Monday, December 24, 2012
Rape is a bestial act
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The ‘real’ Breaking News
Terror attacks take lives. They also leave lots of tell-tale signs. It is for us to recognise these signs. And forget to learn from them. As usual.
I refer to the latest blasts in India’s financial capital, Mumbai. In the evening of July 13, 2011. It wasn’t a Friday. But then.
It is not the deaths that I write about. Nor about the reasons. Certainly not about the ensuing pathos. Cynical? No. I am a journalist. I do report. But mostly observe than report. An acquired skill. A necessary evil tool of the academic I am turning into.
I was switching between the three Indian news channels I get in Leicester. NDTV. Star News. Aajtak.
Breaking News everywhere. In leaking red. NDTV: Terror Returns To Mumbai. Star News: “Mumbai Par Phir Hamla (Mumbai Attacked Again). Aajtak: “Mumbai Par Hamla” (Attack On Mumbai).
You cannot beat Indian journalists in using technology. The three competitors had their OB Vans at all the three blast spots. Visuals were aplenty. So, no loop of the same stuff. The reporters looked harassed, drained. Their voices were hoarse: One of the professional hazards of Indian broadcast journalism is the reporters don’t talk to their audiences, but shout ‘to’ them. Whether in a crowded street or at an opera.
The first half hour was devoted to live reporting. Uncut, live feed from the spot with the reporters’ commentary over the phone.
Then started the coverage of the blasts.
The subsequent three hours were a treat to students of journalism focusing on “Coalition Journalism”. The nexus of journalism and officialdom.
The dead in Mumbai were still being sifted from the debris and shifted to the morgues. The wounded were still being rushed to the hospitals. The police and forensic teams were trying to find clues. Eyewitnesses were desperately recalling the bloody scenes.
But the channels were already looking at the “larger picture”. The Breaking News tablets erupted on all the channels. “Prime Minister condemns the blasts”; “Home Minister flying to Mumbai”; “Home Minister briefs the Prime Minister”; “Government: We will get to the bottom of it”; Maharashtra Chief Minister shocked; “Police block all escape routes”; “Centre: All help to Maharashtra government”; “Centre: It is a terrorist attack”; Home Minister: It is a coordinated attack”; “Chief Minister visits hospital to see injured”; “Obama condemns blasts”; “Hilary Clinton promises all help to India”; “Pakistan condemns attacks”; “Our correspondent was first to reach spot”; “We are first in bringing you the blast visuals”; “Our reliable sources say Molotov cocktails were used”.
NDTV beats all other channels with the first big exclusive of the evening. Its senior correspondent, Srinivasan Jain, is on camera, live, with the Maharashtra chief minister next to him. Tells Jain to the camera something to this effect: “The blasts are a test case for the chief minister who took oath of office only recently.” Then come the erudite questions: “Sir, can you now give us the big picture, that is, how many blasts occurred, how many died, who is responsible, etc?”; “Where have the bodies of the dead been taken?”; “We are told some IEDs (Improvised Exclusive Device) are used, do you agree?”; “Sir, I know you don’t want to speculate on who was behind the blasts, but a certain terrorist group normally uses IEDs. Do you want to speculate?”; “Sir, there have been a series of attacks on Mumbai, there is a sense of frustration, why are these happening?” “Sir, last question. In the last eight years I have been in Mumbai I have seen several blasts and what I have noticed is that on all these occasions that people of Mumbai have always remained calm and not got provoked into violence disturbing communal harmony. Do you have a message to the people of Mumbai?”; “One final question, Sir, are there are any terrorist sleeper cells who might have been behind the blasts?” Finally: “Thank you, Sir, for your time. Best of luck in your attempts to bring peace to the people. (Now looking at the camera) That was the Maharashtra chief minister exclusively talking to NDTV”. Luckily, the chief minister’s responses were more informative and pertinent.
The group editor of NDTV then came on air, rather her voice, with an exclusive, something to this effect: “The Prime Minister is being briefed about the blasts. The Home Minister has met him and given him the updates. The government has just now issued a statement saying the people of Mumbai should remain calm.
Would a viewer be more informed by these breaking news snippets? Anyone who says yes has to have his or her head examined.
The next couple of hours were a treat to students of journalism focusing on “Package Journalism”. The nexus of journalism and narcissism. The winner was Star News. It had two packages ready. The first one, with loud, eerie music drowning the voiceover, was a series of five pictures. Each picture with its own sting: “Pehla Tasveer” (first picture” and so on. The sting was followed by the selected picture. Not a picture but a frozen video shot.And so on. The second package was similar to the first, but instead of picture, it was a “voice”. That is, a quote from the ordinary citizen from the spot. Either severally or jointly they did not inform the viewer on what actually happening at the spot.
By this time it was midnight in India. The graveyard shift was in. No more fresh information forthcoming. The focus was on “Tearjerk Journalism”. Stories of people saying how they have saved people, dragged bodies out of the debris, noticed the blasts, etc. The emphasis was on how “brave” Mumbaikars (people living in Mumbai) were.
With live television the only medium at such times, there was no other option for the Indian viewers to get information. Given the information rolling out as described above, I cannot say how informed the Indian public was in the first few hours after the blasts.
I checked the social networking sites, which were ultra busy, and the wires and the posts on online newspapers, from India and abroad. See the link below for what I think was an informed piece written for a western audience, and with some perspective, in the early hours after the blasts, that appeared in the India site of the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576443753384835910.html
I leave you to your opinion.
This, after the national broadcast media conducted several introspections in the last two years on how to report breaking news on terrorist blasts, especially in Mumbai. When the first major string of blasts occurred in Mumbai in 1993 – shortly after rightwing Hindu extremists demolished the Babri Masjid in the east Indian town of Ayodhya, Indian broadcast journalism was in the final stages of its birth. By the time the second, major attacks (there were some minor ones in between) happened in 2008 – dubbed the “Mumbai Terror Attacks”, the broadcast media had come of age. Yet, the confusing, contradictory, wrongful, even inflammatory reportage on televison led to a major debate. The journalists and editors, facing public outrage, promised to learn the lesson. The reportage particularly by a senior journalist of NDTV, Barkha Dutt, had come in for special criticism. She stuck to Delhi this time. But if the lessons were learnt, it did not show tonight.
Journalists will be journalists. And some of them never learn. But an interesting thing I noticed in this round of Mumbai attacks relates to “Citizen Journalism”, forcing me to ask the question: Has Citizen Journalism come of age?
My PhD supervisor, Prof. Stuart Allan, was one of the earliest academics to focus on Citizen journalism and his book, News Culture (2004, OUP) recalls the heady, initial attempts at “citizen produced coverage” immediately after the 9/11 blasts in the US. Allan refers to Sam Pax, the well-known blogger from inside Iraq whose internet dispatches became popular world wide because, as the author writes, “Salam’s posts offered readers a stronger sense of immediacy, an emotional feel for life on the ground, than more traditional sites”. Pax himself is quoted as saying why he felt the need to post information: “...(because) it is just somebody should be telling this because journalists weren’t”.
Like elsewhere in the world, it did not take much time in Citizen Journalists becoming the source, sometimes primary, of news and visuals in India. The trend picked up in the middle of the last decade. I remember, when I was working for an Indian channel, how we used to get calls from people saying they had a MMS of a crime or whatever and whether we would use it. Those days, it was new to us journalists and our bosses used to confer with the senior management and the legal executives on the use of such information, eventually using it anyway.
As a result – certainly not because of editorial decisions – more, distant, inaccessible, even rural, areas of India came to be covered by the national news channels. The journalists saw this as yet another source of “exclusive breaking news” and began encouraging people to report. Subsequently the channels began to run lop-strips at the bottom of their screens, giving their internet addresses for the citizens to mail their information to. Later on, it became common norm for the channel anchors to invite contributions from the pubic whenever major events took place. Eventually, reports by Citizen Journalists became a regular diet of these channels.
But the begging question is: What impact did this wooing have on Citizen Journalists? That brings me to the crucial point I noticed in the coverage of today’s Mumbia blasts. I could clearly see in the visuals shown on the channels scores of flashes erupting from among the onlookers at the blast spots. I thought nothing of them initially. But when I looked closely, I realised they were flashes of mobile phone cameras. People were busy shooting the scenes with their mobile phones and trying to send them to social networks or the news channels. Look at the Citizen photos on the NDTV website, for instance.
As I sat through the night watching the visuals on the three channels, I noticed something that gave me a start. There was a brief shot where two or three people were trying to clear a damaged two-wheeler near a body and the debris. A large crowd had encircled the spot. Only a few were watching the action. And many of the rest were clicking away. Perhaps they thought capturing the scene was more important than helping out. In some other scenes on one channel where the reporter was interviewing eyewitnesses, I heard a voice off-camera of some one amid the din saying, “You can see the pictures on my phone which I clicked right after the blast”. There was a scene of an ordinary going close to a body for a better focussed shot, oblivious of other people trying to clear the body. There were other scenes of the police trying to shoo away mobile phone-using people who certainly were not journalists.
Have we raised a Frankenstein, I asked myself, in the name of Citizen Journalism? Were such events of human tragedy nothing more than opportunities for ordinary people to celebrate a moment of fame by capturing the tragedy on their mobile phones? Is communal mentality, the help-the-needy instinct, of ordinary people subsumed by the hunger for citizen reporting? What will happen next? Will kids film their parents fighting at home and mail the video to the police? Would we have some pathological killer capturing the killing of a person on a cell phone and send it to a seedy channel? What will happen if each and every person became a Citizen Journalist – what if everyone stops thinking like a human being and starts thinking like a journalist? Should we take a re-look at our stated distancing from Activist Journalism because we simply, no longer can wind the clock back on Citizen Journalism?
As journalist and academic I think these are questions we will be forced to contend with. If not now, then at the time of the next blast. This is the real Breaking News.
I refer to the latest blasts in India’s financial capital, Mumbai. In the evening of July 13, 2011. It wasn’t a Friday. But then.
It is not the deaths that I write about. Nor about the reasons. Certainly not about the ensuing pathos. Cynical? No. I am a journalist. I do report. But mostly observe than report. An acquired skill. A necessary evil tool of the academic I am turning into.
I was switching between the three Indian news channels I get in Leicester. NDTV. Star News. Aajtak.
Breaking News everywhere. In leaking red. NDTV: Terror Returns To Mumbai. Star News: “Mumbai Par Phir Hamla (Mumbai Attacked Again). Aajtak: “Mumbai Par Hamla” (Attack On Mumbai).
