MxMIndia

Tag: RSS

  • But if you're aiming to get someone to lose control, how personally should you take it if the person loses control, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Job of journalists to be tough & provocative..

     

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ranjona BanerjiRahul Gandhi held a press conference.

    And what a palaver resulted within the press.

    Let’s write this without context.

    Those present at the press conference – members of the press and of TV channels – were eager to question Gandhi. Most of the questions asked were asking him to respond to BJP allegations. Gandhi reacted sharply. He accused one person from TV of being part of the BJP and after he shut him down, said in Hindi that the questioner had been deflated like a bust balloon. Several people present – whether members of press, or of TV or bystanders – laughed.

    Gandhi asked another questioner, a prominent TV person, to wait until he had answered the question and then added that the person was known for speaking for him, implying that words were put into his mouth.

    Now, the context.

    Gandhi had just been sentenced to two years in jail after he lost a criminal defamation case. The two-year sentence meant that he was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP.

    The press conference was a response to these two consequential events.

    How rude was Gandhi here?

    Quite rude, you might say. The “hawa nikal gayi” response was uncalled for.

    But the rest was par for the course, to me anyway.

    It is the job of journalists to ask tough and provocative questions. It is acceptable to try and rile the person you are questioning as much as possible, in order to get more spice to your copy. As long as there is no personal abuse or insults, you would prefer the questioned to get riled. This means that the response is likely to be unpleasant. If you’re aiming to get someone to lose control, how personally should you take it if the person loses control?

    Let’s add more context.

    There is no doubt, even in the minds of those who are extremely upset at the insults piled on the poor unsuspecting members of the press and TV people who are only trying to do an honest day’s job and take home a measly wage to feed their families, even in these minds we know that the media in India is deeply polarised.

    The RSS/BJP combine and the Modi government has made sure that it is almost never questioned except by a small handful of journalists and almost no TV people. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has famously not held a press conference in years and thus is never directly questioned by members of the press, and definitely not by TV people.

    As Dhanya Rajendran of NewsMinute pointed out recently in her Chameli Devi award acceptance speech, it is the digital media which questions governments more than the mainstream media.

    The extent of outrage from the media over these few comments by Rahul Gandhi is laughable, to be honest. As other journalists have pointed out, we as a community have not been as angered when members of the BJP called us “presstitutes”. In fact journalist Swati Chaturvedi has listed several of the compliments which the BJP has paid us: “presstitutes, bazaaru media, piddi, paid media, sickular, anti-national”.

    I would add to that urban naxals, Lutyens gang, and my personal favourite: being untrustworthy because my surname is Banerji. Going by the logic of the Surat court which sentenced Gandhi to two years, I could have a good portion of the BJP’s supporters in jail if I filed a case claiming criminal defamation of all Banerjis!

    The point made by those of us in the media who’re calling the outrage an overreaction is simple: we are under worse threat from the BJP than we have ever been from any other political dispensation. We know this. We know why we fall down press and freedom rankings year after year. Journalists are jailed on flimsy pretexts, stopped from travelling abroad, abused constantly on social media and by BJP worthies. Some have even died in the pursuit of showing truth to power.

    The bulk of the mainstream media is party to this and is a major part of the larger societal silence on attacks on media persons.

    At the end, though, what Rahul Gandhi said at the press conference was largely ignored.

    And this is the media’s biggest failure, insulted and sulking or otherwise.

    His main point was that he would continue to question the Adani Group and its financing via alleged shell companies. And no one wanted to take him up on that.

    Hmmm. I wonder why.

    Hawa..?

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.

     

  • "We have been threatened as journalists consistently over the past eight years, more than ever before, including the Emergency," writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: How many of us crave PIB control?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ranjona BanerjiHow far before we become a completely authoritarian fascist state? Well, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s new proposal to monitor and remove journalistic content on the pretext of fake news is a chilling reminder of what this government wants to do to the media. The law, should it come into effect, will make the Press Information Bureau – a government department – the final arbiter of what is fake and what is not. If the PIB deems a piece of news to be fake, the news has to be removed from all digital platforms.

    No clever argument can disguise what this is – a blatant attempt to destroy whatever remnants we have left in India of a free press. The first duty of the press in a democracy is to speak truth to power and that means the government of the day, the establishment. This barely happens in India anyway, especially since 2014. If the government now decides what is news and what is not, then that is the effective end of a free press.

    The Editors Guild of India and other media organisations have objected to proposal. Lawyers have pointed out that the law is unconstitutional.

