MODI IN US: VENI, VIDI, BUT VICI?

One must never visit America for the first time.

Jawaharlal Nehru summed up his misgivings about his first visit to the USA in 1949.

The socialist in Nehru, the Economic Times informs, was never given in to the ostentatious display of wealth in that country.

1949 is not 2014. And Narendra Modi is no Nehru.

Nehru assiduously cultivated the image of a sophisticated person.

Modi is the quintessential sophist.

He reasons with clever arguments, though his critics say some of his arguments are false.

All that is besides the point.

Modi is the Prime Minister of India. For good or bad. He was elected with a clear majority.

He told America he was representing 1.25 billion Indians.

Nearly that many Indians sat in front of their television sets and watched him take his stand on a revolving pedestal at the Madison Square Garden in mid-town Manhattan on Sunday, September 28, 2014.

As he entered the innards of The Garden, the leader of over a billion people reduced himself to the colossal status of being one of a mere, dozen-odd people to have been the cynosure of all at the venue. Like Muhammad Ali, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Elton John, to name a few. Modi is the only international politician among them.

Incidentally, if The Garden is real home to any one celebrity, it is the dog. A pedigree dog at that. The Garden has hosted, without interruption every year, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, since 1877.  Millions watch the two-day show across America, as Fox Terriers vie with the Pekinese, the Clumber Spaniel, the Beagle, etc, for the coveted to prize. For two days this February, all American attention was on a Wire Fox Terrier which eventually ran away with the top prize.

On Sunday, September 28, Modi was the centre of attraction at The Garden. Those who watched him broadly fall into four categories.

The tribe of Indian Americans who think they are influential enough to influence American foreign policy and hoping that Modi will help them become more influential.

The Indian media contingent which though sad that Modi gave two hoots to them and did not take them on his plane had no option but to cover every move of Modi who happens to be the highest TRP grosser in India.

A battery of analysts from both Democratic and Republican parties who were monitoring Modi closely, awed at the temerity of the man to enter America by ensuring that his position as the head of the world’s largest democracy was enough to get him a visa denied him for his alleged manhandling of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.

The last group, of course, was the Indian population waiting to see how Modi would sell their dreams to the Americans.

Modi looked quite relaxed for the first time during the visit, with around 20,000 fawning faces around him. At the United Nations, as he emulated Atal Behari Vajpayee and PV Narasimha Rao and addressed the general assembly in Hindi – even though he repeatedly mis-pronounced a couple of words – he was not in his element. Perhaps, even a bit nervous. But not at The Gardens. Certainly not.

Here he was the seller of dreams, the purveyor of India’s fate, the charmer of the Americans, the quintessential world leader desperate, if at all, to show America how wrong it was to deny him the visa because of some vague human rights violations some years ago.

Unfortunately, he was the victim of sheer time. Everything and anything that he had to say in praise of India came with a déjà vu feeling attacheed. Vivekananda had talked about it over a century ago.  Every Prime Minister who preceded Modi to the USA had said the same thing. Modi had no new insight to offer about India’s past glory.

He did not have much of a list of accomplishments of his government. But that was expected as his government is just over a 100 days old. But he could not have shared that truth with the audience. Why come across as a forthright and honest leader when he could take credit for the success of the Mission to Mars? He did so.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and parent Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh activists left no stone unturned in their attempts to ensure nothing but naked admiration for Modi during his visit. The Gujaratis were present in full strength. There were so many Gujaratis in New York this Sunday that the presence of a controversial industrialist, also a Gujarati and who is said to be close to Modi, went literally unnoticed.

It is this segment of America – the Indian American minority – that Modi focused on. He congratulated them for their sacrifices. A couple of eye brows went up. Sacrifice? They were the brain drain generation with bitter memories of India. He congratulated them for ploughing back money to their mother country. The audience beamed, even though the fact is real remittances back to India from abroad come not from the Indians in American but from that vast segment of the Indian population which works for daily wages in inhuman conditions in over a 100 countries.

Modi wanted the Indian Americans to come home. Back to India. The cheers were there, but a bit subdued.

What else was there to tell the audience? Could he have talked about his economic or social or cultural vision? That would have led to the opening of the Pandorrah’s Box. Could he have talked about the problems India is facing? That would dampen any spirit the Indians Americans may have left for returning home. So, no go. Could he have talked about terrorism in India? That would have opened the biggest Pandorrrah’s Box and all the accompanying talk of communalism, riots, killings, 2002, etc, etc.

Cornered thus, Modi put on his best face in front of a live television audience watched by millions across the world. He became what he does best. The talker. The talkative man. And he talked about his pet subject – the 2014 electoral result in India – in his pet manner as a rallying politician. He reminisced. And reminisced. And reminisced.

