A critique of Vamsee Juluri¿s lament

BY Kishore Budha| IN Media Practice | 27/12/2008

Writing on the Hoot Vamsee Juluri laments that the Mumbai attacks by Pakistani terrorists is proof that the Western media have "lost us" and by this he means that it finds faults with India for each of its problems. He argues that the US media framed it as attack in Mumbai rather than the frame of attack on Mumbai (similar to the 9/11 Attack on US) . By examing a wide variety of sources he argues that this distinction is necessary as the event represents, like poverty, a perennial problem in the country and the region. This, according to him, is part of a wider historical bias against the region and he illustrates it thus:

In one of the earliest mentions of the sea-route taken by the attackers, a reporter virtually cried out three times (or perhaps even four) that what she was reporting about the Karachi angle was only an Indian official¿s accusation. Nothing more. The same sort of journalistic delicacy was also poured on to higher government echelons when a "Counterterrorism Expert" on a news channel wondered if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was having a "knee-jerk reaction" when he mentioned "outsiders."

Juluri takes the media to task on another count -- for rushing to label the attacks as the result of India¿s violent history. In particular he singles out Indian authors and some eminent US publication for succumbing to cliches:

Amitav Ghosh, Pankaj Mishra, and Suketu Mehta wrote op-eds which invoked in their opening paragraphs, respectively, the following: a BJP leader¿s attempts to label the attacks as India¿s 9/11, the attackers¿ phone calls condemning injustices in Kashmir and Ayodhya, and that "something" about Mumbai that "appalls religious extremists, Hindu and Muslim alike."

He then points at the irony that it took Westernerns to be critical of the real culprits -- Pakistan -- and point the fingers where it was long overdue.

Juluri needs to be credited for raising this issue as it forms a strand of international communications, which is under attack in the academy. There are two ways we can critique Juluri¿s essay -- a) he demonstrates the danger of expecting too much from the west; b) he fails to assert just that and misses an opportunity to inform readers about the  dangers of looking at the west. I will risk going with the second, only because I believe the author has failed in doing so. But before that we can turn the argument around and ask, what do our anxieties about representations in Western media tell us? In a way we should be disappointed by Juluri¿s lament and critique. What did he expect? More importantly why did he expect it? International relations 101 tells us states largely conduct their affairs from a perspective of national interest. As a professor of media, one would have expected Juluri to instead reassert the kernel of the problem -- the US media¿s relation with the governing elite and its complicity in US foreign policy failures. The media rarely sets foreign policy agenda, instead choosing to follow. It is only when the consensus breaks down that the media relays the critical voices. Look at Vietnam, Iraq.

Writing about the episodes of economic liberalisation in India¿s political history, McCartney argues:

An internationalised Indian elite were increasingly able to appreciate the degree to which India had been marginalised in world economic affairs, had suffered twenty five years of slow economic growth and been unable to make significant reductions in poverty. The awkward combination of a ¿superiority complex¿ and ¿inferior status¿ altered the mindset of those at the political apex.

Is Juluri¿s response reflective of the wider elite discourse that stems from the awkward combination of a ¿superiority complex¿ and ¿inferior status¿? Perhaps some answers lie in the many illustrations this blog has presented, which indicates a problem of wider media and elite discourse -- the clamour to pay attention to and transmit viewpoints from the Western government, media, and dominant elites. But these are picked up and filtered to suit our own agenda. Thus, an inconsequential invite to Karan Johar to give a lecture in Harvard will be played up in the Indian news media. But the moment the media talks about poverty, we get all stiff and defensive. Isn¿t this exactly what McCartney referred to as the "awkward combination of ¿superiority complex¿ and ¿inferior status¿.

(for some examples of Indian media¿s fascination with western opinions read Two bad neighbours and the US headache and Updated: India, Pakistan condemned to axis of trouble. Read Juluri¿s article here , McCartney¿s paper here).

Dr Kishore Budha

Institute of Communications Studies

University of Leeds

Leeds LS2 9JT

Vamsee Juluri¿s response to the above:

Finding Kishore Budha disappointed with my "lament" about how the Western media covered the Mumbai attacks, I wonder if we have now decided there is nothing left to critique about the Western media at all; or that even criticizing the Western media is tantamount to succumbing to our third world "elite superiority/inferiority complex." I believe there is a difference between Indian media celebrating Karan Johar’s Harvard gig as a sign of India’s world-recognition, getting defensive about poverty, and speaking out against misrepresentation in general--especially since we have all learned in our international media classes that misrepresentations have consequences. My essay is a response to the last point and nothing more.

Budha wonders what I "expected" from the Western media in the first place. Frankly, given that no one expects an attack like this, I did not have any preconceived notions. But Budha’s logic that we needn’t expect better from the Western press could also be applied to any criticism; couldn’t we say the same thing against everyone (in The Hoot and elsewhere) who have been critical of the Indian media’s coverage? What did they expect? Of course, Barkha would get breathless. Of course, alarming music would play over gory graphics. What else do we expect? It’s the way commercial media works. Nationalism sells.

Budha’s comments are a timely reminder though that we need to think about how media studies, especially of the South Asian kind, can go forward. In our enthusiasm to replicate Western critical discourses in (and I mean really "in") the South Asian context, we seem to have forgotten that there still exists a global dimension to our analysis. I think we have heard so much criticism of how the Indian media covered Mumbai, and just not enough about how it was covered globally. I believe that both are relevant in this case.