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/centre-alone-cannot-determine-fake-news-says-editors-guild/article66398004.ece

    https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/govts-proposal-to-remove-content-that-pib-marks-fake-leaves-scope-for-misuse-is-unconstitutional-experts-9895811.html

    What difference this makes to the government depends on how seriously journalists take this. So many have already capitulated, some even willingly, to government control that solidarity as we have seen is almost impossible. We have been threatened as journalists consistently over the past eight years, more than ever before, including the Emergency of 1975 to 1977. And yet, we have been unable to bring ourselves together as one voice. This proposed draft amendment to the IT rules, giving the final decision of what is fake and what is not to a Central government employee is one more straw. Is this the one that will break the camel’s back? Is this the one which will get us to stand up and say “no more”?

    I’m not even joking.

    But take a look at this week. Several pro-Modi, pro-BJP and pro-Central government editors and TN anchors took to social media this week, full of outrage, to point out that India’s top wrestlers, including medal winners, were on a protest against a Wrestling Federation office-bearer and no one was paying attention to them. The allegations are of sexual assault. Yet, not one of these editors and anchors made it clear that the accused was a member of the ruling BJP. Not one called the ruling party and its functionaries to account. And these are all big names in the media. Who could not even name an accused because he belonged to the BJP.

    Should we laugh now?

    The first response of the Government of India to a BBC documentary on Narendra Modi and his role in the Gujarat riots of 2002, and his relationship with Muslims, is to get the BBC, Youtube and so on to take the documentary off air in India.

    There is nothing in India: The Modi Question which was not said at the time, that has not been seen before, that has not been talked about since. Part of the documentary is based on an internal report by the then British foreign secretary Jack Straw, who is quoted as saying that the riots were a “stain” on Modi. And yet the government has not only tried to stop Indians from watching the programme, but also called it a “propaganda piece”.

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/riots-a-stain-on-narendra-modi-says-former-british-foreign-secretary-jack-straw/cid/1910953

    This is intriguing. Is the BBC running some propaganda campaign against Modi? What is this propaganda? Pro Indian democracy and secularism. The programme includes interviews with people like Swapan Dasgupta, a former journalist who contested elections on a BJP ticket and is a vociferous admirer of Modi and a defender of the RSS’s non-democratic views including Hindutva.

    India is high up on the list of countries which shuts down the internet when it does not suit the government. We sit on this list with dictatorships. And yet, our best-known journalists say nothing when Modi and his ilk call India the “mother of democracy”.

    Given this situation, we can only hang on to our shreds of dignity and democracy, and hope against hope this attempt to muzzle the freedom of the press in India will fail.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.

     

  • No point being disingenuous with "this is not the India we voted for", writes Ranjona Banerji

    This is the India we voted for…

     

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ranjona BanerjiThere are a number of connected but confused narratives running around the Indian media at the moment. Some newsrooms and TV channels try to cover the sectarian violence breaking out in various parts of the country by looking at “both sides”. Others focus on one side or the other. And even others present the violence and hatred as a distraction from other things happening, like for instance, the economy. Actually, scratch that “happening” and replace it with “not happening”.

     

    I was genuinely shocked to read a 50-word edit in The Print which actually named Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and the BJP while commenting on the sectarian violence. This is a new one for Shekhar Gupta’s Print which is usually careful at the way it butters its bread. Mild, mild, criticism of the Emperor and his court is the best it can usually manage:

     

    “Religious processions aimed to provoke, angry slogans, stone-hurling and communal riots – this was the pattern of the old India we thought we had left behind. Obviously not. It’s back with a vengeance under Modi-Shah BJP. An immediate course correction is needed. This isn’t the new India people voted for.”

     

    You may legitimately argue that this isn’t any sort of criticism at all. But you need to see it in context. So far, The Print, like so many others, has ducked from even naming “Modi-Shah BJP” for any problems created by a government over the past eight years. Almost everyone else has been to blame, especially any policies set down by Jawaharlal Nehru before he died in 1964. You may think I’m being facetious but you would be wrong. The pusillanimity of the Indian public intellectual and Indian journalist and commentator is truly award-winning stuff.

     

    Hindu mobs have been on a bigger rampage this year than over the past eight years cumulatively. And they have been ably assisted by the police, governments and dare I say it, the judiciary. It is evident that a new directive has been sent out from the RSS HQ at Nagpur that targeting Muslims is the goal for 2022.

