Opinion Four days on the fast track
How made-for-TV fasts became just another song-and-dance reality show.
Saturday morning: Manoj Tiwari,the Bhojpuri actor-singer,last in television news when he lost out to Shweta Tiwari (no relative) and that giant of a man,the Great Khali,on Bigg Boss,sang bhajans at the Baba Ramdev no-food festival. The fight against corruption was a religious experience but also a pop show. So when Sushma Swaraj danced in protest against the governments brutality,later,it should have come as no surprise.
Sunday (very early) morning: Baba Ramdev jumped off the stage when the police stopped the Ramlila show. Subsequently,he was carried on the shoulders of his supporters before he reappeared on stage,defying the policemen. They looked dazed; so would you if you had to beat people off the premises at 2 am. From yawn to dawn it carried on. The ineptness of the police intervention was all too painfully evident as was Baba Ramdevs elusiveness a talent we would see again.
Sunday morning: A reporter from a channel whose name was blurred by the tear gas let loose by the police at the Ramlila Ground,ran after a faster being dragged or carried away,and thrust the microphone into the mans face,not to catch his ragged breath as much as his famous last words. This says everything about TV news: always run after the story,whatever it takes. The coverage was graphic and danced 360 degrees as the camera people were jostled,crushed and spun out of control,rather like the protesters and the police.
We had a rude awakening on Sunday morning. Operation Midnight Evacuation looked a mess. While it shed poor light on the governments panic reaction,it also highlighted the medias basic instincts,especially its annoying habit of replaying the same visual,ceaselessly,of people being lathi-charged,beaten up,manhandled. If you watch this repeatedly as you tend to during dramatic moments,it magnifies the incident in time and space. This creates a long-lasting impression,not always entirely accurate and incenses shocked viewers.
Compare this to CNNs or BBCs handling of the violent clashes in the Middle East: visuals are repeated but not in slow motion close-ups with banner headlines.
Honestly,while watching the coverage of the police action,followed by the immediate volatile reactions from BJP,Shanti Bhushan and everyone else who was willing to say that this was an atrocity that it reminded them of the Emergency and no,that is not a new hospital show you began to feel the country was on the brink of,if not in the middle of,a civil war,that the UPA government was about to fall any minute right before your eyes and be carried out,gasping into the microphone just like the man we saw a little earlier.
This sense of breathlessness,of being under siege is frightening,besides being really exhausting on an early Sunday morning. And,with 24×7 airtime devoted to the drama,wheres the news from the rest of the country,the world?
Monday morning: News24 had footage of the BJP dharna at Rajghat: they described it as a picnic spot: BJP leaders were seen eating ice cream,sleeping soundly while Sushma Swaraj danced. This can be interpreted in several ways: it helped her and others remain awake,it entertained the sleepy TV reporters,it made for a great visual report and finally,it begged the question: had the fast become just another song and dance reality show?
Monday afternoon: A shoe was thrown during a Congress press conference at spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi and the shoeman was assaulted by the mediapersons there. This reflected what most of us itch to do: throw a shoe,the book,anything at the government and at the media.
Tuesday evening: Baba Ramdev seen evading the police as he skulked out of Ramlila Grounds dressed in a salwar- kameez. CNN-IBNs exclusive footage of the yoga guru put the sequence of events into perspective. The entire episode had been marked by showmanship that had descended into farce and everyone came out looking the worse for it.
shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com
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