You cannot beat Indian journalists in using technology. The three competitors had their OB Vans at all the three blast spots. Visuals were aplenty. So, no loop of the same stuff. The reporters looked harassed, drained. Their voices were hoarse: One of the professional hazards of Indian broadcast journalism is the reporters don’t talk to their audiences, but shout ‘to’ them. Whether in a crowded street or at an opera.
The first half hour was devoted to live reporting. Uncut, live feed from the spot with the reporters’ commentary over the phone.
Then started the coverage of the blasts.
The subsequent three hours were a treat to students of journalism focusing on “Coalition Journalism”. The nexus of journalism and officialdom.
The dead in Mumbai were still being sifted from the debris and shifted to the morgues. The wounded were still being rushed to the hospitals. The police and forensic teams were trying to find clues. Eyewitnesses were desperately recalling the bloody scenes.
But the channels were already looking at the “larger picture”. The Breaking News tablets erupted on all the channels. “Prime Minister condemns the blasts”; “Home Minister flying to Mumbai”; “Home Minister briefs the Prime Minister”; “Government: We will get to the bottom of it”; Maharashtra Chief Minister shocked; “Police block all escape routes”; “Centre: All help to Maharashtra government”; “Centre: It is a terrorist attack”; Home Minister: It is a coordinated attack”; “Chief Minister visits hospital to see injured”; “Obama condemns blasts”; “Hilary Clinton promises all help to India”; “Pakistan condemns attacks”; “Our correspondent was first to reach spot”; “We are first in bringing you the blast visuals”; “Our reliable sources say Molotov cocktails were used”.
NDTV beats all other channels with the first big exclusive of the evening. Its senior correspondent, Srinivasan Jain, is on camera, live, with the Maharashtra chief minister next to him. Tells Jain to the camera something to this effect: “The blasts are a test case for the chief minister who took oath of office only recently.” Then come the erudite questions: “Sir, can you now give us the big picture, that is, how many blasts occurred, how many died, who is responsible, etc?”; “Where have the bodies of the dead been taken?”; “We are told some IEDs (Improvised Exclusive Device) are used, do you agree?”; “Sir, I know you don’t want to speculate on who was behind the blasts, but a certain terrorist group normally uses IEDs. Do you want to speculate?”; “Sir, there have been a series of attacks on Mumbai, there is a sense of frustration, why are these happening?” “Sir, last question. In the last eight years I have been in Mumbai I have seen several blasts and what I have noticed is that on all these occasions that people of Mumbai have always remained calm and not got provoked into violence disturbing communal harmony. Do you have a message to the people of Mumbai?”; “One final question, Sir, are there are any terrorist sleeper cells who might have been behind the blasts?” Finally: “Thank you, Sir, for your time. Best of luck in your attempts to bring peace to the people. (Now looking at the camera) That was the Maharashtra chief minister exclusively talking to NDTV”. Luckily, the chief minister’s responses were more informative and pertinent.
The group editor of NDTV then came on air, rather her voice, with an exclusive, something to this effect: “The Prime Minister is being briefed about the blasts. The Home Minister has met him and given him the updates. The government has just now issued a statement saying the people of Mumbai should remain calm.
Would a viewer be more informed by these breaking news snippets? Anyone who says yes has to have his or her head examined.
The next couple of hours were a treat to students of journalism focusing on “Package Journalism”. The nexus of journalism and narcissism. The winner was Star News. It had two packages ready. The first one, with loud, eerie music drowning the voiceover, was a series of five pictures. Each picture with its own sting: “Pehla Tasveer” (first picture” and so on. The sting was followed by the selected picture. Not a picture but a frozen video shot.And so on. The second package was similar to the first, but instead of picture, it was a “voice”. That is, a quote from the ordinary citizen from the spot. Either severally or jointly they did not inform the viewer on what actually happening at the spot.
By this time it was midnight in India. The graveyard shift was in. No more fresh information forthcoming. The focus was on “Tearjerk Journalism”. Stories of people saying how they have saved people, dragged bodies out of the debris, noticed the blasts, etc. The emphasis was on how “brave” Mumbaikars (people living in Mumbai) were.
With live television the only medium at such times, there was no other option for the Indian viewers to get information. Given the information rolling out as described above, I cannot say how informed the Indian public was in the first few hours after the blasts.
I checked the social networking sites, which were ultra busy, and the wires and the posts on online newspapers, from India and abroad. See the link below for what I think was an informed piece written for a western audience, and with some perspective, in the early hours after the blasts, that appeared in the India site of the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576443753384835910.html
I leave you to your opinion.
This, after the national broadcast media conducted several introspections in the last two years on how to report breaking news on terrorist blasts, especially in Mumbai. When the first major string of blasts occurred in Mumbai in 1993 – shortly after rightwing Hindu extremists demolished the Babri Masjid in the east Indian town of Ayodhya, Indian broadcast journalism was in the final stages of its birth. By the time the second, major attacks (there were some minor ones in between) happened in 2008 – dubbed the “Mumbai Terror Attacks”, the broadcast media had come of age. Yet, the confusing, contradictory, wrongful, even inflammatory reportage on televison led to a major debate. The journalists and editors, facing public outrage, promised to learn the lesson. The reportage particularly by a senior journalist of NDTV, Barkha Dutt, had come in for special criticism. She stuck to Delhi this time. But if the lessons were learnt, it did not show tonight.
Journalists will be journalists. And some of them never learn. But an interesting thing I noticed in this round of Mumbai attacks relates to “Citizen Journalism”, forcing me to ask the question: Has Citizen Journalism come of age?
My PhD supervisor, Prof. Stuart Allan, was one of the earliest academics to focus on Citizen journalism and his book, News Culture (2004, OUP) recalls the heady, initial attempts at “citizen produced coverage” immediately after the 9/11 blasts in the US. Allan refers to Sam Pax, the well-known blogger from inside Iraq whose internet dispatches became popular world wide because, as the author writes, “Salam’s posts offered readers a stronger sense of immediacy, an emotional feel for life on the ground, than more traditional sites”. Pax himself is quoted as saying why he felt the need to post information: “...(because) it is just somebody should be telling this because journalists weren’t”.
Like elsewhere in the world, it did not take much time in Citizen Journalists becoming the source, sometimes primary, of news and visuals in India. The trend picked up in the middle of the last decade. I remember, when I was working for an Indian channel, how we used to get calls from people saying they had a MMS of a crime or whatever and whether we would use it. Those days, it was new to us journalists and our bosses used to confer with the senior management and the legal executives on the use of such information, eventually using it anyway.
As a result – certainly not because of editorial decisions – more, distant, inaccessible, even rural, areas of India came to be covered by the national news channels. The journalists saw this as yet another source of “exclusive breaking news” and began encouraging people to report. Subsequently the channels began to run lop-strips at the bottom of their screens, giving their internet addresses for the citizens to mail their information to. Later on, it became common norm for the channel anchors to invite contributions from the pubic whenever major events took place. Eventually, reports by Citizen Journalists became a regular diet of these channels.
But the begging question is: What impact did this wooing have on Citizen Journalists? That brings me to the crucial point I noticed in the coverage of today’s Mumbia blasts. I could clearly see in the visuals shown on the channels scores of flashes erupting from among the onlookers at the blast spots. I thought nothing of them initially. But when I looked closely, I realised they were flashes of mobile phone cameras. People were busy shooting the scenes with their mobile phones and trying to send them to social networks or the news channels. Look at the Citizen photos on the NDTV website, for instance.
As I sat through the night watching the visuals on the three channels, I noticed something that gave me a start. There was a brief shot where two or three people were trying to clear a damaged two-wheeler near a body and the debris. A large crowd had encircled the spot. Only a few were watching the action. And many of the rest were clicking away. Perhaps they thought capturing the scene was more important than helping out. In some other scenes on one channel where the reporter was interviewing eyewitnesses, I heard a voice off-camera of some one amid the din saying, “You can see the pictures on my phone which I clicked right after the blast”. There was a scene of an ordinary going close to a body for a better focussed shot, oblivious of other people trying to clear the body. There were other scenes of the police trying to shoo away mobile phone-using people who certainly were not journalists.
Have we raised a Frankenstein, I asked myself, in the name of Citizen Journalism? Were such events of human tragedy nothing more than opportunities for ordinary people to celebrate a moment of fame by capturing the tragedy on their mobile phones? Is communal mentality, the help-the-needy instinct, of ordinary people subsumed by the hunger for citizen reporting? What will happen next? Will kids film their parents fighting at home and mail the video to the police? Would we have some pathological killer capturing the killing of a person on a cell phone and send it to a seedy channel? What will happen if each and every person became a Citizen Journalist – what if everyone stops thinking like a human being and starts thinking like a journalist? Should we take a re-look at our stated distancing from Activist Journalism because we simply, no longer can wind the clock back on Citizen Journalism?
As journalist and academic I think these are questions we will be forced to contend with. If not now, then at the time of the next blast. This is the real Breaking News.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Indian Cause: Caught between ascetic thuggery and moronic intellectualism
I have been watching the antics of the latest saffronite, Ramdev, and the writings of a P3-journalist-in-the-making, Manu Joseph, for some time now. The former’s vernacular sophistication matches the latter’s urban mundaneness. Between these two poles lies India’s misery and its miserable future.
The respected journalist, first. He does not like Ramdev, but is willing to bet his life on Indian politicians, even if they are bad. Why? Because they have a stake in politics and therefore, they will do what they can to do the right things. If he indeed believes what he writes, he should go back to journalism school.
As to the saffronite, I suspect two things. One, that he is genuinely mad. His utterings like ‘no need for high denomination currency notes’, his stance against gays, his argument that yoga can cure homosexuality, all these are rants. He is happy owing a Rs. 1200-crore empire selling oils and seeds and drugs and pickles and pani-puri masalas. Now he wants to extend his repertoire to solve social problems through yoga. I wouldn’t mind his antics as long as he is out of the public sphere with his brand advertisements.
The second is, if true, a more dangerous trait. He is a true saffron, unlike the fake saffron fiend, the BJP. Ramdev, well-versed in backward caste politics of UP, may have also concluded that the BJP variety saffron can no longer draw votes from the millions of Indian idiots; not because these Indians are lesser idiots now, but because these idiots are consumers now. What these fellows need is not temporal intellectualism, but a bit of temporal gratification of their consumerist cravings. Something like do a bit of tummy breathing to get into your Armani. The bearded man is adept at this kind of a thing. Perhaps he thinks the time has come for him to either give the BJP a push, or push himself into the centre of Indian politics. The poor Anna Hazare, ravaged as he himself was by subversive Indian industrialists and politicians, had already showed him the way.