     

    But for the media, it is all about “both sides”. Let’s compare then. The Uttar Pradesh police arrested two Muslim boys – minors – for listening to Pakistani songs. Listening to music is not a crime but it is a crime when the police have been instructed that Muslims have to be tortured at any cost. Compare the severity of this action by the UP police to the soft, gentle reaction of the Delhi Police after an open threat from the RSS accessory, the VHP:

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/will-launch-battle-against-delhi-police-if-any-action-is-taken-against-our-activists-vishwa-hindu-parishad/cid/1861270

     

    We know that the Delhi Police will now do practically nothing to the VHP, just some lip service because as The Print said: “Modi-Shah BJP”.

     

    If I was a half-baked public intellectual, I would interpret The Print’s edit as a possible shift within the RSS from “Modi-Shah BJP” to another version of the BJP. Do not get fooled by this. The RSS is the RSS. The names will change. But the ideology will not. Nitin Gadkari may well be pulled out once again as a man who makes things happen (cuts down forests to build roads) and not quite a rioter in spite of being a core RSS person. This is all smoke and mirrors.

     

    The “both sides” media takes its cue from former PM AB Vajpayee’s “who threw the first stone” justification for the Gujarat 2002 riots under Modi’s watch as CM. That is, “Hindus should not have shouted provocative slogans but don’t forget that Muslims then threw stones and that’s why the MP government had no option but to demolish the home of an armless Muslim man for throwing stones”. Chuck in a few “allegedlys” and “reportedlys” and you’ve covered your bases by which I mean backside.

     

    The “distraction” media also hangs from a zipwire. It tries to acknowledge that Muslims are being targeted but does not want to upset “Modi-Shah BJP” too much either. It tells us that murdering a few people here and there is bad for India because it stops us all from getting rich. Something like that.

     

    I have completely ignored that section of the media – and it is enormous – which tells its customers that Muslims are entirely to blame and Hindus are only doing what they should have centuries ago. To me, these are criminals and not journalists, and in another world, they would have been shut down. In this world, armless Muslims have their homes demolished on trumped up charges of throwing stones, young Muslim women have scarves torn from their faces and Muslim boys are arrested for listening to music.

     

    The upshot is, and this is what the media as whole fails miserably, that “Modi-Shah BJP” plus their puppet-masters the RSS will not be acknowledged as the architects of our destruction.

     

    No point being disingenuous with “this is not the India we voted for”.

    We all know that this is precisely the India every bigot voted for.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia every Tuesday and Friday. Her views here are personal

     

  • Only a small group of media houses, usually independent and digital, stand firm in their commitment to journalism, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Not News, Capitulation

     

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ranjona BanerjiWith election season upon us, India’s media has happily settled into the usual routine of pitting this politician against the next. This is fine, as far as it goes. Part and parcel of the general job.

     

    However, what you will not get a sense of is how much else is happening around us that drastically affects these state elections, or, conversely, how these state elections may well affect our political future as a republic.

     

    The top of that list has to be the Covid-19 pandemic. That election rallies are on hold because of the extent of the spread of the third wave underlines our topmost crisis. For the media to get Covid fatigue would be disastrous. This must be our priority, whether the extent of the infectiousness or government policy. Over and over again, we find the media falling in with the government line of the number of vaccinations given without taking into consideration India’s population of 1.3 billion. This would be obvious to a Class X student but apparently not to the bulk of the Indian media.

     

    Although vaccinations are being done, the number of options pending approval and the international variations which have to jump through innumerable hoops which Indian vaccines were not made to do has to be kept under close observation.

     

    Allied to the pandemic are its effects, the economy being the main one. And in spite of high inflation rates, low manufacturing rates, increasing joblessness, some because of government incompetence and others because of the pandemic, we still seem happy to parrot and repeat government publicity without adequately countering it.

     

    There is anger in India and frustration: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/huge-protests-over-railways-exam-train-vandalised-bogie-set-on-fire-10-updates-11643207686896.html

     

    How has the media handled this? With more Modi government propaganda, of course.

     

     

    The enormous hoopla around Republic Day this year, the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite hymn Abide with Me, the extinguishing of the Amar Jawan Jyoti, the appropriation of Netaji Subhas Bose point to the second enormous crisis facing India now. The RSS-led Modi government is clearly relentless in its plan to bulldoze India’s history, both contemporary and old, and replace it with an imaginary Hindu-centric fantasy tale.

     

    That the media should be culpable in this will be our biggest shame; and yet.

     

    Rather than question the government, media outlets are full of RSS-BJP stooges from “historians”, former Armed Forces personnel, and right-wing propagandists supporting and applauding every Modi government move.

