Letting him off the hook

Many years ago, I had the privilege of attending one of Naom Chomsky's Oration on 'Media Manipulation' at the Columbia University. Chomsky was, and still remains, my hero right from my College days and understandably I was very excited.

He did not disappoint! I still have the notes I took and referred to them when I was contemplating this article. He started off by stating that media manipulation was the greatest crisis our civilization faces and to illustrate it, he went on to say--

The journalistic tendency to balance stories with two opposing views leads to a tendency to ‘build stories around a confrontation between protagonists and antagonists’. Journalists who have access to highly placed government and corporate sources have to keep them on their side by not reporting anything adverse about them or their organizations. Otherwise they risk losing them as sources of information. In return for this loyalty, their sources occasionally give them good stories, leaks and access to special interviews. Unofficial information, or leaks, give the impression of investigative journalism, but are often strategic manoeuvres on the part of those with position or power. It is a bitter irony of source journalism … that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the “best” sources.

Then he went on to adumbrate the 10 most popular strategies through which politicians /corporate houses manipulate media-

1.The strategy of distraction:

Which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

2.The strategy of creating problems and then offering solutions

3.The gradual strategy, ie acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually, dropper, for consecutive years.

4.Going to the public as an immature child

5.Keeping the public in ignorance and mediocrity

6.Encouraging the public to be complacent with mediocrity

7.Promoting self-blame: ie instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual auto-devaluate and guilt himself, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit its action.

8. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

9.The strategy of deferring

10.Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

I was reminded of the great philosopher's words when I recently watched a consummate politician viz Digvijay Singh being interviewed by Karan Thapar. His words seemed almost prophetic!

Here was one of India's top journalists being taken to the cleaners by a politician and being unable to do much about it; I am not even sure that he wanted to ,so obvious was the dictation of agenda by a unscrupulous and voluble politician not popularly known for adherence to principles! Unless of course you subscribe to the David Lloyd-George view--I am a man of principles -but my first and foremost principle is expediency!

One look at the transcript and it becomes clear that Digvijay is employing at least six of the techniques Chomsky adumbrated. Digvijay states:

 How do you know that such decisions have not been taken for others?

Now that is a classic example of what Chomsky would call -the strategy of deferring! Where instead of answering a question,he responds with another! And gets away with it as Karan does not press the point any longer!

Then he goes on to say-- It may be a sign of favour for you but if a competent officer he should be given medal.

Which is a classic example of the strategy of distraction!

Digvijay's other response-Karan first of all I am not charted accountant. Number two, I have not seen the balance sheet of Mr Robert Vadra, so how do I answer this question? (the question was: The first problem is that in February 2007, when Robert Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality bought the land for Rs 7.5 crore the total value of Sky Light Hospitality, declared by Sky Light Hospitality was just Rs 1 lakh. And in fact the sale was put into Robert Vadra's books as a book overdraft. The key question that arises is that who paid of the overdraft because at no point the money existed in Sky Light Hospitality when the purchase was made. So who paid off the overdraft?)

This was what Chomsky would describe as feigning childish innocence ;it is inconceivable that someone as wily as him could not have anticipated this question and as he did not want to answer . Again he managed to get away with it as Karan simply did not pursue it with the rigour that he should have.

It is pointless to fault Digvijay for the manner in which he tried to defend the indefensible. I suspect he is no different from most of the Indian politicians in that regard. However some of the techniques he employed were distinctly distasteful and merited a stronger rebuttal. His dismissal of the Vadra comment viz mango-men as a joke was in a very bad taste. I for one am not enthralled at the prospect of a 'joker' being subsidized out of public funds as he clearly is.

And for a person of Karan's experience , it was unpardonable not to have raised the bogey of 'Vadra is a private citizen' position that the Congress (I) leaders have been falling back upon.Singh very successfully skirted the question by employing the Chomsky technique of 'keeping the people in ignorance!' I may be ignorant and insufficiently informed but I believe I am not the only one who did not know that Vadra enjoys certain security privileges not even available to a Nobel Laureates .It is patently dishonest to plead that his security needs merit the privilege he has been extended and that is is not a status symbol.

May I remind everyone that in Israel following Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's murder, the Israeli Labor party offered his widow Leah a lateral entry to politics and the government offered her and her family life long state security. She refused both stating that the fact her husband had been allowed to serve the people of Israel was honor enough for her and that she did not want to be a burden to  the state preferring to be a private citizen-and a true private citizen who could give our politicians a lesson or two on how to be one!

Is it anybody's case that Israel's security concerns are less pronounced that ours! And an experienced journalist like Karan Thapar would know this fact. Not only did he not challenge Digvijay on this count but the issue was not even deemed important enough to merit mention. In fairness I have to state that no other journalist has raised these points ever since the scandal surfaced.

But the main howler came in the later stages of the interview! Digvijay claimed that he had evidence of wrongdoing against Vajpayee's and Advani's kins for years but was not going to use it. It was this assertion that made me gape! This would constitute and attempt to 'encourage people to be complacent with mediocrity!'

Look at the purport of what Digvijay had said! That for him maintaining political comeraderie in the political cartel was much more important than the welfare of the country which merited him divulging all the information he claimed to possess. And yet he was allowed to get away with this!

I have read that Karan tries to emulate Sir Robin Day ,the legendary British interviewer known for his incisive skills against politicians of all shades. His interviews made a compulsive viewing. I am confident that Sir Robin would have made a mincemeat out of any politician if he had made any such outlandish propositions! Carl Bernstein of the US would have been even tougher as would have been Sam Donaldson. Those journalists were well conversant with the tricks of the politicians and were not willing to play ball with them.It is something our journalists  do not seem to have learned.

I recall during one of my visits to India in the 90's, I watched the bureaucrat turned politician Mani Shankar Aiyar being deployed to defend the disgraced Justice Ramaswamy in the impeachment proceedings. He repeatedly alluded to the fact that Ramaswamy was from Tamil Nadu as one of his defences- and no journalist ever took him up on this parochial absurdity-a classic case of deferment in the Chomsky mode!

A few days ago Cabinet Minister Beni Verma justifiably got stick for a comment on how much pilfering by his Colleague Salman  Khurshid constituted corruption. But another statement which was equally outlandish went unnoticed and unchallenged. He referred to Khurshid as being President Zakir Hussain's grandson as a factor which I must admit riled me.Apart from being irrelevant I am certain that the late President would have strongly disapproved of Khurshid's shenanigans. And yet this went unchallenged by the media. Renuka Chowdhury’s offensive outbursts against Mayank Gandhi for his unsophisticated English accent were not even challenged by Arnab! She had conveniently forgotten her own leader's less than conventional English pronunciation and I shall not even bother to expound on Khurshid's distasteful diatribes about which I have written elsewhere.

Having listed the Chomsky postulates here, I can easily visualize and identify the techniques that our politicians are up to-and the journalists are falling into the trap almost willingly.

That, as Chomsky states is a danger signal. And unless the journalist community pulls up its socks, there is reason to have trepidation   about the future!