I knew of this Ramdev fellow when he was in tatters, going round little places teaching pranayama. I saw him genuinely teaching yoga. I saw him grow popular as his camps grew. I now see his appetite grow as well. You need a genuine platform to articulate your fake ideals.
He rants about black money abroad. Does he publicise his company’s accounts? He rants about ‘zero technology’ Indian stuff. So, why does he move about in an American aircraft? There’s more which need not be dealt with here.
The thing to note is that a political public sphere in India today is informed by the likes of Manu Joseph and Ramdev. Anything more to be said?
Interestingly, Ramdev, I must say, understands the meaning of political timing. He began ranting about his political philosophy when the left, the centrist and right parties are in a mess.
The left parties, I sincerely hope, never recover from the shameful drubbing in West Bengal. For too long have they gotten away with violation of human rights, skinhead organizational culture and retrograde ideology. To borrow the ‘F’ word from Gordon Ramsay, they have truly F’d up West Bengal for generations to come. Any idiot who defends the Left Front policies, like the ban on teaching of English in primary schools for instance, is exactly that, an idiot. They liked the Red Book, so they indulged in spilling blood – of political rivals – for years in the state. They did not brook classes, so they permeated a class of their own in the state. They turned the people who did not leave the state for good into intellectual morons, bleating communist jargon they never understood, while the leaders helped themselves to wealth by all crooked means they blame the Congress of adopting.
The centrists. Actually, the Congress has always been on the ‘right’ of the centre, only the previous mixed economy model giving the impression that it is to the left of it. The after-colonials, as wily, vicious and cunning as their white masters, continue to occupy the moral central place in the country’s politics. And unlike before, cowards too. No single political class has so systematically eroded democratic institutions and discredited the country’s social and cultural structures as the Congress has done since Independence. I shiver to think if there would not have been another Emergency now had Indira Gandhi been the Prime Minister. Ramdev is lucky too as he would by now have been felled by army bullets, the pretext probably re-coined as ‘saffronistan’.
The rightists. The less said about them, the better. They murder people as in Gujarat, they bring down old buildings like in Ayodhya, they cause riots like all over the country, they escort international terrorists home, they have the country’s biggest neo-nazi, brownshirt organization, and yet they brazenly call themselves the saviours of Bharat. But they know their time is up. The muscles of their rascally political fronts are weakening, whether in Maharashtra or Delhi or Uttar Pradesh. They know people prefer Armani to brand Ayodhya. But they also know that the petty minds of the majority of their supporters can still be milked for political ends.
No wonder this political class, not tuned to a member of the civil society taking them on, was surprised when Anna Hazare took to the streets. Hazare has lots of faults with him. But at least he threw the first stone. What happened to him? He was desecrated by the people within days, by people – who else but stupid journalists and so-called intelligentsia – bothered more about their phony arm-chair arguments than the causes of the common people. And then steps in Ramdev. Again his detractors – the very same people – are wary. The leftists because they think he is saffron. The rights because they think he is a stronger saffron. The centrists because they think he is a fake saffron.
True that where Hazare was stupid, Ramdev is wily. Condemn them, but why condemn the cause? Because the cause is not lucrative. It involves too much giving and less of taking. What’s the use of a cause without profit? Now you can understand why these fake intellectuals on social media networks ravaged not just Hazare but also the Lokpal Bill proposal, why they will ravage Ramdev but also the accountability proposals.
They hate Ramdev because he bettered them at their own game. They are like the Manu Josephs who are already telling you that the corrupt politicians are better than Ramdev. They are the true status quo-ists.
What to do with them?
The respected journalist, first. He does not like Ramdev, but is willing to bet his life on Indian politicians, even if they are bad. Why? Because they have a stake in politics and therefore, they will do what they can to do the right things. If he indeed believes what he writes, he should go back to journalism school.
As to the saffronite, I suspect two things. One, that he is genuinely mad. His utterings like ‘no need for high denomination currency notes’, his stance against gays, his argument that yoga can cure homosexuality, all these are rants. He is happy owing a Rs. 1200-crore empire selling oils and seeds and drugs and pickles and pani-puri masalas. Now he wants to extend his repertoire to solve social problems through yoga. I wouldn’t mind his antics as long as he is out of the public sphere with his brand advertisements.
The second is, if true, a more dangerous trait. He is a true saffron, unlike the fake saffron fiend, the BJP. Ramdev, well-versed in backward caste politics of UP, may have also concluded that the BJP variety saffron can no longer draw votes from the millions of Indian idiots; not because these Indians are lesser idiots now, but because these idiots are consumers now. What these fellows need is not temporal intellectualism, but a bit of temporal gratification of their consumerist cravings. Something like do a bit of tummy breathing to get into your Armani. The bearded man is adept at this kind of a thing. Perhaps he thinks the time has come for him to either give the BJP a push, or push himself into the centre of Indian politics. The poor Anna Hazare, ravaged as he himself was by subversive Indian industrialists and politicians, had already showed him the way.
I knew of this Ramdev fellow when he was in tatters, going round little places teaching pranayama. I saw him genuinely teaching yoga. I saw him grow popular as his camps grew. I now see his appetite grow as well. You need a genuine platform to articulate your fake ideals.
He rants about black money abroad. Does he publicise his company’s accounts? He rants about ‘zero technology’ Indian stuff. So, why does he move about in an American aircraft? There’s more which need not be dealt with here.
The thing to note is that a political public sphere in India today is informed by the likes of Manu Joseph and Ramdev. Anything more to be said?
Interestingly, Ramdev, I must say, understands the meaning of political timing. He began ranting about his political philosophy when the left, the centrist and right parties are in a mess.
The left parties, I sincerely hope, never recover from the shameful drubbing in West Bengal. For too long have they gotten away with violation of human rights, skinhead organizational culture and retrograde ideology. To borrow the ‘F’ word from Gordon Ramsay, they have truly F’d up West Bengal for generations to come. Any idiot who defends the Left Front policies, like the ban on teaching of English in primary schools for instance, is exactly that, an idiot. They liked the Red Book, so they indulged in spilling blood – of political rivals – for years in the state. They did not brook classes, so they permeated a class of their own in the state. They turned the people who did not leave the state for good into intellectual morons, bleating communist jargon they never understood, while the leaders helped themselves to wealth by all crooked means they blame the Congress of adopting.
The centrists. Actually, the Congress has always been on the ‘right’ of the centre, only the previous mixed economy model giving the impression that it is to the left of it. The after-colonials, as wily, vicious and cunning as their white masters, continue to occupy the moral central place in the country’s politics. And unlike before, cowards too. No single political class has so systematically eroded democratic institutions and discredited the country’s social and cultural structures as the Congress has done since Independence. I shiver to think if there would not have been another Emergency now had Indira Gandhi been the Prime Minister. Ramdev is lucky too as he would by now have been felled by army bullets, the pretext probably re-coined as ‘saffronistan’.
The rightists. The less said about them, the better. They murder people as in Gujarat, they bring down old buildings like in Ayodhya, they cause riots like all over the country, they escort international terrorists home, they have the country’s biggest neo-nazi, brownshirt organization, and yet they brazenly call themselves the saviours of Bharat. But they know their time is up. The muscles of their rascally political fronts are weakening, whether in Maharashtra or Delhi or Uttar Pradesh. They know people prefer Armani to brand Ayodhya. But they also know that the petty minds of the majority of their supporters can still be milked for political ends.
No wonder this political class, not tuned to a member of the civil society taking them on, was surprised when Anna Hazare took to the streets. Hazare has lots of faults with him. But at least he threw the first stone. What happened to him? He was desecrated by the people within days, by people – who else but stupid journalists and so-called intelligentsia – bothered more about their phony arm-chair arguments than the causes of the common people. And then steps in Ramdev. Again his detractors – the very same people – are wary. The leftists because they think he is saffron. The rights because they think he is a stronger saffron. The centrists because they think he is a fake saffron.
True that where Hazare was stupid, Ramdev is wily. Condemn them, but why condemn the cause? Because the cause is not lucrative. It involves too much giving and less of taking. What’s the use of a cause without profit? Now you can understand why these fake intellectuals on social media networks ravaged not just Hazare but also the Lokpal Bill proposal, why they will ravage Ramdev but also the accountability proposals.
They hate Ramdev because he bettered them at their own game. They are like the Manu Josephs who are already telling you that the corrupt politicians are better than Ramdev. They are the true status quo-ists.
What to do with them?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The American Tea Partiers: Brewing a Hazardous Political Toxin
For all his sense of objectivity, commentator Leonard Pitts (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2011663096_pitts22.html)
bares a pat of his self at the end of his column by using the ‘us-them’ binary. He is not being conservative, but invites the accusation of displaying characteristics of one. On the face of it, the Birther politics may smell of racial discontent after Obama’s victory, but to limit the analysis to merely to the singular perception of race is not entirely correct.
In most capitalist societies, centrist politics of reconditioning have been answered not by the mainstream, politically-correct, rightists, but by the extreme fringe among them who cloak their politics under the garb of mere conservatism. The bring-back-America-of-my-dreams kind. The Republicans are happy to let the fringe have its day as long as they don’t have to officially support the fringe and yet derive political benefit out of its politics. The eat-cake-have-it-too kind.
The Tea Partiers pre-existed Obama. Remember, the post 9/11 days when Glenn Beck started his pet 9/12 Project? The ultimate conservative who is critical of Hollywood liberalism, supports of the war in Iraq, opposes multiculturalism, political correctness, euthanasia, anti-smoking regulations and overt homosexuality in TV and on film. He is also pro-life, by the way.
Even conservative analysts, for instance David Frum, describe Beck as “a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility”.
Frum was right on the first one, marginally erring on the second. The American South – the original South – is becoming the fulcrum of conservative politics in America today. And those conservatives have a valid argument. Way back in the early 1980s, sociologist John Shelton Reed, in his book, ‘One South: An Ethnic Approach to Regional Culture’, labeled white Southerners a “quasi-ethnic regional group”. No American region values its local culture as the South. Socially conservative, part of the Evangelical Protestant Bible belt, this region has been, in the last few decades, trying to adjust itself erosion of its exclusive culture because of the arrival of northerners and Hispanics. Historian Edward L. Ayers writes in “What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History” how difficult it is to the southerners to quietly accept what they call the declining exclusivity of “an earlier South that was somehow more authentic, real, more unified and distinct”.