     

    It remains a small group of media houses, usually independent and digital, which stand firm in their commitment to journalism:

    https://thewire.in/government/bose-hologram-rajpat-projects-modi-high-tech

     

    This explains why the constant attack on religious minorities and the socially and developmentally vulnerable remains under-reported in the Indian media. And even worse, some media outlets have no qualms about increasing hatred through their programmes. A section of journalists and prominent people took on the channel News18, owned by Mukesh Ambani and still in partnership with CNN, for its Islamophobia:

    “Sponsoring hate is business for Mukesh Ambani”: India’s richest man faces backlash after News18 TV found promoting Islamophobia

     

    This is nothing new for News18 or indeed for most Indian news channels. It is by such means that the fact of being Muslim will become anathema to Hindus in India. The upsurge in attacks on Christians and the constant attacks on Sikhs as the farmers’ protest against Modi’s farm laws began all point to a very frightening direction.

     

    But we are in election mode. Therefore, BJP candidates being chased out of villages and the constituencies with get minimal media coverage. And the various arms of the government’s harassment tools like the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation and so on being let loose on opposition politicians will get constant exposure.

     

    This is not news. This is capitulation.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia every Tuesday and Friday. Her views here are personal.

     

  • 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

     

     

  • When the media reports on the ground reality and media commentators twist or ignore ground reports, you know how embedded the rot is, writes Ranjona Banerji

    An Almost Obituary for a Brave Media

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    ‘The Real Beast’ is the headline this Tuesday, February 25, 2020 of The Telegraph, Calcutta. Across India’s national capital, while the State Machinery was “busy” with US President Donald Trump’s visit to India, the state machinery was busy stoking violence. State BJP leader Kapil Mishra led a rally through North East Delhi and verbally attacked anti-CAA protestors. Soon after, the attacks became physical.

    To quote the Telegraph: “protected thugs roam parts of Delhi; 4 killed as cops remain spectators.” The toll has since gone up.

    This is the story of every riot in India. And most cases, barring some notable exceptions, it is the Hindu rightwing which starts these riots. As academics like Paul Brass have carefully researched and made plain, no riot can be successful without state help. Anyone who has been caught in or observed a riot in India knows that most help rioters receive is from the police.

    They stand back, they watch or they actively take part. Members of the media who has reported on riots or been in the newsroom coordinating coverage or making pages or programmes knows this. Some of India’s best known TV personalities became “famous” and household names because they covered riots. Today, they are often enablers of rioters, of government excuses and police excesses by remaining silent or looking for false equivalences.

    These two first-hand reports, by a Times of India photojournalist and a Times of India reporter, makes the ground situation clear. It reiterates who the perpetrators and who the aggressors were. Members of the Hindu Sena getting aggressive, forcing tilaks on people, wanting to check if the man is circumcised or not (as in, are you a Hindu or a Muslim), breaking locks on shops with Muslim names vandalising property.

     

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/are-you-hindu-or-muslim-toi-photojournalist-recounts-maujpur-horror/articleshow/74291844.cms

     

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-violence-toi-correspondent-tells-her-first-hand-experience/articleshow/74291855.cms

     

    The link below is from The Hindu. It continues with the old custom of “majority” and “minority” communities, but the story is the same: Hindus bashing Muslims.

    https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/blood-injustice-and-anger-burn-the-streets-of-north-east-delhi/article30908031.ece

    I have chosen these first-person reports because if you read through the news reports of what actually happened in Delhi on Monday, or at least, whatever details are currently available, all you get is confusion. There is plenty of chatter about a gunman who apparently fired in the air and has since been detained and his name revealed as “Shahrukh”. However, this “gunman” did not injure anyone. Initial screen scrolls suggested that a police constable was killed by a gunshot wound. Now it seems the constable was killed in the storm of stones being exchanged. Before information of what the gunman did or did not do was revealed, we had senior journalists asking for the “terrorist” to be arrested and so on.

    Meanwhile, members of the Hindu Sena and Hindu rightwing and Sangh Parivar and Hindutva proponents are presented as “misguided youth”. The narrative in India now follows the American pattern and this has nothing to do with Trump’s visit. All Hindu violence is a result of provocation, youth, misguided and such. All non-Hindu violence is a result of terrorist training. The hypocrisy and lies are no longer shocking. It is part of our mainstream.

