Opinion Football and national defence
TV news had an obsessive agenda just penalties for Warren Anderson....
This time for soccer. And thank God India wasnt at the World Cup. Judging by what happens when the Indian cricket team loses a match,Warren Anderson gets away with impunity,the Maoists execute a well-planned attack,etc.,the outrage would have been louder,shriller and infinitely more irritating than the vuvuzela.
Times Now would have declared it a national betrayal. Arnab Goswami would have kicked butt and demanded an explanation: tell your channel how you could not kick a ball past one man and into the gaping hole behind him? If our imaginary goal-keeper had done a Robert Green on the grass and allowed the football to get away from him and roll into the goal mouth,he would have fulminated: Let me put it to you,Mr Golmaal,that your defences were poor,your ability to counter attack nil and you lost the battle in the air and off the ground. You dont deserve to be defending the national goal post,you butcher of the ball. At your feet,the beautiful game is a national shame!.
There would have been prime time discussions consisting of 11 players,sorry,panelists. Each would have been shooting from the mouth,trying to rise above the others,rather like footballers do when a corner is taken. Free kicks would have landed on the players,the coach,the administration and a few cricketers. Come to think of it,this is all their fault: if they didnt play well enough to win tournaments,the sponsors would have flocked to Indian football,the game would have prospered and we would have been tackling the opposition in South Africa right this minute,waka,waka.
One illustrious TV anchor not necessarily Goswami would have thundered,Lalit Modi,booted out of the IPL chairmanship,has to answer for Indias failure to make it to the soccer World Cup! Well,weirder and more outrageous things have been said on the tube.
If the soccer World Cup did not totally overwhelm TV news coverage,dont blame it on Indias non-appearance at the tournament. Blame it on Warren Anderson,the Butcher of Bhopal (Times Now). Alternatively on Arjun Singh. If the former chief of Union Carbide or the ex-chief minister of Madhya Pradesh had revealed themselves and their actions,TV news would not have had to chase down every single official including the pilot who had flown the plane that took Anderson out of Bhopal who had played a role in the events after the gas leak.
As it was,all we saw of them were the gates to their residences. In Andersons case,the enterprising Times Now reporter managed a World Exclusive (huh?). She got inside the compound and rang the doorbell; after what seemed a lifetime,a frail old lady (Mrs Anderson) opened the door and muttered something we couldnt catch because the din of the traffic drowned out her voice. What we heard her say was pretty tame for a world exclusive: nothing to say. It is all over. Door closed.
Once again,television news played the conscience of a nation. Since the court judgment on the gas leak case was delivered in Bhopal last week,a bulletin has not passed on any news channel (only a mild exaggeration) without an exclusive on the chemical disaster. The coverage has helped take the issue forward: it has galvanised the governments Central and state it has orchestrated public outrage,it has reopened the entire case as well as old wounds. People who did not know what happened almost 26 years ago,now know.
But TV news has has reduced a complex human tragedy to a one-point agenda: get Anderson. Lets get him by all means,but lets also get a balanced coverage that re-examines all angles. TV news has focused exclusively on Anderson. And then it beats him to pulp .
Isnt it time someone blew the whistle and stopped the game?
ilaja.bajpai@expressindia.com
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