Opinion Anna Rides Again

And so news TV bathed in the sun of Anna-loving during his one-day Rajghat fast. The tickers practically frolicked in happiness: India Rises With Anna,India Backs Anna Again (though,of course,he’d lose his deposit in an election anywhere other than the Times Now studio) and so on.

Of course,we are in the season of sequels,but like anyone who saw The Hangover 2 is happy to tell you,they aren’t half as much fun as the original. The actors are ever so slightly more hammy,the narrative is ever so slightly more forced. When it was a pretty forced narrative to start off with — I’m looking at you,Pirates of the Caribbean — you’re forced to greater and greater heights of shrillness to make your warmed-up old material appear new.

Hence,for example,Times Now’s Newshour on Wednesday,which asked: “Is a narrow section against Anna-type fasts because it threatens the status quo?” Perhaps. And perhaps that’s a loaded question. And perhaps,for all we know,a broader section is against Anna-type fasts because they look like stunts.

Times Now had always been deeply suspicious of opposition to Anna,frequently accusing those people of cynically attempting to think. So you watched thinking you’d know how it pans out,sometimes one does that with TV,it’s restful.

But people aren’t scripted,and thus it was mildly surprising: expert lyricist Prasoon Joshi explaining that we shouldn’t obsess over how corruption would end,only that people wanted it to; expert activist Sanjay Kaul saying that to announce a fast before negotiations was OK,because you wanted to have something in hand to negotiate with; and expert expert Suhel Seth saying that the constant media focus could well trivialise the issue.

All very well,Arnab Goswami seemed to say,and interrupted to say “but are people being threatened by that?” Real people aren’t scripted,but discussion TV certainly is. Don’t go off-script,guests. The sequel might actually wind up being different from the original!

Goswami’s intervention was roundly ignored. Joshi asked why,if corruption was experienced organically,we expected any kind of careful organisation to an upsurge against it. Interesting way to take off. Goswami stayed resolutely earth-bound: “There is a section,predominantly this section is in Lutyens’ Delhi,and this section wants to talk about the method. Not about the issue… This group,if you tell them the issue is that,they’ll say,no,look at the person,look at the method,look at whether the fast should happen or not….” Having thus masterfully discovered the means-end dichotomy a mere 23 centuries after Aristotle,he then disposed of Suhel Seth’s bravely murmured dissent that there was perhaps more to it than that by saying “you can say no,Suhel,but that’s exactly the point here.” Don’t get out of line,characters. Sequels,in particular,can’t take improvisation.

And the best sequels leave space for yet more. Hazare ended his one-day fast with some hopefully unrepresentative member of civil society traitorously strangling the national anthem to death,and with the promise that the next instalment in the franchise would be released nationwide August 16. News TV can’t wait.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com