The Times of India's power do
Just a look at the extensive coverage makes it clear what TOI's priorities, even on such an occasion are. The visuals and quotes were entirely dominated by the power elite.
SUJATA MADHOK says the paper’s social impact awards were self-serving.
The Times of India has reinvented the sun. It now shines at night. Or rather on a select night when India’s power elite choose to shine at a function designed to radiate their benevolence and patronage of the powerless.
The TOI sun shone on its front page on January 31, 2013. For once readers were not greeted with an obnoxious full page advertisement that has to be peeled off like an unwanted onion skin to get to the day’s news, such as it is. Instead, the power elite shone: the President of India, cabinet ministers and top politicians of right and left, CEOs and bureaucrats. Twelve close ups front-paged the bonhomie among this class at the TOI Social Impact Awards ceremony held at the Ashoka Hotel. The report on the awards began with the moving story of Tamanna Chona, a teacher with cerebral palsy, but you looked in vain for a picture of her or any other award presenter. You finally found it, small pictures of each award presentation on the top of page 13.
Just a look at the extensive coverage makes it clear what TOI’s priorities, even on such an occasion are. The visuals and quotes were entirely dominated by the power elite. It would have been great to see the faces and achievements of exceptional ‘ordinary’ people on the front pages for a change, just once in a year. But that would have been too out of character for this leading daily.
On an inside page of the paper there were eight close ups of important but lesser lights: Delhi’s politicians and four of its top cops plus their views on the event. A double spread with banner headlines also showcased the function. Spread across the top were small shots of the award winners – eight lumped together on one page, nine on the facing page. Since no celebrities gave the awards, instead they were presented by beneficiaries to the NGOs that won them; there was no big photo-op here.
However the awardees got their space the next day. On February 1, 2013 on pages 14 and 15 there was generous coverage with nice big pictures of those whose who gave and received the awards.
But on day one the only large shots of winners were of the two groups of North Eastern women who jointly won the Lifetime Contribution Award and received their trophy from the President. However, on the rest of the page the focus was again on politicians and bureaucrats, with seven pictures of them dominating one page – the eye went to these large pictures rather than the group shots above. On the facing page it was again the President, business leaders (six photographs) and other bigwigs who featured in the photographs. The foreign hand was there too, with four pictures and quotes of several ambassadors. The Asia-Pacific CEO of the top bank J.P. Morgan that sponsored the awards had flown in for the event. His picture and speech got some paragraphs of space as he spoke of how “working together as global and local citizens, as NGOs, businesses and governments can create meaningful, lasting and inspiring social impact”. He said JP Morgan “is committed to the principles of being a good global corporate citizen”. (More on this below.)
On yet another full page there was a mix of bureaucrats, politicians and the cultural elite, some pretty faces for that touch of glamour (18 pictures in all) and one picture of hearing-impaired students performing the national anthem. There was also a sketch of the northeastern women holding a flag and a write up to go with it.
However, the lead story did focus on the awardees rather than the celebrities, describing the “lump in throat” moments as disabled young people came on stage and so did grassroots leaders from rural India who have substantial achievements to their credit. Another story on the reaction to the event by assorted celebrities said, “The leading lights of the city went home humbled on Monday. More used to being on stage than off it, they left the second Social Impact Awards feeling inspired by the selflessness of ordinary citizens…”
Excerpts from the welcome address by TOI’s managing director Vineet Jain are revealing. They provide the underlying reasons for the institution of such awards by a media group that otherwise spends so much of its space on the doings of the rich and powerful. “These are times of great cynicism. Too many people have decided that no good exists and no good will come of this country. The TOI knows this is not true….we also need to reach beyond the present climate of negativity and tell people that there are still many good women and men who are working honestly and tirelessly to bring about lasting change….”
Lest we forget, cynicism and negativity is not at all good for the stock market or industry and as the leading champion of both, the TOI empire, which is substantially invested in these entities, cannot afford a doom and gloom scenario. Hence, the increasing interest in the work of social activists and grassroots leaders.
As for our “global corporate citizens” of the Morgan variety, the role of such banks is controversial to say the least. J.P. Morgan has acquired the infamous Bear Stearns Company and stands accused of securities fraud and persistent fraud in a suit filed against it last year by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. For those who know little about it, J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. is a banking corporation of securities, investments and retail with assets of $2 trillion. According to Forbes magazine it is the world's second largest public company. Given the suit, the company clearly needs to improve its public image through events like social impact awards.
These and many other ironies surround the TOI awards. For instance, how does a daily that has aggressively and persistently lobbied (chiefly through the columns of Delhi Times) on behalf of the pub and restaurant lobby for amendment to Delhi’s excise law, so that those under twenty one can have the ‘right to drink’, celebrate a temperance movement? Yet the awards ceremony witnessed TOI cartoonist Ajit Ninan drawing a sketch of women of the Meira Paibi association of Manipur which the paper reported thus: “A few bold lines created five women breaking bottles to fight alcoholism….”
Last and not least is the issue of the country’s largest media corporate house, partnering with an international corporate to enter the social sector. Does this not seem like an attempt to colonise and invade even the limited space created for itself by the voluntary agency/NGO sector? Should the corporate world now decide who in the NGO world to lionize and who to ignore? Should it create the heroes and heroines of the alternate world? Is there a process of co-option happening here? What is the real impact of such Social Impact Awards?
Already TV has transformed a handful of NGO people into media stars who feature frequently on TV debates, giving them undue weightage vis a vis the many who doggedly and quietly do the work on the ground. Media publicity brings to NGO activists not just influence but also funding from donor agencies, the money on which their organizations are sustained.
Incidentally, the report does not mention the quantum of cash, if any, given as awards by the TOI. Did the awardees return home with anything more than a trophy, one wonders? Was there some old fashioned charity going on here? Or not even that?
Awards were also given to select government departments and private companies for work on environment, health and livelihood generation. But the spotlight was on the NGOs and on the token representatives of the people whose lives they had impacted.
The tearjerker awards were in fact little more than a circus in which the hapless beneficiaries (two autistic girls in a wheelchair, a dhoti clad barefoot villager, poor children who have a chance to read, a couple of sarpanches, a teacher with cerebral palsy…) and the grassroots NGO activists who received awards were applauded by a gathering of the elite. How wonderful to see all these people doing so much good! The country’s rich and famous shed a tear when deaf children performed the national anthem. And showered praise on the Times of India for organizing such a wonderful function.
Subscribe To The Newsletter