Opinion When the Flesh is Willing
Baba-land intrigues held centrestage this week yet again.
Media ephemera would totally elude us but for the unblinking eye of the Internet. After Sonia Gandhi rushed to hospital following her speech on the Food Security Bill,uploads of a Times Now grab had appeared bearing this caption: Priyanka Chopra and Robert Vadra reach AIIMS. Imagine the scene in the newsroom,with Arnab Goswami waving papers,pencils,forefingers and big toes at whoever had been asleep at the keyboard and squalling high-mindedly: Did you or did you not do that? Nonono,why havent you been sacked for it yet? The nation wants to know!
And then naively,Times Now erased its Facebook page where viewers had been prattling about the incident. It does not know that for over a decade,every byte of the Internet has been diligently cached by various agencies,including Google. It takes a single click to reveal all,including the embarrassing fact that someone had tried to hide something.
Meanwhile,the relentless googlie-by-googlie commentary of the Asaram saga continued,down to NDTVs riveting newsbreak: he was refusing to drink any water without a drop of gangajal in it. Poor dear. Even after he was in the hands of the police,press cars chased the cavalcade down the streets of Jodhpur. The nexus of good monsoons and corrupt road contractors ensured that TV cameras produced only jerky,blurred tourist videos. The previous day,there had been outrage when Asarams supporters assaulted TV crews in Raipur. His cult is quite devoted to attacking the press but after seeing the weird,pointless paparazzi chase in Jodhpur,sympathy for the TV media flags. Some people just dont know when to get off.
Only one issue excited the media more than Asaram his potency test. CNN-IBN reported it as more humiliation that the cult leader had to undergo. Dear,dear. All news outlet ran the story prominently,since Asaram had claimed to be incapable of committing a sexual crime. But there was something prurient about the coverage,reminiscent of the interest with which news on virginity tests was followed in 1979,when UK immigration was reported to have tested about 80 Indian women. The practice was derided as inconclusive at the time,besides violating privacy and human rights. The male potency test is,at least,as unreliable but in the heat of the chase,the media had no idea and perhaps no interest.
And then,just as interest in Asaram had begun to flag,when TRP junkies had begun to feel twitchy and ready to hustle another fix,along came the perfectly,totally enthralling Ichhadhari Sant Swami Bhimanand,who is alleged to have been running a prostitution racket by mind control in the lee of the ashram lifestyle. Saanpwale baba ka zahar! crowed IBN7 and,quite audaciously,proceeded to run tiny images of Asaram and Ramdev along with the video of the baba and an ichhadhari snake.
Like Ramdev,Radhe Maa,resident of a second floor gufa in Mumbai,became collateral damage on India News,which derided her right to be a Mahamandaleshwar. She is a lipsticky godwoman worth crores on the hoof who dances expressively and wordlessly. She has done nothing newsworthy in recent times,so was someone just leveraging the anti-cult mood sweeping the media?
These baba-land intrigues are so riveting that substantive issues have to fight for our attention. Zubin Mehtas concert,the G20 summit and its main point,the unease over Syria,had a hard time competing. Only the latest Chinese incursion got real attention,sparking off an uproar in Parliament. But perhaps that was only an echo of the uproar on Times Now.
pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com
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