Opinion When television was revolutionised
The Anna Hazare movement and our 24x7 channels lived off each other.
The coverage of the Anna Hazare movement reveals a lot about our TV channels,and their newfound sense of power and omniscience. The phenomenal rise in Anna Hazares popularity,especially between his fast in April and his arrest on August 16,can be largely attributed to the UPAs blunders,which persuaded even fence-sitters to throw their support behind Anna.
However,in spite of these mistakes,and for all that Anna managed to strike an emotional chord with much of the nation,his movement became a huge collective experience largely because of the electronic media. 24×7 TV channels were his constant cheerleaders,giving momentum to his cause. The Anna movement was,in fact,made for TV. After a season of scams,the image of a frail and simple 74-year-old activist pitting himself against a powerful and venal state was compelling. His lonely figure,wasting away on an indefinite fast,set against a large profile of Mahatma Gandhi,became an iconic TV image. It was a facile narrative of good against evil,a populist theme of a universal fight against corruption and TV channels helped it take over the national agenda with the speed of a tsunami.
The movement was given relentless,wall-to-wall coverage,24×7. Every press conference,every speech by Team Anna even the theatrics of some of Team Annas resident performers on the Ramlila stage were covered live by almost all channels. The incendiary comments,the crude humour,all were fodder for the masses,helping create a distinctly anti-establishment,anti-Parliament mood.
For 24×7 news channels,the Anna Hazare coverage was much like a reality show. The hysterical reporting mostly motivated by competitive populism had been at times like an extended advertorial for Anna Hazare. There was no effort to separate the core issues from raw emotions. While there were some stories in the print media on how the movement was structured and the differences between key personalities,television coverage was jingoistic and almost reverential. Anna was seen almost entirely through this benign prism and became synonymous,not with the contradictions inherent in his Jan Lokpal bill,not as an unreasonable man,who in the early days of the agitation was attempting to push his version down Parliaments throat not even as someone who posed the real threat to the delicate balance between the three organs of our Constitution but only with the emotional resonance of an anti-corruption movement. It is another matter that his personal credibility factor made it easy for TV channels to package the messenger.
The Jan Lokpal bill has been sold to the Indian public as the ultimate panacea to end corruption in the country. One can grant TV channels the editorial right to decide what to feed their viewers. But the absence of any critical analysis of substantive issues,the reluctance to debate the import and repercussions of the Jan Lokpal bill or even alternative bills like the one proposed by Aruna Roy,was truly irresponsible. In the early days of the agitation,those who questioned Team Anna were ignored and most anchors were reluctant to question Team Anna hard,for fear of being seeing as pro-corruption. It was only when the endgame neared that prime-time debates focused on the bill,but this too was distracted,with the usual suspects as speakers and the discussions quickly descending into slanging matches between the two principal political parties.
We can grant both Anna Hazare and the electronic media the distinction of having allowed corruption in daily life to occupy the centrestage of our public discourse. But by encouraging a lynch mob-mentality,by making the choices facile,in the you are with us or against us mode,viewers have been lulled into believing that Annas formula is the only way to save us from a corrupt government and an impotent Parliament.
The truth is that there is no magic wand to end corruption,that the devil is actually in the details. That any legislation that challenges the basic tenets of our Constitution is inherently more dangerous than the solution it proposes. And that this legislation itself in any case,will only be the first step in a very long journey to eradicate corruption.
Now that Team Anna has won a moral victory and Anna Hazare has called off his fast it is imperative that both Anna and his partners in the electronic media educate their supporters on putting in place many other landmark legislations,including electoral reforms and funding of political parties in the coming months and years,if corruption is to be truly reduced. Otherwise,they both will only have used and abused the trust of hundreds of thousands who have marched behind the piper (as a UPA minister described it) with hope on their lips,singing and dancing to the seductive,sometime shrill,tune and the promise of instant moksha from corruption.
In his book Believing Bullshit,Stephen Law writes that there is a good chance if you apply control,repetition,emotional manipulation, that is,tools of brainwashing the focus group will eventually accept what you say. In recent times,we have witnessed this modus operandi being used quite effectively not only by Team Anna but also by the electronic media. But as the American comedian Jon Stewart says: If we amplify everything we end up hearing nothing. An observation Indian news channels are well advised to pay serious attention to,if they are not to lose their own credibility and voice.
The writer is an award-winning filmmaker and media entrepreneur
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