This exclusivity bares itself prominently during election times in the USA: Go back to the Republican debates in the last election in states like Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee on issues ranging from race to abortion, gay rights, morality, religion and even foreign relations. Cowboy Bush could never make a mistake because he is a southerner!
But then economically, except for Florida and Virginia, the South has been suffering for a long time. Disgruntled tax payers on the one hand, the worst poverty rates in the USA on the other as reflected in lower household incomes, increasing number of unemployed and homeless and reducing number of graduates. Of course, it must be mentioned here that the South has a relatively larger population of African Americans than other regions and the whites-only statistics fare much better than the Southern average.
It is from this burning pit that the Tea Partiers have emerged, even notwithstanding the fact that some of their leaders have their political and economic bases elsewhere. At the height of the Obama Birth Certificate controversy, almost all of the law suits seeking Obama to come out with his ‘original’ birth certificate were filed in courts in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, Arizona and Texas! In the recent mid-term elections, from which states were most of the Republicans victors? No guesses.
I argue that the biggest conundrum for white and black America today is: What is Obama? In the last two years, they have not been able to succinctly resolve this issue. Obama is not your average African American, like Bush was the average Texan. He is an Ivy Leaguer. He is of the post-1960s America and thus escaped having to take the civil rights movement path to national politics. He is not a true American Black: His forefathers were not brought to the USA as slaves. He is not a heartland American, but a Hawaiian. He is not a religionist in the strict American sense.
So, how to categorise this person? Because without categorising him, you can’t attack him politically and as mentioned above, he does not fit into the traditional categories. Naturally, irrespective of what else he may be, he is still a Black. That is some consolation to his attackers. But race is not a politically correct tool to discredit a politician in the we-are-all-equal America; even the conservatives today shy away from raking up race at least in public.
But in politics where there is wile there is a way. Obama must be a ‘Marxist’ and Hussein definitely is a ‘Muslim’. If you go back to the early campaigning days of the last Presidential election, you will hear these two words among the most popular in the conservative rumour mill. The mainstream Conservatives would not dare use those words in public. Not that they would mind if some one else, with even a modicum of conservative credentials, utters them. Arrives on the American political scene a failed lawyer from Illinois, a frivolous politician, a known anti-Semite and an irritable litigator: Andy Martin. This fellow who was not allowed entry into the bar because he was paranoid was the saviour. And what did he say? In 2004 , weeks after the Democratic National Convention, for the first time, Obama was called a Muslim. By Martin. The New York Times says pernicious rumors that Barack Obama is “secretly a Muslim” can be traced back to him. That, if you recall, led to the Islamic Madarasa story which claimed that Obama had attended a Madarasa when he was Indonesia. Obama only once officially reacted to these religious insinuations saying: “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” That brought out more rumours from conspiracy lunatics like the Martins that Obama is doing a disservice to American by not condemning the Muslims for 9/11!!
The Tea Partiers don’t openly call Obama a Muslim. They are the cowardly type who best shoot from somebody else’s shoulder. They call him a ‘Marxist’ instead. The ‘M’ word again. But the reasons given by Martin and the Partiers is the same: Obama is out to wreck America.
What is the solution they propose? They waited for an opportunity. Obama gave it to them in 2000 when House Democrats passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 without a single Republican vote. The $787 billion “emergency” expenditure was seen as a demonstration of wasteful spending and an egregious growth of government. |Then the stage was set for the Tea Partiers as rumours emerged that all types of tax increases were on the anvil. The Partiers finally had the motive and the masses to motivate. And the rest of the Tea Partiers movement is history. One small observation: The Tea Partiers want a small central government with more power to the states, thereby reducing the size and scope of government and “promoting the American ideals of self-reliance and personal integrity” in the bargain.
Did we hear this before? Yes, of course, from Glenn Beck and his 9/12 Project, regarded by him as a pro-limited government movement that favors honesty, hope, humility, hard work, personal responsibility and, gratitude. A media personality who is quite popular in the USA (?), Beck cleverly tied in the 9/11 attacks and what he calls the original American values in one string. Only fools would say there is no connection with the ‘Islamist’ attacks on America on 9/11 and the call for bringing back American values.
So, in the last couple of years, what we see is a third political lobby in the making in the USA which identifies itself neither with the Democrats nor with the Republicans. There are the Partiers of course. Then there are the Glenn Beckers. Then the Jerome Corsis and Alan Keyes. There are the dumb hacks who would do anything, even project the Partiers as they do, to catch eyeballs, like the Liz Cheneys, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannitys or Camile Paglias.
Then come the big guns, the Presidential contenders for 2012, the likes of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, highest-rated commentator of Fox News Glenn Beck, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Backman, former CNN commentator Lou Dobbs (ha!), former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, Governor Gary Johnson, the most conservative of Senators Jim DeMint, Representative Joe Wilson, Governor Rick Terry, former Representative Dick Army.
As the 2012 Presidential election nears, we may well see these various political drifts trying to merge into one political entity – the third force – with a conservative agenda not palatable even to the worst of the Republicans, confident of victory. Their premise, at least, is correct. If the Americans can vote for a Bush and an Obama, why not the Tea Partiers? After all, the American dream is for everyone and any one, isn’t it?
The spirit of Barry Goldwater and his panacea form American ills -- small government, free enterprise and a strong national defense – lives on 50 years later in today’s America. Only, Goldwater’s crusade is now in the hands of social conservatives and the religious extreme right who call Obama a Marxist or a Muslim.
It’s not about race alone.
If only the average Mac-eating, Coke-drinking American sees through them. And in time.
bares a pat of his self at the end of his column by using the ‘us-them’ binary. He is not being conservative, but invites the accusation of displaying characteristics of one. On the face of it, the Birther politics may smell of racial discontent after Obama’s victory, but to limit the analysis to merely to the singular perception of race is not entirely correct.
In most capitalist societies, centrist politics of reconditioning have been answered not by the mainstream, politically-correct, rightists, but by the extreme fringe among them who cloak their politics under the garb of mere conservatism. The bring-back-America-of-my-dreams kind. The Republicans are happy to let the fringe have its day as long as they don’t have to officially support the fringe and yet derive political benefit out of its politics. The eat-cake-have-it-too kind.
The Tea Partiers pre-existed Obama. Remember, the post 9/11 days when Glenn Beck started his pet 9/12 Project? The ultimate conservative who is critical of Hollywood liberalism, supports of the war in Iraq, opposes multiculturalism, political correctness, euthanasia, anti-smoking regulations and overt homosexuality in TV and on film. He is also pro-life, by the way.
Even conservative analysts, for instance David Frum, describe Beck as “a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility”.
Frum was right on the first one, marginally erring on the second. The American South – the original South – is becoming the fulcrum of conservative politics in America today. And those conservatives have a valid argument. Way back in the early 1980s, sociologist John Shelton Reed, in his book, ‘One South: An Ethnic Approach to Regional Culture’, labeled white Southerners a “quasi-ethnic regional group”. No American region values its local culture as the South. Socially conservative, part of the Evangelical Protestant Bible belt, this region has been, in the last few decades, trying to adjust itself erosion of its exclusive culture because of the arrival of northerners and Hispanics. Historian Edward L. Ayers writes in “What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History” how difficult it is to the southerners to quietly accept what they call the declining exclusivity of “an earlier South that was somehow more authentic, real, more unified and distinct”.
This exclusivity bares itself prominently during election times in the USA: Go back to the Republican debates in the last election in states like Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee on issues ranging from race to abortion, gay rights, morality, religion and even foreign relations. Cowboy Bush could never make a mistake because he is a southerner!
But then economically, except for Florida and Virginia, the South has been suffering for a long time. Disgruntled tax payers on the one hand, the worst poverty rates in the USA on the other as reflected in lower household incomes, increasing number of unemployed and homeless and reducing number of graduates. Of course, it must be mentioned here that the South has a relatively larger population of African Americans than other regions and the whites-only statistics fare much better than the Southern average.
It is from this burning pit that the Tea Partiers have emerged, even notwithstanding the fact that some of their leaders have their political and economic bases elsewhere. At the height of the Obama Birth Certificate controversy, almost all of the law suits seeking Obama to come out with his ‘original’ birth certificate were filed in courts in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, Arizona and Texas! In the recent mid-term elections, from which states were most of the Republicans victors? No guesses.
I argue that the biggest conundrum for white and black America today is: What is Obama? In the last two years, they have not been able to succinctly resolve this issue. Obama is not your average African American, like Bush was the average Texan. He is an Ivy Leaguer. He is of the post-1960s America and thus escaped having to take the civil rights movement path to national politics. He is not a true American Black: His forefathers were not brought to the USA as slaves. He is not a heartland American, but a Hawaiian. He is not a religionist in the strict American sense.
So, how to categorise this person? Because without categorising him, you can’t attack him politically and as mentioned above, he does not fit into the traditional categories. Naturally, irrespective of what else he may be, he is still a Black. That is some consolation to his attackers. But race is not a politically correct tool to discredit a politician in the we-are-all-equal America; even the conservatives today shy away from raking up race at least in public.
But in politics where there is wile there is a way. Obama must be a ‘Marxist’ and Hussein definitely is a ‘Muslim’. If you go back to the early campaigning days of the last Presidential election, you will hear these two words among the most popular in the conservative rumour mill. The mainstream Conservatives would not dare use those words in public. Not that they would mind if some one else, with even a modicum of conservative credentials, utters them. Arrives on the American political scene a failed lawyer from Illinois, a frivolous politician, a known anti-Semite and an irritable litigator: Andy Martin. This fellow who was not allowed entry into the bar because he was paranoid was the saviour. And what did he say? In 2004 , weeks after the Democratic National Convention, for the first time, Obama was called a Muslim. By Martin. The New York Times says pernicious rumors that Barack Obama is “secretly a Muslim” can be traced back to him. That, if you recall, led to the Islamic Madarasa story which claimed that Obama had attended a Madarasa when he was Indonesia. Obama only once officially reacted to these religious insinuations saying: “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” That brought out more rumours from conspiracy lunatics like the Martins that Obama is doing a disservice to American by not condemning the Muslims for 9/11!!