The audience at The Gardens were still all smiles. As people with decent civic sense they heard him in peace, clapped at the right moments and bid him a grand farewell at the end of his address.

I was not born when Nehru went to America. But I did accompany Vajpayee. This Sunday, I was watching Modi on television. You know what struck me? Some leaders are events in themselves. Some need an event to make them leaders.

MODI IN AMERICA: VENI, VIDI BUT VICI?

One must never visit America for the first time. Jawahar Lal Nehru summed up his misgivings about his first visit to the USA in 1949. The socialist in Nehru, the Economic Times informs, was never given in to the ostentatious display of wealth in that country. 1949 is not 2014. And Narendra Modi is no Nehru. Nehru assiduously cultivated the image of a sophisticated person. Modi is the quintessential sophist. He reasons with clever arguments, though his critics say some of his arguments are false. All that is besides the point. Modi is the Prime Minister of India. For good or bad. He was elected with a clear majority. He told America he was representing 1.25 billion Indians. Nearly that many Indians sat in front of their television sets and watched him take his stand on a revolving pedestal at the Madison Square Garden in mid-town Manhattan on Sunday, September 28, 2014. As he entered the innards of The Garden, the leader of over a billion people reduced himself to the colossal status of being one of a mere, dozen-odd people to have been the cynosure of all at the venue. Like Muhammad Ali, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Elton John, to name a few. Modi is the only international politician among them. Incidentally, if The Garden is real home to any one celebrity, it is the dog. A pedigree dog at that. The Garden has hosted, without interruption every year, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, since 1877. Millions watch the two-day show across America, as Fox Terriers vie with the Pekinese, the Clumber Spaniel, the Beagle, etc, for the coveted to prize. For two days this February, all American attention was on a Wire Fox Terrier which eventually ran away with the top prize. On Sunday, September 28, Modi was the centre of attraction at The Garden. Those who watched him broadly fall into four categories. The tribe of Indian Americans who think they are influential enough to influence American foreign policy and hoping that Modi will help them become more influential. The Indian media contingent which though sad that Modi gave two hoots to them and did not take them on his plane had no option but to cover every move of Modi who happens to be the highest TRP grosser in India. A battery of analysts from both Democratic and Republican parties who were monitoring Modi closely, awed at the temerity of the man to enter America by ensuring that his position as the head of the world’s largest democracy was enough to get him a visa denied him for his alleged manhandling of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. The last group, of course, was the Indian population waiting to see how Modi would sell their dreams to the Americans. Modi looked quite relaxed for the first time during the visit, with around 20,000 fawning faces around him. At the United Nations, as he emulated Atal Behari Vajpayee and PV Narasimha Rao and addressed the general assembly in Hindi – even though he repeatedly mis-pronounced a couple of words – he was not in his element. Perhaps, even a bit nervous. But not at The Gardens. Certainly not. Here he was the seller of dreams, the purveyor of India’s fate, the charmer of the Americans, the quintessential world leader desperate, if at all, to show America how wrong it was to deny him the visa because of some vague human rights violations some years ago. Unfortunately, he was the victim of sheer time. Everything and anything that he had to say in praise of India came with a déjà vu feeling attacheed. Vivekananda had talked about it over a century ago. Every Prime Minister who preceded Modi to the USA had said the same thing. Modi had no new insight to offer about India’s past glory. He did not have much of a list of accomplishments of his government. But that was expected as his government is just over a 100 days old. But he could not have shared that truth with the audience. Why come across as a forthright and honest leader when he could take credit for the success of the Mission to Mars? He did so. The Bharatiya Janata Party and parent Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh activists left no stone unturned in their attempts to ensure nothing but naked admiration for Modi during his visit. The Gujaratis were present in full strength. There were so many Gujaratis in New York this Sunday that the presence of a controversial industrialist, also a Gujarati and who is said to be close to Modi, went literally unnoticed. It is this segment of America – the Indian American minority – that Modi focused on. He congratulated them for their sacrifices. A couple of eye brows went up. Sacrifice? They were the brain drain generation with bitter memories of India. He congratulated them for ploughing back money to their mother country. The audience beamed, even though the fact is real remittances back to India from abroad come not from the Indians in American but from that vast segment of the Indian population which works for daily wages in inhuman conditions in over a 100 countries. Modi wanted the Indian Americans to come home. Back to India. The cheers were there, but a bit subdued. What else was there to tell the audience? Could he have talked about his economic or social or cultural vision? That would have led to the opening of the Pandorrah’s Box. Could he have talked about the problems India is facing? That would dampen any spirit the Indians Americans may have left for returning home. So, no go. Could he have talked about terrorism in India? That would have opened the biggest Pandorrrah’s Box and all the accompanying talk of communalism, riots, killings, 2002, etc, etc. Cornered thus, Modi put on his best face in front of a live television audience watched by millions across the world. He became what he does best. The talker. The talkative man. And he talked about his pet subject – the 2014 electoral result in India – in his pet manner as a rallying politician. He reminisced. And reminisced. And reminisced. The audience at The Gardens were still all smiles. As people with decent civic sense they heard him in peace, clapped at the right moments and bid him a grand farewell at the end of his address. I was not born when Nehru went to America. But I did accompany Vajpayee. This Sunday, I was watching Modi on television. You know what struck me? Some leaders are events in themselves. Some need an event to make them leaders.

