Baba re, Live TV!

Live TV, like death, is a great leveler. Don’t invite it before time. This is the story of the two Babas who walked this earth …..

For people who love celebrity status and that moment in the spot light, the coverage of the latest ‘series of unfortunate events’ like Ramdev’s eviction from Ramlila maidan, the progressive collapse of his health after a brief spell of fasting and his subsequent call to arms to his followers, offers a lesson.

Ramdev has been the darling of the deep-breathing middle class for nearly a decade now, ever since he unveiled his unique business model for running god channels. As his wealth grew, so did the following, willing to consume whatever he dished out by way of yoga and the various potions as cures from cancer to AIDs. The crucial thing that no one paid attention to was the hidden militancy and the desire to take over that lurked in the ‘guru’. Ramdev’s multi-crore establishment looks too much like a business, unlike the water project and hospital of Sai Baba, which seem to have successfully helped to deflect attention from the questionable aspects of the functioning of his Satya Sai Ashram in Puttaparthi.

The Telugu channels are providing as much wall-to-wall coverage of Sai Baba’s ashram affairs as the English channels did of la affaire Ramdev. All of a month and a half after the death of Sai Baba, his inner chamber, the Yajur Mandir, was opened in the presence of some Trust members and bank officials who took an inventory of the cash and precious articles. The reported stash was some eleven plus crores of cash and kilos of gold and silver. Print and electronic media reports speculate that much may have found its way out long before the doors were opened.

Soon after the much publicised handing over of the wealth to the Tax Department and to the bank, Ashram vehicles transporting cash have been caught and the drivers have been arrested. Amidst denials, the TV channels are bringing in studio guests such as former police officials and investigative officers to take a view on the events. Both TV9 with its popular anchor Rajnikanth anchoring a show on 20 June and TV5’s show on 21 June emphasised the ‘Godliness’ and ‘Holiness’ of Baba but went on to raise important questions about the events at the ashram.

 

Rajnikanth asked one of the panelists from the Ashram, how so much cash was found when all along the Trustees have been asserting that no cash transactions ever take place at the Ashram and that everything is done through cheques and through Trust accounts. The panelist had no answer as he was not really from the inner circle. Rajnikanth also asked whether the Ashram is above the Indian Constitution and the laws of the land. The question is all the more significant as from PV Narasimha Rao, the former Prime Minister, to several central and state ministers, celebrities, and bureaucrats have been a part of this circus for years. All of them fully understand the laws of the land, one presumes. The Trust enjoyed extraordinary exemptions for years and Baba was a nodal point of contact for politicians, retired judges, cricketing celebrities and bureaucrats of all hues.

 

From marriages to ministries, everything is believed to be fixed through Baba’s ‘blessings’. However, one is yet to see any of the politicians (Geeta Reddy, Raghuveera Reddy and Adikesavulu Naidu of the cash-for-votes fame), who held anxious vigil at Puttaparthi throughout Baba’s hospitalization, show up on television talk shows.

For years, journalists in the know have been whispering about the real ‘Swiss banks’ being in the Ashrams of this country. Finally, they are beginning to question the affairs of the Puttaparthi Ashram. In all fairness, sections of Telugu media attempted to track the affairs of the Satya Sai ashram in the past too, but the sheer tyranny of the believers and the formidable political clout of the Baba succeeded in silencing everyone.

 

Well, better late than never. The TV9 ‘voice over’ said that it is the unique misfortune of India that senior political leaders do not hesitate to prostrate in public before god-men (the footage shows among others, AtalBihariVajpayi, cricketing icons). It is well-known that the presidents of India from Abdul Kalam to PratibhaPatil and Prime Ministers from PV NarasimhaRao to Manmohan Singh have all paid their respects. So did Mr S B Chavan, the then Home Minister of India very soon after some five people were shot in the chambers of Baba. The media coverage of these well-publicised visits of who-is-who, at once lends power and legitimacy to the god-men’s activities and in some cases, a green flag to impunity. The report, without really saying it, makes it clear that this is not just faith operating here.

Though there were many controversies around Sai Baba, his fame was built well before the new media culture prevailing today. It took Baba several decades to build this, after making several serious mistakes in the process. He also had (still has) a strong lobby of public opinion managers with links to media, who launch coordinated strikes against any negative publicity that may surface. Baba in later years kept away from the media and preferred to show his clout through the connections he had from those in the AP state government in Hyderabad to Delhi’s corridors of power. Bureaucrats and retired judges swarmed around him. This makes the illegality of large scale, unaccounted-for cash transactions that much more shocking.

After the unfortunate passing of Sai Baba, Congress and other political worthies were probably looking for a ‘guru’ to take his place. Enter Ramdev. He had the credentials – an international following of the Indian middle class diaspora with disposable income. Ramdev was respectfully received at the airport amidst media glare. If he read the signals right and if only he could have been more restrained, he would have got all tax exemptions, all immunities from all laws of the country. He should have had a retired judge or an IPS officer speaking for him while he remained in the background. Kiran Bedi was willingly defending him on live TV. Ramdev, through sheer personal ambition and lack of savvy with the media, blew his chance.

If his jumping across the dais to escape the police and showing up later in women’s clothes revealed his personality, his quick collapse after a brief spell of fasting put a question mark on his much touted fitness. The insult to the injury was the need for the man to be revived in a hospital providing ‘western’ medical care. All this was brought to us on live television, with adequate fanfare and confusion. Live TV helped exaggerate this lack of ‘savvy’ with a vengeance, repeatedly playing the cutting sound bites from the Congress honchos. It is to be seen where the Ramdev story will go from here.

However, looking at the coverage of both the Baba stories, one can still see the anchors getting emotionally entangled in the debate asking, ‘Do you owe an apology to so-and-so?; Are you going to apologise?’ or ‘Baba was the living God to all of us’. Is it the role of the media to soothe hurt egos by seeking apologies or to proclaim undying faith while reporting a story? The anchors have a job to do: ask short, sharp, questions; highlight the crux of an issue. Beyond that, it is not their job to right all the personal wrongs between the warring political factions.