Media as guide and rabble rouser
The media has discarded tenets of professional journalism and taken on the task of pitching this ‘civil society’ against the government.
PRAMOD KUMAR examines the shifting role of the media from observer to participant.
It is not an exaggeration to say that our country is going through difficult times and the future of UPA-2 government is uncertain. It is a combination of circumstances that has led to the present situation - poor governance which failed to detect and check corruption - failure of opposition parties to rise above their partisan interests, and their willful thwarting of initiatives like the Goods and Services Tax thus jeopardising the functioning of Parliament; and a convergence of the agendas and interests of far-left and Hindutva forces. The last factor has been facilitated by the so-called ‘civil society’ and Baba Ram Dev, both of whom claim to be a responsible parties but are in fact accountable to no one. They have raised the emotional pitch by exploiting the name of Mahatma Gandhi and taking recourse to fasts unto death. In this melee the media ha appropriated the role of both guide and rabble rouser. It has discarded tenets of professional journalism and taken on the task of pitching this ‘civil society’ against the government.
Let us discuss this role played by the media (print and electronic) in detail. Sir Winston Churchill once said, ‘democracy is the worst form of government except for all others that have been tried.’ In the context of our country where mind boggling diversities co-exist, democracy is the only political process to keep the nation united. One must therefore consider all the consequences of challenging this form of government. The media, realizing that Anna Hazare has roused the emotions of middle class - the main beneficiaries of the recent economic growth and the main consumers of news- jumped into the fray and started acting as a force multiplier. They parked their OBC vans at the sites of fasts and even encouraged people to come and participate in the goings on at each location. This is not the job of the media. It must report what the reporters observe, ask questions, check the credibility of claims being made, and above all, be inquisitive, and even investigative about the interests and agendas of the organisers of such actions. Instead, the media became a participant. This was not only pollution of, but a complete desecration of this once-noble profession.
With the abandonment of its given role (ie the unbiased dissemination of news), the media lost its focus and became a tool of the furthering of particular agendas. It is difficult to say and futile to speculate what the civil society’s hidden or apparent agendas are, but the way the polity of the country(which albeit may have many failings) was denigrated and vilified should have warned the media that what is apparent may indeed not be so. The media reveled in focusing on slogans like ‘Throw the politicians to vultures’ or on Gandhi caps with slogans like “Mera Neta Chor Hai”. The focus of this article is not to discuss the behavior of society in response to this. The media, however, ditched the cardinal tenet of journalism -unbiased reporting and refraining from the colouring and distorting of hard facts. It has presented a picture where one side is virtuous and the other side guilty. Given below are only some of the aberrations the media indulged in:
A) The leaders of ‘civil society’ did call the Government names like cheats, conspirators, liars and corrupt - many of these slurs were recorded on camera. But the media was quick to inform its audience that the leaders have denied doing so. The electronic media kept their bytes denigrating the government hidden, whereas they were quick to run the contrary bytes endlessly in other cases. The split screens to juxtapose contrary bytes were not used at all.
B) The rift in the ‘civil group’ came to the notice when Baba Ram Dev found that the whole movement against corruption had been high jacked by Anna Hazare. He saw this as a hindrance to his own plans of carving out a strong political role for himself for which he had been working for the last two years. He decided to upstage Anna Hazare by announcing another fast on the issue of black money. A joint crusade by the two was only a pretence. But the media unquestioningly accepted this pretence, and blamed the government for fomenting differences in the ‘civil society’. They could have made an effort to find out the truth and do their duty by their viewers/readers.
C) It was apparent that the Baba Ram Dev had his own agenda and that the fast was only one step towards his attaining that purpose. He played along with the government, by promising in writing that he would call off his fast on the fourth evening. Later, it became apparent that this would not take place, for his aim was to continue the fast with organised help of his own followers and the RSS family, thus creating an untenable situation in the Capital. It is another matter that the government woke up, though belatedly, to thwart his dishonest agenda. But the media kept on parroting what the civil society was claiming, and could not see the risks of letting committed followers hold the city and the government to ransom.
Media bodies kept on ridiculing the government for caving in to the changing actions of Baba, and have continued to do so even when the picture has become quite clear. Similarly, they kept hammering the government because of midnight action against a huge number of protestors, but completely ignored the death of four persons in Bihar in a protest where only 300/400 persons were involved. In New Delhi, there were unfortunate injuries to about 60-70 persons, but no deaths. The number of the protestors in the Capital was more than 30,000 and increasing by the hour. Any day time police action would have played havoc with the smooth life of the city. Yet, the media kept on vilifying the government in relation to this protest, while the Bihar incident of four deaths was completely ignored.
There is a serious concern with the way the media is not performing its given role, and has instead become a tool in the hands of forces which may or may not have hidden agendas. The media must be wary of emotion-charged movements and issues, and should disseminate the news as it is and not give it a slant. And while civil society has a role to play, this role must be re-evaluated. The voters elect a government for five years based on a political party`s manifesto. Such a government should be allowed to function without having to face the egos or agendas of different sections of the society. If the government strays, we have the right to agitate, strike up a dialogue with the elected party, or reach out to other political parties so that Parliament can intervene by forcing the government to correct its ways (or even remove it by due process). Civil society has no right to keep on vilifying, undermining and denigrating the political system, while it remains outside the system of governance.
Civil society has now come up with another sinister idea – a referendum on whether the PM should come under the purview of Lokpal or not. This only reveals the shortsightedness of their leaders. Unlike Scandinavian countries, we are not a one religion, one language and one culture nation. One referendum will lead to many referendums, each more pernicious than the previous one. Suppose, a section of society calls for a referendum on Ram Mandir? Let us see how the media reacts to that. But if they conduct themselves as they have done with regard to the demands of civil society so far, they may write finis to the nation and the democracy as we have known it.
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