BYPOLL RESULTS: A CAUTION TO MODI ON BIRTHDAY EVE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a sober birthday tomorrow, September 17. For a man whose hopes of a resounding encore of the general elections in the bypolls results of which were out today were mercilessly shattered, sobriety is the forced reprieve. The chronicle of how today unfolded in the collective consciousness of India will be re-told for some time to come. The question the Modi-besotten or Modi-fearing media asked even as the counting of votes began in the three Lok Sabha seats and 33 assembly seats which went to by-elections on September 13 was not ‘’how many seats’’ but ‘’how much margin’’. For them, a full encore was a foregone conclusion. Until things began to unfold. The BJP lost two seats in Gujarat where Modi had vowed that no seat would ever go to the opposition, specially the Congress. The BJP lost three in Rajasthan, where the BJP secured a brute majority in the assembly elections and topped it by winning all Lok Sabha seats. The chunks in the armour were beginning to show. The counting was in high gear, the media and political pundits hastily began to look for new logic to explain the reversal. The BJP spokespersons were looking for convincing answers. Those of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party were equally clueless; it took them time to register that the trends were in their favour. So deep was the nadir the general election results threw them in in May, 2014 that their reflexes were slow in coming to grips with the faint but firm indication of a reversal. Oridinarily, results of by-elections are to be taken in stride. For any political party, they are rarely a reflection or a continuation of a previous electoral success. In assembly by-elections in particular, local issues come to the fore and determine the outcome to a large extent. The “national” is not really an issue. However, this time the BJP needlessly made an issue out of it. Coming as the by-elections did immediately after the Modi government completed 100 days in office, the BJP was intent on using every opportunity as a referendum on what it thought to be an irrefutable allegiance of the Indian people to the ways of Modi. Falling from such a vantage height really hurts. The hurt is specially vile in the case of Uttar Pradesh. The state had given 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats to BJP, nay, Modi. The Akhilesh Yadav government in the state was humbled beyond recognition, denuded of any reputation at all, and pummelled into political submission. Of the 11 assembly seats which went for by-elections, the Samajwadi Party romped home in eight. The BJP in 3. The figures don’t tell the whole story. To quickly elaborate, the BJP lost in Rohaniya, which is in the district of Varanasi, Modi’s new electoral citadel. It lost in Charkhari, which falls in the area of influence of the BJP’s rabble-rouser, Uma Bharathi. Why? Quite easy to answer if you are not a contaminated political pundit or a media person. Let’s run through them. These are initial explanations, but let’s leave the reflections for later. One, The BJP went into the by-elections as an over-confident, even arrogant, contender. The New BJP president, Amit Shah, showed his true colours of a lumpen, as he bawled his way through the state, specially in western Uttar Pradesh, unafraid of rousing communal sentiments. Shah and his cohorts, of the variety of Laxmi Kant Bajpeyi, were quite candid that they did not need the Muslim vote to win the by-elections. But they did not see the glitch in their assumption. Shah, who escaped prison, thanks to certain political and investigative coincidences, failed to realise that BJP and Modi were two separate entities in the minds of a large section of the Indian population which propelled him to power in May, 2014. The segment of the secular voter in Uttar Pradesh which was too enamoured of him and his promise of a new India chose to back him despite his credentials as a BJP-ite. That secular voter had in the last 100-odd days had enough time to reflect, concluding largely that Modi’s party continued to be communal, brazenly anti-secular and least interested in issues not related to its right-wing ideology. That voter was angry. Two, a sizeable section of the people which voted for Modi in May, 2014 were carried away by his “achche din” promises. However, that was not the case even after 100 days in power. The BJP had conveniently forgotten how within a week – seven days – of Arvind Kejriwal becoming chief minister of Delhi it had publicly humiliated him, asking to explain why he had not fulfilled his promises. The BJP must now be realising that a week is much more than 100 days. Three, by May, 2014 Modi had generated a sentiment of raw awe in his favour. He could do no wrong. He could achieve anything if brought to power. He was the panacea for all ills. He alone deliver them out of their decade-long misery. You are riding a tiger if you escalate people’s expectations beyond logical limits There may have been some saner elements within the BJP, but even collectively they perhaps did not have the courage to tell Modi to tone down. The BJP will certainly come up with some logical explanations for the defeats. But once the media mikes have left the BJP headquarters, once the leaders are back in a huddle behind locked doors, once Modi lives through his birthday explaining to the visiting Chinese President Gujarat’s links to Buddhism, chopsticks and for good measure, oyster sauce, the time for real reckoning will come. It is then that Modi and BJP will have to get their act together with just one end in mind: not to throw away the people’s gift of power. The by-election results are the amber at the ideological traffic junction.

