Driving us to vote

BY s r ramanujan| IN Media Practice | 07/05/2009

Never before have the NGOs played such a high-decibel and proactive role during elections as they did during the run-up to the 2009 polls. Voters were really bombarded with a daily  clarion call for the need to vote. It appeared as if India was exercising its adult franchise for the first time. It is not just the Bollywood stars who were goading the citizens of the country on the small screen in every bulletin to come out and vote, but many action groups surfaced to exhort people to go and vote. 

Former Election Commission official K J Rao floated an "Election Watch" and its objective, among others, was to educate the voters. There was a rock band in Bangalore that came out with a musical campaign for the same purpose. Of course, Amir Khan was dinning into our heads for weeks on the "Sabse Aham" issue. The Times group came out with its own campaign. John Abraham¿s crusade was given due coverage in the national channels. Many second-line celebrities too joined the chorus. Despite this hype, the first two phases of polling did not record any appreciable increase in the polling percentage and what was worse, there was a drop in the figures.

During the third phase of polling when it was the turn of the Mumbaikars to exercise their democratic right, there was palpable anxiety among the news channels. Having given such a  great build up for the citizens¿ "sacred" right, there was a fear whether they will come out and vote at all. A day before the third phase of polling, a question was raised in some channels whether Mumbaikars will come out and vote. Initially I was wondering as to why Mumbai was singled out for such an apprehension as it is not in the Left extremist belt nor was there a boycott call by the Naxalites in Mumbai. As the situation unfolded, I could understand that there was a reason for this anxiety and fear.

Subsequent to 26/11, an illusion was created by the media that people in general and Mumbaikars in particular were so angry with the political class that they may vote with a vengeance. Since it did not happen in the first two phases, Mumbai being crucial because of 26/11 coupled with the high stakes of the channel in showing a higher percentage of polling, there was a scramble to get hold of Bollywood stars as they were coming out of the booths for a "vote you must" message. Anyone with an identifiable face was asked to show his or her left middle finger so as to "inspire" others to come out and vote. If you were watching the channels on April 30, it would seem that the elections were for some Film Chamber of Commerce and not for the 15^th Lok Sabha. Despite such an exercise to shore up credibility, the result was shocking.  There was a drop of 6% in polling in Mumbai.

Does this phenomenon hold any lesson to all of us? Yes. "Aam Aadmi" cares a damn for what you dish out on the channels. As far as the "enlightened citizens", who boost the ratings of the channels, are concerned there was absolutely no impact on them and the channels utterly failed to "drive" them to the polling booths. Whom do the channels impress then? People from the poorer sections of society, anyway,  come and vote irrespective of what you say or fail to say in your tube; never mind the "carrots" that are held before them by the contestants. It is they who make our democracy thrive and not those "intellectuals" who sit on the panel discussions of the channels or those who watch such inane debates which are full of rhetoric and slanging matches. If we see a Jayanti Natarajan or a Balbir Punj or a Ravi Shankar Prasad in the panel, we know what they are going to say. They only repeat what they had already said in their press briefing.       

At least now, the national channels should shed their arrogance and stop claiming that it is they who set the nation¿s agenda. Governments of the day, in order to hide their own failures and to massage the ego of the broadcasters, might take note of some exposes and take action like they did, suo motu,  in the case of Modern School in New Delhi. But the average viewer is wise enough not to be carried away by the hype in the media or its "crusades" and discussions which hardly throw any new light on contemporary issues. This is the message that comes out loud and clear for the channels during this festival of democracy or should we say "dance of democracy".

It is not my case that regional channels or newspapers are any better. In fact, they are much worse. They blatantly play partisan roles in backing or running down political parties with which they have scores to settle unrelated to the profession. Like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh also has newspapers and channels which function as the mouthpiece of one political party or the other. Anyone who cares for media ethics has to hang his head in shame for the manner in which the Telugu newspapers reduced themselves as mere "pamphlets" of political parties during the poll campaign. If anyone does research on the poll coverage of these newspapers, he will come out with startling revelations that will shake the faith of those who stand for free press.