Breaking Down News: Open Secret

Only friends and allies change, and there is nothing new in geopolitics.

The day that Barack Obama addressed the nation from Siri Fort, an archival image surfaced on Twitter, showing the Princess of Iran broadcasting to a much younger nation on All India Radio in 1950, when India became a sovereign republic. It was perfectly timed, like a crowdsourced curtain-raiser to the joint Mann ki Baat, which was being hailed as an unprecedented diplomatic coup, as if no foreign dignitary had ever directly spoken to the people before. It was a reminder that only friends and allies change, and that there is nothing new under the circus tent of geopolitics. The choice of Iranian royalty, of course, was delightfully mischievous. But it could have been even more irritating to the present dispensation. It could have been Nikita Khrushchev, who had really taken a shine to India’s people.

Meanwhile, Mann ki Baat has inspired much hilarity on the SMS circuit as Americans wanted to know more about this “Monkey Bath” that Modi are Obama were planning to have together. And Quartz came down heavily on the New York Times for having developed an obsession with monkeys and cows in India. The provocation was an NYT story about “municipal cow-catchers” fanning out in the streets of Delhi and “men with slingshots” trying to frighten away “hundreds of rosy-bottomed monkeys” from Rashtrapati Bhavan ahead of the Obama visit. Quartz has traced NYT’s obsession with India’s monkeys back to 1940 and poked fun at the paper for orientalist reporting. Of course, these stories are usually triggered by coverage in the Indian press and anyway, the NYT missed the biggest open secret of Raisina Hill — all those monkeys are the spirits of deceased bureaucrats who cannot tear themselves away from their former strongholds. Everyone knows that.

January 26 is the President’s day out, and it was rather depressing to see him eclipsed in the state media. Doordarshan, which provides exclusive coverage of the event, was busy gaping at the Obamas and the Prime Minister, in eye-catching headgear and dark glasses. Dark glasses on a dreary, drizzly day? Well, it’s a free country. Pranab Mukherjee, in a thick woollen cap suitable for the Russian tundra, was hardly visible. Even at the ‘At Home’ on the lawns of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the camera was on him for scant seconds, before wandering off in search of NaMo and the Obamas. Maybe it’s time Doordarshan was divested of its monopoly over state events like Republic Day.

In fact, Republic Day needs drastic therapy. At the very least, its place in the calendar needs to be adjusted. January 26 sees the most beastly damp, chilly weather of the year in Delhi, and is feared both by marchers and members of the audience. Can’t we be practical and relocate Republic Day? How many people watching the show on TV remember what it commemorates? They have a vague perception that it’s an occasion to show off hypersonic missiles, heavy armour, and military capabilities in general.

Indeed, it was copied from the displays of USSR muscle in Moscow’s Red Square, where Kazan Cathedral and Iverskaya Chapel were demolished so that heavy military vehicles could drive into the heart of the city. Both have been rebuilt, and the square now hosts concerts by the Scorpions, Shakira and Linkin Park, among other acts. On January 26, while the slogans on TV screens exhorted everyone (especially the Obamas) to marvel at the might of the Indian forces, China did it much better last November. When Obama was visiting Beijing, they test-flighted the J-31 stealth fighter at an air show, just to embarrass him and let the world know that if anyone was shopping for hardware, there was a new brand on the market.

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