Opinion Who Defends India Best?
Armed with nothing more than lapel mikes or boom mikes,they fight for India,our great country,at least two or three evenings every week....
Armed with nothing more than lapel mikes or boom mikes,they fight for India,our great country,at least two or three evenings every week. The nations defenders compete,of course. It works like this: you know in whose hands the nation is safest if you can figure out in whose studio journalism is most imperiled. Its marvellously entertaining and,as a keen observer of prime time fighting and competitive spirits,I have always betted on Times Now being the lead defender. But the market always humbles you. Times Now has serious competition.
Has anyone on Times Now shows called Australians,White Taliban? I dont think so. But a panellist did on CNN-IBN. White Taliban! If I were an Australian,I would be amazed. If I were Taliban,I would be amazed,too. What I,as an Indian,really find impressive about Indian news TV is that this sort of stuff gets said under the benevolent gaze of anchors. True democracy at work,this is. You might think,if you are an old-fashioned kind of chap,anchors are supposed to in part function like editors,do some gate-keeping. Wrong. You dont understand news TV at all.
When the CNN-IBN panellist called Australians White Taliban,the anchor didnt say,one minute,how can you say that,thats offensive,grotesquely so. The anchor moved on to another panellist. The latter did frown at the White Taliban comment. But that didnt change the fact that it is okay for someone to come to a CNN-IBN studio and trash a whole country and its people by referring to the majority populations skin colour. And this happened in a chat about whether Indians are victims of racist crimes. As I have said before,amazing stuff!
Thats why I disagree with the CNN-IBN panellist on the show who said one cant explore a sociological question fully in 30 minutes. Of course,you can,on news TV. You just have to know how to do it. Thats why the anchor asked the panellists to determine clearly whether the violence against Indian students was racist or urban crime. You can sit in an Indian news TV studio and read the minds of criminals in Australia you really can,you just have to understand news TV.
If you do,you will know why in the course of its campaign Dont Forget Pratibha,Times Now demanded to know whos protecting the killer-rapist. The person being tried slowly in a fast track court is the alleged killer-rapist,right? If we knew hes guilty,that would have meant the court has passed a verdict,and that would have meant theres no story,right? Wrong. News TV can pass the verdict. The systems job is to formalise it. As CNN-IBNs promo on its campaign for Ruchika says,In Pursuit of Justice. Not in pursuit of a story on injustice,thats so yesterday,but in pursuit of justice.
My favourite pastime while watching general news channels can be called in pursuit of justice for economics. I wage a lone,albeit ineffective,battle for economics. Like when I heard the following on NDTVs compilation of the best of 2009 We the People shows: the anchor (this was a clip from the debate on politics and austerity) says whats puzzling is why if we call ourselves a largely capitalist economy. The puzzle presumably being if our economy is capitalist how can our politics even think of austerity. I hadnt seen this earlier (thank you,NDTV,for the compilation),and I bled for economics. Why is it puzzling that a largely capitalist economy should host politicians who want to appear to be austere? What does capitalism mean? An economic system where most stuff is produced by private capital or a system where everyone in power travels by three wheelers?
My campaign: Justice for Economics. Any volunteers?
saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
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