,000 crore while Mid-Day pegged it at a more conservative Rs300 crore. Of course maybe with current rupee-dollar rate, both figures mean the same thing?

     

    There is also the other question about the loss caused by damage to property by “bandh” enforcers which as every newspaper painstakingly informed us, we the people would have to pay for.

     

    Across the country, the bandh fared better in some parts than others and apparently had no effect in Kerala at all.

     

    Petrol prices, by the way, had not come down by Friday morning at least.

     

    * * *

     

    As the TV news day progressed however, the bandh was sidelined first by BJP veteran LK Advani who announced in his blog that the BJP had made too many bad decisions recently and used the party’s favourite word “introspection”. This kind of took the wind out of the BJP’s sails as the main “bandh” caller. Immediate speculation began about a rift in the party – something political commentators have long known about. http://blog.lkadvani.in/blog-in-english/bjp-a-hub-of-hope

     

    Arnab Goswami interviewed Ram Jethamalani who had said similar things in a letter to Nitin Gadkari and Jethamalani was a hoot as always, even as he lost his ear pieces for a while and Goswami watched precious air time and money dribbling away.

     

    Jethamalani told Goswami he was a clever man who was trying to get Jethmalani round to Goswami’s opinion. Goswami said he had no opinion.

     

    No comment from me either.

     

    * * *

     

    The other big bandh spoiler was the Indian economy and the fall in GDP growth to 5.3 per cent, the lowest in nine years. Our TV newswallahs who usually shy away from the economy – possibly because they know so little about it – were forced to sit up and take notice and so gave us some uninformed guff, interspersed with a lot of dramatic music and stuff.

     

    Since the economic recession in the West in 2008, international TV newswallahs have become experts at this economy stuff and our TV people could learn from them how to use jargon effectively and impressively. Or, they could hire some journalists with a background in business and the economy. This would be particularly useful for the Sensex channels.

     

    Amartya Sen on NDTV sort of turned the argument on its head by saying that this obsession with GDP was misplaced. He started talking about inclusive growth and stuff which usually makes business people and economists turn faint from boredom as they cannot understand what that means.

     

    * * *

     

    At prime time, Headlines Today was still worried about cricket and Rahul Kanwal was in “hot pursuit” of Gautam Gambhir. Arnab Goswami asked why we need such bandhs at all and then proceeded to have a quarrel with Ravi Shankar Prasad about the NDA’s petrol policies.

     

    Mohandas Pai formerly of Infosys came up with a novel solution to bandhs – he said all bandh-callers should sit around statues of Mahatma Gandhi and hold hunger strikes. BJP people looked bewildered having never heard of this man nor seen statues of him anywhere in India.

     

    * * *

     

    Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi in Thursday’s Indian Express said, “Serious thought needs to be given to the ‘paid news’ that is threatening to erode the value and pride of the press and is starting to shake the foundations of democracy. A voluntary code would be the effective answer”.

     

    He was speaking at the annual convocation of the Express Institute of Media Studies.