The Tea Partiers don’t openly call Obama a Muslim. They are the cowardly type who best shoot from somebody else’s shoulder. They call him a ‘Marxist’ instead. The ‘M’ word again. But the reasons given by Martin and the Partiers is the same: Obama is out to wreck America.
What is the solution they propose? They waited for an opportunity. Obama gave it to them in 2000 when House Democrats passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 without a single Republican vote. The $787 billion “emergency” expenditure was seen as a demonstration of wasteful spending and an egregious growth of government. |Then the stage was set for the Tea Partiers as rumours emerged that all types of tax increases were on the anvil. The Partiers finally had the motive and the masses to motivate. And the rest of the Tea Partiers movement is history. One small observation: The Tea Partiers want a small central government with more power to the states, thereby reducing the size and scope of government and “promoting the American ideals of self-reliance and personal integrity” in the bargain.
Did we hear this before? Yes, of course, from Glenn Beck and his 9/12 Project, regarded by him as a pro-limited government movement that favors honesty, hope, humility, hard work, personal responsibility and, gratitude. A media personality who is quite popular in the USA (?), Beck cleverly tied in the 9/11 attacks and what he calls the original American values in one string. Only fools would say there is no connection with the ‘Islamist’ attacks on America on 9/11 and the call for bringing back American values.
So, in the last couple of years, what we see is a third political lobby in the making in the USA which identifies itself neither with the Democrats nor with the Republicans. There are the Partiers of course. Then there are the Glenn Beckers. Then the Jerome Corsis and Alan Keyes. There are the dumb hacks who would do anything, even project the Partiers as they do, to catch eyeballs, like the Liz Cheneys, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannitys or Camile Paglias.
Then come the big guns, the Presidential contenders for 2012, the likes of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, highest-rated commentator of Fox News Glenn Beck, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Backman, former CNN commentator Lou Dobbs (ha!), former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, Governor Gary Johnson, the most conservative of Senators Jim DeMint, Representative Joe Wilson, Governor Rick Terry, former Representative Dick Army.
As the 2012 Presidential election nears, we may well see these various political drifts trying to merge into one political entity – the third force – with a conservative agenda not palatable even to the worst of the Republicans, confident of victory. Their premise, at least, is correct. If the Americans can vote for a Bush and an Obama, why not the Tea Partiers? After all, the American dream is for everyone and any one, isn’t it?
The spirit of Barry Goldwater and his panacea form American ills -- small government, free enterprise and a strong national defense – lives on 50 years later in today’s America. Only, Goldwater’s crusade is now in the hands of social conservatives and the religious extreme right who call Obama a Marxist or a Muslim.
It’s not about race alone.
If only the average Mac-eating, Coke-drinking American sees through them. And in time.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
When a channel has blood on its hands: Rakhi Ka Insaaf or Reality Killer Inc.?
I write this blog with a sense of unrequited shame and impotent anger.
George Ade, an American humorist and playwright, once said: “In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment.” In India, television channels, without exception, wouldn’t think twice of showing worms mating if it would give them ratings. So, why should Imagine TV be an exception?
The biography of Sameer Nair, channel CEO, on the channel’s website claims: Imagine has carved an identity for itself with its unique, break-through reality programming and soul stirring dramas. Ramayan, Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, Bandini, Jyoti, Raaz Pichle Janam Ka, Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega, Devi are some of the programs that have helped establish Imagine firmly in the market.
Nair can now proudly extend his biography to say that his channel’s programmes can also be credited with the death, character assassination or public humiliation of ordinary Indian citizens.
The reference is to the most obnoxious and inhuman of reality shows ever shown: Rakhi Ka Insaaf (RKI).
On November 11, Laxman Prasad, a 25-year-old from Jhansi in central India passed away. Apparently he had stopped eating following a bout of extreme depression. It was caused by his appearance, along with his wife he wedded earlier this year, on RKI, a sham reality show on human relationships. It is presented by the most disgusting television personality ever, who goes by the name of Rakhi Sawant. She has the authority to say anything, mostly the most foul, to the participants. That’s Imagine TV’s ode to liberalism, I suppose.
Reflecting on the marital discord between Prasad and his wife, Sawant called him names, including describing him as an ‘impotent’. After the show, Prasad went into depression which apparently caused his death.
His uncle told the media: “Ever since he was humiliated and called names by the anchor in the programme aired on October 23, he had become an object of rebuke. This had caused him mental agony and he stopped taking food. We had gone to the programme hoping that it would help resolve Laxman's marital problems with Anita, whom he had married on February 19 this year. However, instead of finding a solution, unfounded charges were levelled against us by Rakhi who also branded Laxman as impotent.”
A person whose own character is ever in question has the audacious power to question the character of the participant! (I may be accused of being a male chauvinist by those who feel if men can be characterless and abusive then women have an equal right to be so. So be it. If that is how they calculate gender equality then Rakhi Sawant is their emancipator!)
Earlier, a Muslim widow from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh similarly fell foul in the show. Her son was in the custody of her sisters. On the show, Rakhi Sawant described the widow as characterless. A secret video showing the widow embracing a man was also shown. Since then the lady is missing from her home. If she is still alive, she would understand what Prasad went through.
Who murdered Prasad? Who is responsible for the video recording of the widow? Rakhi Sawant? No. She’s just a two-penny fiend in human shape – to borrow the phrase from Wodehouse -- who would have otherwise led a life of pathetic obscurity had not the greedy television industry raised her to this level for furthering their self interests in the name of socially uplifting entertainment. It is the television channel which is the culprit.
I have my faults, but when it comes to the programmes of Imagine TV, I draw the line. As a journalist I have seen worse, but this touches the nadir. I ensure that my daughter does not get to watch it at all. Living outside India, we initially thought that our daughter would get a peek into Indian culture if she watched Indian channels. Initially when it was new, we used to watch Imagine TV. Then it dawned in me that if people outside India watched its shows, they would not be incorrect in assuming that women in India are generally rascals, without character, vengeful, deceiving, lustful, cheating, diabolic. In sum: Dirty. And the men, unrivaled followers of de Sade.
Because that is how the women are characterized in Imagine TV’s shows. Take Jyoti, the lead in the eponymous serial. An educated girl with a supposedly independent mind, she comes across as a dumb muff, willing to suffer ignominies without a word. Or, the lead character in Bandini, who calls her husband ‘maalik’ (lord). (As if suffering oppression stoically is the Indian way to true womanhood! I don’t know what the women in the families of the channel bosses think of these shows.)
Or the other reality show in which dozens of Indian girls shamelessly parade in front of Rahul Mahajan, who has a record for using drugs and beating his wife (later, wives), for one of them to be worthy enough to be chosen as his wife. The woman who finally won, got to marry him but left him shortly complaining he used to beat and abuse her!
Indian or no Indian, I don’t want my daughter to draw inspiration from such characterisations. More importantly, I don’t want my daughter to get the impression that women in India are usually in possession of such a character as portrayed by Imagine TV. By showing women as eternally facing oppression, Imagine TV is only espousing the cause of the male chauvinist pig and certainly not that of emancipation of women. If Sameer Nair and company think otherwise they better see a shrink.
But now they should be staring at a prison sentence. Prasad’s death has raised, or lowered, the bar of civic sense. Thanks to them, we have long crossed the threshold of decency and decorum. We have now entered the arena of violence and mayhem in the name of family entertainment. It is as if Imagine TV has turned the clock back to Roman times when popular culture was epitomized by humans killing humans in a stadium. If Imagine TV is not restrained now, we will soon see live incest and orgies. We are a step away from being Caligulas.
Someone said there is no point burning dirty books; better make people not read them. I don’t prescribe to it in general, but in the case of Imagine TV I am certain it should meet a similar fate. In the name of reality shows, it is cheating ordinary people, it is guilty of breaching privacy of people (as in videotaping in the Saharanpur widow case), it is manipulating the baser instinct of people – voyeurism – it is building aspirations for a recidivist society.
But in the larger context, why blame Imagine TV? People do a lot of things for money, even picking it up with their mouths from a pile of shit. The blame lies in us, Indians. By watching such programmes we are bringing our repressive baser instincts into our family domains. The Sameer Nairs wouldn’t come up with such shows if they didn’t know us better. We get what we deserve. Shame on us.
Last year, Pallavi, a 32-year-old mother committed suicide after watching a reality show called Sach Ka Saamna. Early this year a young Mumbai girl committed suicide after not performing well in the Boogie-Woogie show.
There are many more Prasads and Pallavis in our families awaiting their fateful moments. I will ensure that my daughter leads a happy life with true knowledge of Indian culture certainly not learnt from the Indian television distortionists. The rest can go to hell if they volunteer to fall prey to the culture, nay, killer vultures of Indian general entertainment television.
Someone who read this piece tried to advise me to keep my cool and be a responsible writer. I thought, if Rakhi Sawant has the freedom to say what she wants, I have a similar freedom too. The only difference is, her words kill people and mine, I hope in vain, kills the show itself.
George Ade, an American humorist and playwright, once said: “In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment.” In India, television channels, without exception, wouldn’t think twice of showing worms mating if it would give them ratings. So, why should Imagine TV be an exception?
The biography of Sameer Nair, channel CEO, on the channel’s website claims: Imagine has carved an identity for itself with its unique, break-through reality programming and soul stirring dramas. Ramayan, Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, Bandini, Jyoti, Raaz Pichle Janam Ka, Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega, Devi are some of the programs that have helped establish Imagine firmly in the market.
Nair can now proudly extend his biography to say that his channel’s programmes can also be credited with the death, character assassination or public humiliation of ordinary Indian citizens.
The reference is to the most obnoxious and inhuman of reality shows ever shown: Rakhi Ka Insaaf (RKI).
On November 11, Laxman Prasad, a 25-year-old from Jhansi in central India passed away. Apparently he had stopped eating following a bout of extreme depression. It was caused by his appearance, along with his wife he wedded earlier this year, on RKI, a sham reality show on human relationships. It is presented by the most disgusting television personality ever, who goes by the name of Rakhi Sawant. She has the authority to say anything, mostly the most foul, to the participants. That’s Imagine TV’s ode to liberalism, I suppose.
Reflecting on the marital discord between Prasad and his wife, Sawant called him names, including describing him as an ‘impotent’. After the show, Prasad went into depression which apparently caused his death.