Rape is a bestial act

Rape is a bestial act. There is no small rape, big rape, heinous rape or worst rape. Idiots categorise so. Any violation of a woman is bestial. Whether rape, molestation, groping, eyeing, is a violation. There is a natural attraction between man and woman. It is our mind and our depravity that discolours this naturalness. It has nothing to do with etiquette, literacy, education, customs. It has to do with growing up. It has to do with emulation. Anything else is bull. I heard of a case where the rascal followed the rape protocol to the last element and then pleaded insanity. Bull. What India Gate represents is the angst and anger of the students. Genuine and spontaneous, till the rascally political elements and crude Babas attempted to take over. The government is at best inept. At worst, inept. So, what is to be done? Let us all congregate at India Gate? All the billion of us? For eternity? Let us all pray that the protests be calm and peaceful and not lead to traffic jams? Let us all sit in our armchairs and tweet and FB and what not for time to come? You think change is the by-product of social media cacophony? Or non-stop live coverage on television? Let us all do the one thing we usually do not: Think. Let us all not do one thing we usually do: Yak. Simple question to all journalists: Had this very gangrape occurred far from South Delhi, would it have received such attention? Wait. Before the worthy and ideal among you begin to rant, let me tell you that for the last 48 hours all news channels had ‘’inputs’’ from Jammu, Tripura and Meghalaya about similar, sordid instances which are yet to touch if not our hearts, at least our TV screens. So, there are. The spontaneous energy is threatened by this social media rant and television diarrhoea. I can see the anchors struggling to say the same thing over and over again. The graphics have become repetitive. The tweets and FB outrages are, if not limited by the users’ vocabulary, monotonous. That is the biggest dis-service all of us, this lot empowered by the communication revolution, are doing to that energy. Just as before. Let me ask again. So, what is to be done? Hang the six rape accused? Hang, for good measure, Shinde, Sheila Delhi Police chief? Why spare the Prime Minister? What about the President? Or shall we force the government to call a special session of Parliament for the venerable members to observe two minutes silence? Hurriedly amend the laws and make it legal to hang every rapist? Will all these actions stop rape? Will all males be honourable thereafter? What if rape occurs even then? Shall we amend the rules once again to see that the rapist is hanged twice, thrice? Perhaps stone him to death? Castrate him in public? What if rape occurs even then? Our attitudes need to change. The way we see women, the way we talk about women, the way we treat women, whether an infant or a granny. Whether fair or dark. Whether pretty or otherwise. Whether a maid, a wife, a daughter, an aunt, or a friend, or a sex worker. A woman is not a serf. A woman is a self. Like you and me. Let our attitude towards the law also change. What is the point of making hanging compulsory when the sloppy police investigations fail in courts? Let us make that beat constable accountable so that he or she is on the look out for crime. Let us make that SHO accountable who sincerely takes the complaint of the victim, encourages her to do so if she is hesitant, then wastes no time reaching the crime spot and gathering evidence. Let us all help him trace he culprits. Let a strong case be made against the culprits. Let there then be fast-track courts to deliver justice. Otherwise, as long as the criminals are confident of our policing system, they will continue to rape. But is that all? Hang the rapist and rape forgotten? What about the victim who has to live in this society? How can she be confident that people do not stare at her? That they will not allow the tragedy to weigh her down? That they will allow her to pick up the strings of her life once again? If we can help her only by yakking and doing lives, then better not help her. I still recall how Indian broadcast journalism traumatised a young girl from Uttar Pradesh called Gudiya on live television and then did not bother to even run on the ticker that she had passed away. So don’t give me crap about values and newsroom ethics and TRPs. Someone who happens to own a national media house recently said he was in the advertising business. And I haven’t seen any journalist seriously challenging him.

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.

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 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.