Wow, Mr Jaitley!

BY SEVANTI NINAN| IN Opinion | 02/12/2016
The Finance Minister goes overboard in describing the media as a force incapable of looking beyond suffering to recognize a momentous transition.
SEVANTI NINAN on his comparison with Partition in 1947

The reference to Partition begins nine minutes into this video.

 

Is demonetization as cataclysmic an event as Partition and the riots which accompanied the birth of  Independent India?  Speaking in Odisha after the Make in India Conclave there on December 1,  Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made an astonishing (and unacceptable) comparison between the situation then and now,  between August 15, 1947 when the birth of  a nation was accompanied by untold human suffering, and the November 2016 demonetisation which saw the media showing the extent of inconvenience and suffering caused to the public, even as a mammoth black money flushing out exercise  was being attempted.

He said, “…Aur hamare television ke mitra toh kewal woh peeda ko dikhlate hai, uske peeche jo arthik aur naitik soch hain,  usko nahin dikhlate. “ (Our TV friends only show the suffering, the economic and ethical calculations behind the move they do not show.)

He went on to say,

“Kai baar main sochta hun ki is desh ko azadi mili thi 15 August 1947.  Uski bhi bahut peeda thi. Dunia  ka sabse adhik refugee population transfer hua ek sthan se dusre sthan tak. Hinsa hui,  bahut badi matra mein logon ke jaan gayi. Agar us waqt 24 ghante tv hota to woh peeda ko dikhlata ya azadi mil gayi,  ye dikhlata?  (I often wonder, how  the media would have reported August 15 1947. Then too  there was huge suffering which accompanied the world’s largest transfer of  people from one place to another. There was violence and loss of life. Had there been 24 hour television then would they have showed the suffering or reported that independence had been achieved? )

And then he added sarcastically in his speech, that this was a fact of life that one had to live with. (Ye jeevan ki vastavikta hai, isko lekey rahana hai.)

While today’s newspapers say nothing about the speech, Ravish Kumar of NDTV India had the gumption to pick up on Jaitley’s oratory and make a couple of forceful points. He showed the headlines of major newspapers of the morning of August 16, 1947 to demonstrate that they led with the news of India gaining independence.  He also showed news that the media led with on November 8 and 9, 2016. They led with the fact of demonetization. (Granted they could have led with the suffering, because that had not begun, as yet.)

 

"While today’s newspapers say nothing about the speech, Ravish Kumar of NDTV India had the gumption to pick up on Jaitley’s oratory and make a couple of forceful points."

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s consistent response to the media reporting of the aftermath of demonetization has been to turn on the media, term it as negative, and anti-national. In a small demonstration of  that three ruling party MPs, two of them ministers, turned on Rajdeep Sardesai of India Today yesterday  for asking them for their reactions on the first pay day after the implementation of demonetization.

The concomitant of intolerance to criticism has been a hyping up of the scale of the prime minister’s achievement, in deciding to demonetise. Mr Jaitley thundered on about this for a few moments yesterday, asking rhetorically which leader has demonstrated the courage before this to attempt something as monumental.

Few will deny the scale of the change. But it is not on the same scale as  Independence and  Partition. Nor is the suffering of the same order. The media is not claiming it is, so why is the information and broadcasting minister making  uncalled for comparisons?

And a government which has the confidence to attempt drastic change, should also perhaps have shoulders broad enough to take any criticism that might flow in its wake as useful feedback? 

 

 

The Hoot is the only not-for-profit initiative in India which does independent media monitoring.
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