His uncle told the media: “Ever since he was humiliated and called names by the anchor in the programme aired on October 23, he had become an object of rebuke. This had caused him mental agony and he stopped taking food. We had gone to the programme hoping that it would help resolve Laxman's marital problems with Anita, whom he had married on February 19 this year. However, instead of finding a solution, unfounded charges were levelled against us by Rakhi who also branded Laxman as impotent.”
A person whose own character is ever in question has the audacious power to question the character of the participant! (I may be accused of being a male chauvinist by those who feel if men can be characterless and abusive then women have an equal right to be so. So be it. If that is how they calculate gender equality then Rakhi Sawant is their emancipator!)
Earlier, a Muslim widow from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh similarly fell foul in the show. Her son was in the custody of her sisters. On the show, Rakhi Sawant described the widow as characterless. A secret video showing the widow embracing a man was also shown. Since then the lady is missing from her home. If she is still alive, she would understand what Prasad went through.
Who murdered Prasad? Who is responsible for the video recording of the widow? Rakhi Sawant? No. She’s just a two-penny fiend in human shape – to borrow the phrase from Wodehouse -- who would have otherwise led a life of pathetic obscurity had not the greedy television industry raised her to this level for furthering their self interests in the name of socially uplifting entertainment. It is the television channel which is the culprit.
I have my faults, but when it comes to the programmes of Imagine TV, I draw the line. As a journalist I have seen worse, but this touches the nadir. I ensure that my daughter does not get to watch it at all. Living outside India, we initially thought that our daughter would get a peek into Indian culture if she watched Indian channels. Initially when it was new, we used to watch Imagine TV. Then it dawned in me that if people outside India watched its shows, they would not be incorrect in assuming that women in India are generally rascals, without character, vengeful, deceiving, lustful, cheating, diabolic. In sum: Dirty. And the men, unrivaled followers of de Sade.
Because that is how the women are characterized in Imagine TV’s shows. Take Jyoti, the lead in the eponymous serial. An educated girl with a supposedly independent mind, she comes across as a dumb muff, willing to suffer ignominies without a word. Or, the lead character in Bandini, who calls her husband ‘maalik’ (lord). (As if suffering oppression stoically is the Indian way to true womanhood! I don’t know what the women in the families of the channel bosses think of these shows.)
Or the other reality show in which dozens of Indian girls shamelessly parade in front of Rahul Mahajan, who has a record for using drugs and beating his wife (later, wives), for one of them to be worthy enough to be chosen as his wife. The woman who finally won, got to marry him but left him shortly complaining he used to beat and abuse her!
Indian or no Indian, I don’t want my daughter to draw inspiration from such characterisations. More importantly, I don’t want my daughter to get the impression that women in India are usually in possession of such a character as portrayed by Imagine TV. By showing women as eternally facing oppression, Imagine TV is only espousing the cause of the male chauvinist pig and certainly not that of emancipation of women. If Sameer Nair and company think otherwise they better see a shrink.
But now they should be staring at a prison sentence. Prasad’s death has raised, or lowered, the bar of civic sense. Thanks to them, we have long crossed the threshold of decency and decorum. We have now entered the arena of violence and mayhem in the name of family entertainment. It is as if Imagine TV has turned the clock back to Roman times when popular culture was epitomized by humans killing humans in a stadium. If Imagine TV is not restrained now, we will soon see live incest and orgies. We are a step away from being Caligulas.
Someone said there is no point burning dirty books; better make people not read them. I don’t prescribe to it in general, but in the case of Imagine TV I am certain it should meet a similar fate. In the name of reality shows, it is cheating ordinary people, it is guilty of breaching privacy of people (as in videotaping in the Saharanpur widow case), it is manipulating the baser instinct of people – voyeurism – it is building aspirations for a recidivist society.
But in the larger context, why blame Imagine TV? People do a lot of things for money, even picking it up with their mouths from a pile of shit. The blame lies in us, Indians. By watching such programmes we are bringing our repressive baser instincts into our family domains. The Sameer Nairs wouldn’t come up with such shows if they didn’t know us better. We get what we deserve. Shame on us.
Last year, Pallavi, a 32-year-old mother committed suicide after watching a reality show called Sach Ka Saamna. Early this year a young Mumbai girl committed suicide after not performing well in the Boogie-Woogie show.
There are many more Prasads and Pallavis in our families awaiting their fateful moments. I will ensure that my daughter leads a happy life with true knowledge of Indian culture certainly not learnt from the Indian television distortionists. The rest can go to hell if they volunteer to fall prey to the culture, nay, killer vultures of Indian general entertainment television.
Someone who read this piece tried to advise me to keep my cool and be a responsible writer. I thought, if Rakhi Sawant has the freedom to say what she wants, I have a similar freedom too. The only difference is, her words kill people and mine, I hope in vain, kills the show itself.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Is it Ram save the believers? Or save Ram from the believers?
The Indian judicial system is insane. The Ayodhya dispute judgment is proof enough. The judgment is a travesty of justice. It is a majority (2-1) judgment only because it technically conforms to the legal definition of a majority decision. Possibly, the dissent gives it the legitimacy it lacks.
I am told I can criticize judgments, but not question the motives of judges. Here, I am only questioning their beliefs. You will not be chastised for thinking the judges were overawed by the presence of Lord Ram as a petitioner. Deconstruct the two vocal judges; find a Hindu and a Muslim. Justice, go shag.
I am still not clear what the judges really wanted to say. The only point they agreed upon was to divide the disputed place among the three involved parties. Otherwise, they disagreed on everything else. Worse, their pronouncements were based on myth and hearsay couched as ‘belief’. Belief of the majority.
Let me take you through the charade.
1. Which structure existed before the Hindu lumpens installed some idols inside it in 1949?
The Hindu judge says: Disputed structure was always treated, considered and believed to be a mosque and practised by Mohammedans for worship accordingly.
Then why should the area on which that structure stood before it was demolished be given to the Hindus? The same Hindu judge says: …. the part of the land which is held by this Court to be the place of birth of Lord Rama according to the faith and belief of Hindus.
He accepts it was a Muslim structure, but still gives it to the Hindus. Why? Not because of evidence provided by the Archaeological Survey of India. But because of the belief of Hindus. Then what about the Muslim belief which the same judge also attests to? The Hindu judge went by the majority belief.
2. Who built the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The plaintiffs have failed to prove that the building in dispute was built by Babar or by Mir Baqi. In the absence of any otherwise pleadings and material it is difficult to hold as to when and by whom the disputed structure was constructed but this much is clear that the same was constructed before the visit of Joseph Tieffenthaler in Oudh area between 1766 to 1771.
The Muslim judge says: The disputed structure was constructed as mosque by or under orders of Babar. It is not proved by direct evidence that premises in dispute including constructed portion belonged to Babar or the person who constructed the mosque or under whose orders it was constructed.
Can you believe both judges looked at the same evidence to come to such conclusions! Why? Because one was Hindu, the other was Muslim.
3. Was a structure demolished to build the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The building in dispute was constructed after demolition of Non-Islamic religious structure, i.e., a Hindu temple.
The Muslim judge says: No temple was demolished for constructing the mosque. Mosque was constructed over the ruins of temples which were lying in utter ruins since a very long time before the construction of mosque and some material thereof was used in construction of the mosque.
The Muslim judge at least obliquely admits that the ruins over which the structure was built were of temples. But the Hindu judge believes for sure that any non-Islamic structure has to be a Hindu temple. Simple man, he.
4. What is the earliest evidence of the three-domed structure being used for prayers?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the muslims at least from 1860 and onwards have visited the inner courtyard in the premises in dispute and have offered Namaj there at. The last Namaj was offered on 16th December, 1949. It is held that building in question was not exclusively used by the members of muslim community. After 1856-57 outer courtyard exclusively used by Hindu and inner courtyard had been visited for the purpose of worship by the members of both the communities.
The Muslim judge: That much before 1855 Ram Chabutra and Seeta Rasoi had come into existence and Hindus were worshipping in the same. It was very very unique and absolutely unprecedented situation that in side the boundary wall and compound of the mosque Hindu religious places were there which were actually being worshipped along with offerings of Namaz by Muslims in the mosque.
A rare agreement that both Hindus and Muslims were worshipping in the same area in the mid-19th century, but that it were the Muslims who were solely worshipping inside the three-domed structure. The Hindu judge would have admitted, at least to himself, that the Hindus had never, never worshipped inside the three-domed structure. Which logically means that the Hindus violated all ethics by stealthily installing some Hindu idols inside the three-domed structure in 1949. Remember, this was just two years after India’s independence and the violent Partition which saw many Muslims from around Ayodhya migrate to Pakistan, leaving their homes and property to be usurped by the locals. The locals could have been Hindus.
5. Was there a Hindu idol inside the three-domed structure before 1949?
The Hindu judge: The idol in question kept under the Shikhar existed there prior to 6th December, 1992 but not from time immemorial and instead kept thereat in the night of 22nd/23rd December, 1949.
The Muslim judge: That for a very long time till the construction of the mosque it was treated/believed by Hindus that some where in a very large area of which premises in dispute is a very small part birth place of Lord Ram was situated, however, the belief did not relate to any specified small area within that bigger area specifically the premises in dispute.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on this issue.
6. When and how did the Hindus claim for the first time that their deity Ram was born at the site of the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the place of birth, as believed and worshipped by Hindus, is the area covered under the central dome of the three domed structure, i.e., the disputed structure in the inner courtyard in the premises of dispute.
The Muslim judge: That after some time of construction of the mosque Hindus started identifying the premises in dispute as exact birth place of Lord Ram or a place wherein exact birth place was situated. That for some decades before 1949 Hindus started treating/believing the place beneath the Central dome of mosque (where at present make sift temple stands) to be exact birth place of Lord Ram.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on the issue than the Hindu judge who understands belief.
The above are but a sniff. Read the full text of the judgment for the fragrance. By the way, I don’t know if the Hindu deity called Ram is aware he has been dragged to court as well by his believers?
Here is the suit: O.O.S. No. 5 of 1989 (R.S.NO. 236/1989
Bhagwan Sri Rama Virajman & Ors. Vs. Sri Rajendra Singh & Ors.
Here is the explanation of the suit: The instant suit was filed on behalf of the deities and Sri Ram Janm Bhumi through the next friend, praying that the defendants be restrained not to interfere in the construction of the temple of plaintiff nos. 1 and 2 on the ground that the deities are perpetual minors and against them Limitation Laws do not run.
So, is Ram a god or a human?
