"Daridra? What’s that?"

That reaction by one of India’s most articulate journalists to a viewer’s quote of the phrase ‘Daridra Narayan (Poverty God--Gandhiji’s coinage for the poor) on a recent edition of her TV show, We The People", was just as startling to the viewers as it was to panelist and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. Only the viewers couldn’t vent their angst the way Aiyar did by giving Barkha Dutt a piece of his mind on how far removed today’s journalism is from the common man and his lingo. But what’s the big deal about Barkha Dutt not knowing what’s ‘daridra’? Why should she be expected to know the vernacular synonyms of poverty, to anchor a TV debate on "Indian middle class’ apathy to the country’s poor"?

Here’s why. In the rural hinterland of Central UP (hotbed of massive unrest and heavy politicking following the ongoing farmers’ agitation  these days) where even basic necessities such as food and water are luxuries, there’s hardly anyone who does not know, ‘media’. Televisions are few and electricity comes once in few weeks in these villages, but the fascination for ‘media’ is overwhelming. And you don’t even have to be a ground thumping journo to realize that. Just a camera on your shoulder does the trick.

That’s the power of mass media. Of electronic media. Ms Dutt should come here some time to see that. Alas!  She is too busy anchoring debates on poverty and reading out news reports about the politicizing of the Land Acquisition Bill and the traffic concerns of her fellow Delhizens as and when these agitating farmers land in the Capital.

Strangely, neither Ms Dutt nor anyone from her fraternity till now has felt the need to venture out of their air-conditioned studios into these badlands and find out exactly why the farmers in their neighbourhood are out shouting slogans on Delhi streets, bang in the middle of a good monsoon when they should be busy tilling their fields. It is because unlike the self-absorbed media, curiously these illiterate villagers are aware that their counterparts in the neighbouring Haryana have got a much better deal when it comes to land acquisition by the state? They know that next door in Gurgaon, the Haryana government allowed the private developers to deal directly with the land owners, and had them paid their rightful compensation in annuity over a fixed period. This steady compensation for more than 30 years which even has a Rs 500 to 1,000 annual enhancement for every acre is a major grouse of these hapless farmers. Women in particular are asking for the compensation to be spread over a period so that it makes things easier for their children. Above this, promises of residential plots for the farmers in the developed properties and jobs in the SEZs proposed (even though these may just be promises) for the landless have also left everyone here feeling shortchanged.

Their feelings aren’t unjustified given the way the Mayawati government is busy promoting the interests of Jaypee Group in the state and filling the pockets of its owners at the cost of its subjects. Several thousand acres of precious forest land in the state has been sacrificed for the group’s ambitious University project in Bulandshahr over and above the land allotted to it there for the Yamuna Expressway. And though the pittance in the name of compensation for this rich agricultural land has been hiked from Rs 121 sq/mt to Rs 570 sq/mt after the stir, the state government is yet to prepare a master plan for the development of the 1,200 notified villages for the project. Mayawati herself admitted this during the recent Assembly session.

But Mayawati’s arrogance is akin to the media’s indifference. Just like the self-obsessed CM, the media too hasn’t cared to access just how much is the damage (Yamuna Expressway is just a tip of the iceberg) and what will be the struggle for survival after the last pieces of subsistence of people is taken away for peanuts or nothing. While most news channels have so far relied only on the agitation footage and footage of Parliamentary proceedings for this big story, English news channels didn’t even find it important enough for headlines. Had it not been for the three deaths in police firing on August 15 eve, it wouldn’t even have made it to the scroller. Even now, when the matter has acquired a national proportion given the stories of unlawful land acquisitions by different state governments that are coming out everyday, one just has to see the indifference with which the English media has covered it. All you see talking on TV channels are politicians and media experts of varied hues. Some times there are harried Delhiites narrating their commuting woes in the wake of the farmer agitation and the CWG preparations. You wonder, where are farmers who’ve suffered? Why haven’t we heard any farmer voices so far? That’s how concerned the media is about the country’s poor. Why blame the poor middle class? Is the media any different?

We don’t hear any farmer voices on English news channels, because farmers and their problems are not the concern of their target audience _ the English speaking urban Indians. We hear about Orissa’s deprived tribals only when the government cancels Vedanta’s mining project there. Not a day before or after that. And we only see them dancing when Rahul Gandhi lands in their midst. Never after that. That’s how concerned the media is about the country’s poor and the deprived.

Sure, the middle class is apathetic towards growing poverty. But is it also not because the media does not even make an effort to make it realize that their individual concerns in the long run are also correlated? Uncontrolled acquisition of farming land for SEZs and road projects isn’t just the farmers’ concern. It is a national concern, because it eventually has to do with our food security. Uncontrolled acquisition of forest land isn’t just a tribal problem. It is a national concern, because it eventually has to with our ecology. These are problems, just as urban as they are rural. And it is for the media to tell its audience how grim the state of affairs is for both the rustic as well as the urbane and where is it headed.

Sadly, both the media and its audience think they live in isolation, and their concerns are only about multi-crore financial irregularities, political unrests and potholed roads.

Neither wants to leave their fantastical bubble. The only respite here is that despite all its indifference, a section of the middle class at least knows what daridra is. The poor, of course know the ‘media’. Only the media doesn’t care who daridra is!