We pride
ourselves in being the world’s largest democracy. Indeed, democratic
institutions in India are more deeply entrenched than they are elsewhere in the
subcontinent. The executive can survive and continue to function unhindered
only for so long as it continues to enjoy the confidence of the lower house of
our bicameral legislature. The legislature itself is accountable to the
citizens of India whose vote lends it the legitimacy to legislate. The
judiciary has a clearly defined constitutional role and responsibility with
inherent checks and balances to ensure that it does not supersede the executive
and the legislature in matters of legislation and governance. However, what
about the so-called “fourth estate”? Where does it stand?
In light of
the News of the World scandal and the Leveson Inquiry, subsequently, the
culture and practices of the British press have been undergoing a great deal of
scrutiny and criticism. Apart from involving government officials and
policymakers, celebrities such as Hugh Grant have become prominently involved, bringing
transparency into sharper focus. Arguments regarding the need for transparency
in the UK have been especially prevalent since governments in the European Union
have started to follow in American footsteps by issuing access regulation,
sharing many features with the US Freedom of Information Act. What about us?
Where do we stand? What about the Indian media, especially its TRPs-obsessed
electronic variant? Has the time finally come to make the Indian media more
accountable?
As it is, the
print media has been tainted, recently, by allegations and insinuations of paid
news. This has eroded the credibility of many a media house. Amid such a crisis
of confidence in the veracity of news and views disseminated in the traditional
format, the electronic media seems to have emerged as a quick-fix alternative
for overworked professionals and multi-tasking homemakers, with
ever-diminishing attention spans. More than the question of whether or not the
switch has been worthwhile, we ought to ponder over the conduct of the fourth
estate overall and decide once and for all whether or not we need to put in
place a system that would make it more accountable. After all, our media moguls
enjoy as much name and fame as a Bollywood star or sports celebrity these days.
They are, in a manner of speaking, as much public figures as are the
politicians they like to grill over television for cheap thrills.
After
watching ‘News Hour’ on Times Now last
night, I am more convinced than ever before that the media—especially the
electronic media—ought to be made more accountable. Prevailing self-regulating
mechanisms have lacked teeth, and have, therefore, scarcely been able to bark,
leave alone bite. Vested interests hold sway and powerful lobbies dictate the
content and slant of news presentation. The aforementioned news show discussed
the supposed faux pas made by former
Pakistan president, Parvez Musharraf, during an interview to a Pakistani TV
journalist in which he is supposed to have openly suggested that Kashmiri
insurgents needed to be “incited” by Pakistan. When Arnab Goswami played the
tape of the interview though, which was in Urdu, it was clear that he had said:
“...unhein incite karne ki der hai”. This could well have been interpreted
differently given the context of the interview and the statements that preceded
the one in question. Perhaps, a more fair interpretation of it could be: “…all
it would take is inciting the people of Jammu and Kashmir”. He did not
explicitly and unequivocally state that Pakistan ought to incite the people of
J&K.
However,
Arnab Goswami, who got all hot under the collar, would have us believe that
Musharraf had in fact said, “we must incite the people of Jammu and Kashmir” to
rise up in mutiny against in the Indian state. No wonder his Pakistani guests,
three of them, refused to oblige him by apologising for what Musharraf had
supposedly said, as Goswami understood it, despite the latter's crude insistence on it. That Goswami’s knowledge of Urdu inter alia is severely limited was embarrassingly
obvious even to a casual observer. Two of the three Pakistani participants in
the debate were ex-servicemen of the Pakistani armed forces and they were not
amused by the insinuations of Goswami, who went over the top in his
characteristically strident style. That Goswami often comes across as a
self-opinionated pompous ass who is too full of himself and whose sole concern
is his own self-aggrandizement is clearly evident from the way ‘News Hour’ in
general and his own persona is advertised on Times Now. Personally, I find it quite nauseating.
Even when a
normally sober and civilized individual like Seshadri Chari, the one-time editor
of the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, and a former member of the National Executive of the BJP, lost his
cool and openly called the Pakistani participants “jokers”, Goswami was totally
unable to control him and bring about an element of sobriety in the discourse.
That Chari should have dubbed Pakistan’s leaders “thugs” and “criminals”, and
openly called for the dismemberment and destruction of Pakistan, did not help
matters as it raised the hackles of the Pakistanis on ‘News Hour’, one of whom
went berserk, and boasted that Pakistan was capable of making Indians “shit in
their dhotis!” Is this how TV debates
ought to be conducted? Can one find fault with Mani Shankar Aiyar who branded
Goswami “the most shallow television journalist” in India?
Anyway, I
would like to pose a few questions for the readers of this article to ponder
over? Should we allow news channels to get away with just about anything? What
if the content of their programmes, the topics of discussion on their shows,
the statements that are made by irresponsible participants on national
television, would convey the wrong signals about India to the big wide world?
If the likes of Chari, who is known to be a Hindutva ideologue, openly call for
the dismemberment and destruction of Pakistan, would the Modi government be
able to make any headway in bringing the likes of Hafiz Saeed to justice? Would
not such jingoism beamed into homes abroad, including, perhaps, in Pakistan
itself, cast a shadow on the peace process with that country by strengthening
the hands of hawks in the Pakistani establishment? Who then is responsible for
what happened during ‘News Hour’ on Times
Now on the evening of 16th October 2014? Should the anchor not
bear the brunt of the brickbats he may well receive, and justifiably so, for
his unwillingness or inability to control and streamline the direction of the
debate to ensure that it remained within the bounds of decency and propriety? You
tell me…
I liked reading it. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Aditya! :)
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