Anyway, here is what the court has to say on Ram: This Court is of the view that place of birth that is Ram Janm Bhumi is a juristic person. The deity also attained the divinity like Agni, Vayu, Kedarnath. Asthan is personified as the spirit of divine worshipped as the birth place of Ram Lala or Lord Ram as a child. Spirit of divine ever remains present every where at all times for any one to invoke at any shape or form in accordance with his own aspirations and it can be shapeless and formless also.
I read and re-read this paragraph and even pinched myself because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Was it part of a judgment or an RSS pamphlet?
One can go on and on taking potshots at the judgment which runs into thousands of pages. It is already getting boring and had it not been considered the most crucial judgment in India’s history – as a dumb tv journalist in India kept on telling his believers – it wouldn’t have been given a second glance even by a third-rate lawyer.
As of today, India is no longer a secular state. It is a Hindu nation exhibiting theocratic tendencies. Evidence need not assist the cause of justice. Spiritual belief, of the majority kind, is the quiet, safe, substitute. For all the cynicism, the judgment may actually help resolve the Ayodhya dispute. But even then, the fact will remain that the reconciliation was achieved on the basis of a judgment based on puerile, but politically safe, grounds. It makes us Hindus first, Indians next. It is a new politico-religious binary we have to get used to.
I have half a mind to meet a local criminal in Patna, the capital of Bihar, who, when I used to work there in the 1980s, decided to install a statue of a Hindu monkey god right in the middle of a busy street. In a few months, he erected a brick structure around the statue. A brief while later, he hired a priest to perform ‘puja’. Slowly but surely, the locals, who originally protested against the installation saying it was causing traffic jams, started visitng the place. And soon, it was called a temple. When I visited Patna a few years ago, I saw this criminal had now turned into a bearded man in saffron clothing and wooden sandals. One of his henchmen told me he had given up crime because the temple was paying him much more. I want to tell this fellow to encourage some locals to file a suit against him and his temple. The court will eventually side with him because it will believe in his belief in his god sitting on the middle of the street. So what if the evidence shows that the god is obstructing traffic?
In India anything can happen. Because Indians are foolish believers in a polity which does not want them but their majority status to serve its own ends. Left, Centre or Right. It’s the turn of the Right today. India Shining, those who killed a Gandhi and brought down a mosque once said. India Believing, they say now, mockingly. Ram serves all. Believe it.
I am told I can criticize judgments, but not question the motives of judges. Here, I am only questioning their beliefs. You will not be chastised for thinking the judges were overawed by the presence of Lord Ram as a petitioner. Deconstruct the two vocal judges; find a Hindu and a Muslim. Justice, go shag.
I am still not clear what the judges really wanted to say. The only point they agreed upon was to divide the disputed place among the three involved parties. Otherwise, they disagreed on everything else. Worse, their pronouncements were based on myth and hearsay couched as ‘belief’. Belief of the majority.
Let me take you through the charade.
1. Which structure existed before the Hindu lumpens installed some idols inside it in 1949?
The Hindu judge says: Disputed structure was always treated, considered and believed to be a mosque and practised by Mohammedans for worship accordingly.
Then why should the area on which that structure stood before it was demolished be given to the Hindus? The same Hindu judge says: …. the part of the land which is held by this Court to be the place of birth of Lord Rama according to the faith and belief of Hindus.
He accepts it was a Muslim structure, but still gives it to the Hindus. Why? Not because of evidence provided by the Archaeological Survey of India. But because of the belief of Hindus. Then what about the Muslim belief which the same judge also attests to? The Hindu judge went by the majority belief.
2. Who built the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The plaintiffs have failed to prove that the building in dispute was built by Babar or by Mir Baqi. In the absence of any otherwise pleadings and material it is difficult to hold as to when and by whom the disputed structure was constructed but this much is clear that the same was constructed before the visit of Joseph Tieffenthaler in Oudh area between 1766 to 1771.
The Muslim judge says: The disputed structure was constructed as mosque by or under orders of Babar. It is not proved by direct evidence that premises in dispute including constructed portion belonged to Babar or the person who constructed the mosque or under whose orders it was constructed.
Can you believe both judges looked at the same evidence to come to such conclusions! Why? Because one was Hindu, the other was Muslim.
3. Was a structure demolished to build the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The building in dispute was constructed after demolition of Non-Islamic religious structure, i.e., a Hindu temple.
The Muslim judge says: No temple was demolished for constructing the mosque. Mosque was constructed over the ruins of temples which were lying in utter ruins since a very long time before the construction of mosque and some material thereof was used in construction of the mosque.
The Muslim judge at least obliquely admits that the ruins over which the structure was built were of temples. But the Hindu judge believes for sure that any non-Islamic structure has to be a Hindu temple. Simple man, he.
4. What is the earliest evidence of the three-domed structure being used for prayers?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the muslims at least from 1860 and onwards have visited the inner courtyard in the premises in dispute and have offered Namaj there at. The last Namaj was offered on 16th December, 1949. It is held that building in question was not exclusively used by the members of muslim community. After 1856-57 outer courtyard exclusively used by Hindu and inner courtyard had been visited for the purpose of worship by the members of both the communities.
The Muslim judge: That much before 1855 Ram Chabutra and Seeta Rasoi had come into existence and Hindus were worshipping in the same. It was very very unique and absolutely unprecedented situation that in side the boundary wall and compound of the mosque Hindu religious places were there which were actually being worshipped along with offerings of Namaz by Muslims in the mosque.
A rare agreement that both Hindus and Muslims were worshipping in the same area in the mid-19th century, but that it were the Muslims who were solely worshipping inside the three-domed structure. The Hindu judge would have admitted, at least to himself, that the Hindus had never, never worshipped inside the three-domed structure. Which logically means that the Hindus violated all ethics by stealthily installing some Hindu idols inside the three-domed structure in 1949. Remember, this was just two years after India’s independence and the violent Partition which saw many Muslims from around Ayodhya migrate to Pakistan, leaving their homes and property to be usurped by the locals. The locals could have been Hindus.
5. Was there a Hindu idol inside the three-domed structure before 1949?
The Hindu judge: The idol in question kept under the Shikhar existed there prior to 6th December, 1992 but not from time immemorial and instead kept thereat in the night of 22nd/23rd December, 1949.
The Muslim judge: That for a very long time till the construction of the mosque it was treated/believed by Hindus that some where in a very large area of which premises in dispute is a very small part birth place of Lord Ram was situated, however, the belief did not relate to any specified small area within that bigger area specifically the premises in dispute.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on this issue.
6. When and how did the Hindus claim for the first time that their deity Ram was born at the site of the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the place of birth, as believed and worshipped by Hindus, is the area covered under the central dome of the three domed structure, i.e., the disputed structure in the inner courtyard in the premises of dispute.
The Muslim judge: That after some time of construction of the mosque Hindus started identifying the premises in dispute as exact birth place of Lord Ram or a place wherein exact birth place was situated. That for some decades before 1949 Hindus started treating/believing the place beneath the Central dome of mosque (where at present make sift temple stands) to be exact birth place of Lord Ram.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on the issue than the Hindu judge who understands belief.
The above are but a sniff. Read the full text of the judgment for the fragrance. By the way, I don’t know if the Hindu deity called Ram is aware he has been dragged to court as well by his believers?
Here is the suit: O.O.S. No. 5 of 1989 (R.S.NO. 236/1989
Bhagwan Sri Rama Virajman & Ors. Vs. Sri Rajendra Singh & Ors.
Here is the explanation of the suit: The instant suit was filed on behalf of the deities and Sri Ram Janm Bhumi through the next friend, praying that the defendants be restrained not to interfere in the construction of the temple of plaintiff nos. 1 and 2 on the ground that the deities are perpetual minors and against them Limitation Laws do not run.
So, is Ram a god or a human?
Anyway, here is what the court has to say on Ram: This Court is of the view that place of birth that is Ram Janm Bhumi is a juristic person. The deity also attained the divinity like Agni, Vayu, Kedarnath. Asthan is personified as the spirit of divine worshipped as the birth place of Ram Lala or Lord Ram as a child. Spirit of divine ever remains present every where at all times for any one to invoke at any shape or form in accordance with his own aspirations and it can be shapeless and formless also.
I read and re-read this paragraph and even pinched myself because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Was it part of a judgment or an RSS pamphlet?
One can go on and on taking potshots at the judgment which runs into thousands of pages. It is already getting boring and had it not been considered the most crucial judgment in India’s history – as a dumb tv journalist in India kept on telling his believers – it wouldn’t have been given a second glance even by a third-rate lawyer.
As of today, India is no longer a secular state. It is a Hindu nation exhibiting theocratic tendencies. Evidence need not assist the cause of justice. Spiritual belief, of the majority kind, is the quiet, safe, substitute. For all the cynicism, the judgment may actually help resolve the Ayodhya dispute. But even then, the fact will remain that the reconciliation was achieved on the basis of a judgment based on puerile, but politically safe, grounds. It makes us Hindus first, Indians next. It is a new politico-religious binary we have to get used to.
I have half a mind to meet a local criminal in Patna, the capital of Bihar, who, when I used to work there in the 1980s, decided to install a statue of a Hindu monkey god right in the middle of a busy street. In a few months, he erected a brick structure around the statue. A brief while later, he hired a priest to perform ‘puja’. Slowly but surely, the locals, who originally protested against the installation saying it was causing traffic jams, started visitng the place. And soon, it was called a temple. When I visited Patna a few years ago, I saw this criminal had now turned into a bearded man in saffron clothing and wooden sandals. One of his henchmen told me he had given up crime because the temple was paying him much more. I want to tell this fellow to encourage some locals to file a suit against him and his temple. The court will eventually side with him because it will believe in his belief in his god sitting on the middle of the street. So what if the evidence shows that the god is obstructing traffic?
In India anything can happen. Because Indians are foolish believers in a polity which does not want them but their majority status to serve its own ends. Left, Centre or Right. It’s the turn of the Right today. India Shining, those who killed a Gandhi and brought down a mosque once said. India Believing, they say now, mockingly. Ram serves all. Believe it.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
NRIs? Grow up. They are HTIs: Happen To be Indians
I was watching the latest Bollywood film released this week, ‘We Are Family’ at a theatre in Leicester. Something was nagging me. Something seemed out of place. The puzzle solved itself when the film ended with the scroll of acknowledgements.
The background score appeared in the top third of the scroll and quite low down appeared the names of the playback singers alongside the songs sequenced in the way they appear in the film.
It was a typical Hollywood scroll.
