Sudarshan News is one of the few organisations that has had the nerve to bat for Shripad Naik, Union minister of state for tourism and culture (culture strictly free of brewer’s yeast). Recently, and shortly after a Goa minister observed that the dwindling size of clothes in his state was threatening the hosiery industry, Naik had echoed that “pub culture”; would destroy India. The phrase is unknown in England, Scotland and Wales, where pubs were invented for the promotion of world peace.
Interactive and nationalist are its middle names, so Sudarshan News spat on its knuckles and waded in with a call-in programme where, instead of the universally understood “hello”, everyone says “Jai Hind” — “Jai Hind, pub culture is excoriating India”, “Pub culture promotes murder, sirji, Jai Hind”.
Pub-going is denounced as fake modernity. This could be true, since there is a lot of charlatanry in the cloning of Western culture in India. But wait, why is the host of the show dressed up as a waiter in a 1990s watering-hole, complete with piping on the collar and pocket of his tunic? Why is the main visual the duotone silhouette of a girl in a miniskirt and pencil heels perched on a bar stool with a glass of red wine tilted to her lips? Is this India?
Awful photographs downloaded from the internet follow. All the drunks are women. All the bartenders are men. They lure bholi-bhali ladkis to their dens of iniquity to desecrate them with alcohol. All the bartenders are blonde, and they are committed to destroying the idea of India. But amidst the barrage of Jai Hinds, it is suggested that the real puppet masters are corporate families, social organisations and champions of the market. Sudarshan’s editors aren’t exactly batting for Arun Jaitley’s Budget.
But the misunderstanding that passeth understanding happened a week ago and half a world away. On Wednesday last week, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer flashed an AP photo which showed, she said, Israeli victims of a Palestinian rocket attack, trying to carry away what was left of their belongings. Rania Khalek, Washington-based pro-Palestinian journalist and activist (Twitter slogan: Objectivity is bullshit), pointed out that aggressors and victims had been switched. Glenn Greenwald publicised the story, and Electronic Intifada, where Khalek blogs, was trending harder than ever; red-faced ABC executives tendered an apology the next day.
When media goofs up, it just looks silly but real life blunders can be in deadly earnest. Some kind of nameless horror could have happened in the capital on Sunday, when a train from Patna bound for the Anand Vihar terminal was diverted to New Delhi station without anyone but the passengers noticing. This explained the fare hikes in the Rail Budget, said News Nation: the railways need more money so that trains can not only take you where you want to go, but even where you would rather not go.
The craziness almost eclipsed the launch of the new daily express from Delhi to Katra, the base camp of the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage, which Narendra Modi had announced when he inaugurated the Katra station.
The media were hugely instrumental in creating the NDA sweep, but no one ever claimed that it’s loyal. The major business channels have been advising investor caution at a time when the government needs the liquidity that they’re salting away in fixed deposits.
And even small players, who were expected to side with the government for benefit, are scarcely laudatory. It’s surprising to see Shri News, promoted by a real estate group, carrying stories about relentless food inflation and suggesting that the NDA government has betrayed the voter’s trust. It’s pleasantly surprising.
pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com