    When the media reports on the ground reality and media commentators twist or ignore ground reports to either facilitate the State and its agenda or at any rate try not to upset the State, you know how embedded the rot is. This is in spite of the fact that across media houses, reporters and photojournalists at the sites of violence faced threats from the Hindu rightwing, from organisations associated with the government, and saw the police standing by or actively encouraging violence.

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/cop-to-pro-caa-group-go-ahead-and-throw-stones/cid/1748352?ref=top-stories_home-template

    India’s media has lost its conscience and whatever ethics it had in this desire to appear “objective”. If it no longer realises that it is not really being objective, then it is stupid. And if it continues with this fake objectivity then it is the acid that is eating into our society. I use this sweeping generalisation because the few voices that counter this sponsored news presentation are too small and too weak to make a difference.

    The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has an endgame in mind: it is the Hindu Rashtra dream of the RSS. Instead of the largescale Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 which earned Modi and the BJP widespread international attention and opprobrium, the new strategy is small wars of attrition and a constant stream of violence. There will be attempts to now isolate and blame BJP leader Kapil Mishra for instigating the violence and excuses will be made for Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

    Modi we have been repeatedly told by the media and others is a strong leader with a firm grip on his government. Shah is India’s home minister and the Delhi police is part of the Union home ministry. If these two do not know what’s happening in their party and their government, then they are but puppets in the hands of their RSS masters. If they do know what is going on, then they are part of it.

    But every journalist and most Indians with their eyes open know what is going on. And if people do not know, and do not like what is happening, they need to educate themselves. The media and journalists can no longer help because too many of them are part of the problem.

    Veteran media commentator Sevanti Ninan says “India deserves better media”. Never have truer or sadder words been spoken.

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/delhi-assembly-elections-caa-nrc-npr-shaheen-bagh-coverage-by-indian-television-media-is-terrible/cid/1747932?ref=author-profile

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal

     

  • Ranjona Banerji reviews the content on news television and the morning papers

    Can we pay attention to what’s put out?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    There was an intriguing contradiction in the way Indians abroad were carried in the news in the last week or so. While the murder of Anup Bidve of Pune in Manchester and the ill-treatment of Indian traders in China got an enormous amount of coverage, the annual government mela for our brothers and sisters who no longer live in India was not treated with the usual fanfare. Does that mean that Indians who suffer when in foreign lands are newsworthy but non-resident Indians who return to visit us are no longer so valuable? Since the India story is now located in India, is the media now yawning about NRIs? I have no answers, but I find this trend interesting.

     

    Meanwhile, our TV channels have taken their outrage about suffering Indians to new levels. US Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman has been subjected to some racial abuse in the US for his adopted children, who are apparently Chinese and Indian. This had our morning anchors foaming at the mouth. Also, according to the on-screen updates, US Hindus were also very angry. Is this a new category of people, US Hindus? Does it include people of non-Indian origins who might be Hindus? So why would Indonesians or Nepalis (for instance) be so angry about the anti-Huntsman ads? What about followers of the Iskcon movement in the United States? Are they US Hindus? Are US Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Sikhs (who might be of Indian origin) not bothered? What about the Chinese (regardless of religion or regionality)? Or all people concerned about racism?

     

    It is a futile wish, but one still does occasionally hope that Indian TV channels paid a little more attention to what they put out.

     

    **

     

    As expected, Indian cricket has been under the scanner with all the accompanying hysteria. I understand that journalists have short memory spans but still, don’t they get bored of jumping from one extreme to the other whenever things go right or wrong. Sack the team, sack the board, worship the team (to be fair, almost no one says worship the board!), are the predictable mantras depending on performance. Then it’s an inevitable battle between oldies and youngies – strangely, whenever the selectors lean towards one or the other based on media and expert advice, there’s usually a disaster on the cricket field.

     

    Partly of course, the new belief (most prevalent in the new media) that India has to excel at everything it touches is to blame.

     

    **

     

    The travails of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption continue. The Times of India on Saturday had a front page story about Shanti Bhushan’s duty evasions and on the edit page, there was Shanti Bhushan lecturing us about corruption! The Indian Express on Monday tells us that Anna Hazare’s followers and friends (of the pre-Jan Lokpal variety) have been redoubling their efforts to point out that India Against Corruption is “100 per cent pro-RSS”.

     

    **

     

    Mid-Day’ Mumbai edition carries a story about how the son of a former Mumbai police commissioner (RD Tyagi) has been accused of beating up customers to his beer bar and the Mumbai police have been slow in taking action. This misuse of power by the Mumbai police needs more exposure.