More to come. I did not see a single visual of India in the entire film. Part of it was shot in some Mumbai studio, but the outside scenes were entirely Australian. Sydney, to be precise. I didn’t see a single brown face other than the actors. And half the time they conversed in English. The Hindi they spoke you won’t hear anywhere in India. It’s typical NRI Hindi. I know because my daughter speaks the same way.
If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that it was a Hollywood film about an Indian family Down Under.
I think the globalisation of Bollywood since Dilwale Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun – which introduced the non-resident Gujarati life-style to India – to Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Namaste London -- which swayed under the influence of western family values – to New York and Kites – which still had something of India lingering in them – is now complete with We Are Family.
Not just Bollywood, current films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, even Oriya have begun to represent India in a non-Indian environment.
And why not? For instance, in my home town of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and the neighbouring city of Vijayawada, it is a fact that at least one member of each house lives abroad. The same is true, even if in varying degrees, for most states in India.
In the 1960s and 1970s, my paternal grandmother used to say it was a punishment visiting her children’s families in Delhi or Madras. There’s nothing in these cities, no culture, no ‘samskar’, no proper way of bringing up children, she would moan. But by the end of her life, she had travelled abroad more times than even some of her other sons and daughters! She could tell the difference between a burger and a ciabatta, told us that Universal is much better than the Vauhini Studio in Madras, didn’t like flying Air India and thought Des Pardes was the most un-Indian film she ever saw.
Her children who live abroad even today pay their annual visits to India, the men exchanging their loafers and jackets for the simple pant-and-shirt, the ladies digging out their sarees from the store rooms. They take their children on tours to Indian cities and temples in a faint attempt to pass on their Indianness to the next generation. But for the current generation – my cousins and their children -- Indianness ends with their names, that is, if ‘Subramanyam’ has not become ‘Mony’.
One of them wrote to me after seeing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: Guys like Amitabh Bachchan (who plays Shah Rukh Khan’s father) still exist in India? I asked the same chappie about We Are Family. He said: It’s cool. That’s how it is out here. Would you tell your children in a matter-of-fact manner that you had cancer, the Indian in me asked him. Why not? No point getting emotional about it. They’ll have to grow up one day and the best you can do is prepare them for the future. He said. Would an Indian mother, er, mom, agree to train another woman to take her place as shown in the film? The Indian in me wouldn’t let go. Where are you, cousin? A friend of mine brought home a step-dad for her children a month after the hubby died and they don’t have any problems. He intoned. I wanted to ask if anyone had cared to check how the children were adjusting. But I stopped myself.
We Are Family destroys many Indian assumptions, the foremost being you are an Indian wherever you are. Wrong. There is a clear disconnect between India and the Indian diaspora. India may continue to be delusional about Indians living abroad remaining Indian. Hardly. The concept of ‘pravasi bhartiya’ that the Pawars, Modis and Chandrababu Naidus institutionalised to promote the supposition that the Indian diaspora is the prime example of India shining is a charade.
Nine out of 10 Indians settled abroad did so because they hated the Indian system. Now they are Americans or Europeans and all the PIO cards India can print would not make them return ‘home’. They are married to their present, living cultures and they must be comfortable with it. If India wants to show them off as its brood, as a cap in its feather, let it. It doesn’t harm them. I have been away from India for nearly five years now and I am beginning to understand how the roots wither as generations expand. If Dev Patel, who played the protagonist kid in Slumdog Millionaire, prefers acting in Hollywood movies to Bollywood ones, no one can accuse him of being un-Indian.
There’s a video library in Leicester run by a Punjabi in his 50s who makes regular visits back home. He tells me that the VHS tapes and CDs of the pre-1990 Indian films are gathering dust because only the ‘buddhe log’ (old people) ask for them. The hot sellers are Indian films extensively shot abroad and show life-styles and cultures the youngsters can relate to. He thinks We Are Family is going to earn him much more than any other recent film.
What he says may be true for him, though I know that there is still a craze for the old B&Ws. Many families abroad send their children to Indian dance or music schools. They perform ‘puja’ during festivals, downloading the ‘vidhan’ (method of doing the puja) from the internet. The temples and gurdwaras get a regular stream of worshippers. But to interpret this as proof of them being Indian is a misnomer.
We Are Family sets the record straight. It reflects the current cultural moorings of a family in a setting far from Indian shores. It is coincidental that the said family happens to be of Indian origin. Remember, you don’t even know the surname of the family. You don’t see pictures of their parents and grand parents. You don’t know which part of India they come from and whether the cancer patient’s family in India had been informed. I don’t think you even see the ‘pundit’ who performs the marriage at the end of the film. You don’t see anyone, even the youngest child, weeping, save the patient herself. Emotions are kept to a minimum and you would find the relationships a bit cold by Indian standards. Not that there is dearth of either emotion or warmth. Only it is expressed in a way perhaps largely alien in India.
I can keep on dissecting the film, but the conclusion doesn’t change. We need to grow up. The USP of India lies within its own boundaries. Latching on to the diaspora doesn’t help. We have left it to Bollywood to reflect Indianness abroad. Ironic that it is a Bollywood film-maker who has latched on to the diaspora audience for his return on investment who drops the scales from our eyes.
The background score appeared in the top third of the scroll and quite low down appeared the names of the playback singers alongside the songs sequenced in the way they appear in the film.
It was a typical Hollywood scroll.
More to come. I did not see a single visual of India in the entire film. Part of it was shot in some Mumbai studio, but the outside scenes were entirely Australian. Sydney, to be precise. I didn’t see a single brown face other than the actors. And half the time they conversed in English. The Hindi they spoke you won’t hear anywhere in India. It’s typical NRI Hindi. I know because my daughter speaks the same way.
If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that it was a Hollywood film about an Indian family Down Under.
I think the globalisation of Bollywood since Dilwale Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun – which introduced the non-resident Gujarati life-style to India – to Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Namaste London -- which swayed under the influence of western family values – to New York and Kites – which still had something of India lingering in them – is now complete with We Are Family.
Not just Bollywood, current films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, even Oriya have begun to represent India in a non-Indian environment.
And why not? For instance, in my home town of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and the neighbouring city of Vijayawada, it is a fact that at least one member of each house lives abroad. The same is true, even if in varying degrees, for most states in India.
In the 1960s and 1970s, my paternal grandmother used to say it was a punishment visiting her children’s families in Delhi or Madras. There’s nothing in these cities, no culture, no ‘samskar’, no proper way of bringing up children, she would moan. But by the end of her life, she had travelled abroad more times than even some of her other sons and daughters! She could tell the difference between a burger and a ciabatta, told us that Universal is much better than the Vauhini Studio in Madras, didn’t like flying Air India and thought Des Pardes was the most un-Indian film she ever saw.
Her children who live abroad even today pay their annual visits to India, the men exchanging their loafers and jackets for the simple pant-and-shirt, the ladies digging out their sarees from the store rooms. They take their children on tours to Indian cities and temples in a faint attempt to pass on their Indianness to the next generation. But for the current generation – my cousins and their children -- Indianness ends with their names, that is, if ‘Subramanyam’ has not become ‘Mony’.
One of them wrote to me after seeing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: Guys like Amitabh Bachchan (who plays Shah Rukh Khan’s father) still exist in India? I asked the same chappie about We Are Family. He said: It’s cool. That’s how it is out here. Would you tell your children in a matter-of-fact manner that you had cancer, the Indian in me asked him. Why not? No point getting emotional about it. They’ll have to grow up one day and the best you can do is prepare them for the future. He said. Would an Indian mother, er, mom, agree to train another woman to take her place as shown in the film? The Indian in me wouldn’t let go. Where are you, cousin? A friend of mine brought home a step-dad for her children a month after the hubby died and they don’t have any problems. He intoned. I wanted to ask if anyone had cared to check how the children were adjusting. But I stopped myself.
We Are Family destroys many Indian assumptions, the foremost being you are an Indian wherever you are. Wrong. There is a clear disconnect between India and the Indian diaspora. India may continue to be delusional about Indians living abroad remaining Indian. Hardly. The concept of ‘pravasi bhartiya’ that the Pawars, Modis and Chandrababu Naidus institutionalised to promote the supposition that the Indian diaspora is the prime example of India shining is a charade.
Nine out of 10 Indians settled abroad did so because they hated the Indian system. Now they are Americans or Europeans and all the PIO cards India can print would not make them return ‘home’. They are married to their present, living cultures and they must be comfortable with it. If India wants to show them off as its brood, as a cap in its feather, let it. It doesn’t harm them. I have been away from India for nearly five years now and I am beginning to understand how the roots wither as generations expand. If Dev Patel, who played the protagonist kid in Slumdog Millionaire, prefers acting in Hollywood movies to Bollywood ones, no one can accuse him of being un-Indian.
There’s a video library in Leicester run by a Punjabi in his 50s who makes regular visits back home. He tells me that the VHS tapes and CDs of the pre-1990 Indian films are gathering dust because only the ‘buddhe log’ (old people) ask for them. The hot sellers are Indian films extensively shot abroad and show life-styles and cultures the youngsters can relate to. He thinks We Are Family is going to earn him much more than any other recent film.
What he says may be true for him, though I know that there is still a craze for the old B&Ws. Many families abroad send their children to Indian dance or music schools. They perform ‘puja’ during festivals, downloading the ‘vidhan’ (method of doing the puja) from the internet. The temples and gurdwaras get a regular stream of worshippers. But to interpret this as proof of them being Indian is a misnomer.
We Are Family sets the record straight. It reflects the current cultural moorings of a family in a setting far from Indian shores. It is coincidental that the said family happens to be of Indian origin. Remember, you don’t even know the surname of the family. You don’t see pictures of their parents and grand parents. You don’t know which part of India they come from and whether the cancer patient’s family in India had been informed. I don’t think you even see the ‘pundit’ who performs the marriage at the end of the film. You don’t see anyone, even the youngest child, weeping, save the patient herself. Emotions are kept to a minimum and you would find the relationships a bit cold by Indian standards. Not that there is dearth of either emotion or warmth. Only it is expressed in a way perhaps largely alien in India.
I can keep on dissecting the film, but the conclusion doesn’t change. We need to grow up. The USP of India lies within its own boundaries. Latching on to the diaspora doesn’t help. We have left it to Bollywood to reflect Indianness abroad. Ironic that it is a Bollywood film-maker who has latched on to the diaspora audience for his return on investment who drops the scales from our eyes.
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