Photographers block Kejriwal from public
HERE’S LOOKING AT US
Jyoti Punwani
Is it possible for a popular leader to interact with the anonymous man/woman on the street if he genuinely wants to? Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal’s attempt to do so on his first visit to Mumbai last week failed miserably. He could not interact with a single aam aadmi (common man) in his 40-minute train ride from Andheri to Churchgate. Every train carries about 3000 Mumbaikars in peak hour on working days; at 11.30am, when Kejriwal took the Andheri local on a Wednesday, he should have been able to meet at least 100 of them in his compartment alone.
The blame for his failed train ride must go both to the media and his Mumbai office which organised the ride.
Photographers mobbed Kejriwal from the moment he arrived at the airport to the time he alighted at Churchgate. Some reports said they jumped on to the sides of the auto-rickshaw in which he travelled, to get that prize picture of him inside. That set the tone for the day.
This columnist somehow got into the same train compartment as Kejriwal, managed to shove and squeeze her way through the mass of media men and a few volunteers, to the section of the compartment where he sat, and was hoisted up on a bench by a helpful volunteer, but alas! could not get even a glimpse of Kejriwal in the entire journey. The reason? Those photographers who had managed to reach him remained around him all the time, refusing to budge, oblivious of the pleas of their colleagues packed inside the same compartment awaiting their turn to take his picture. This ring of photographers blocked all access to Kejriwal. Initially, a few commuters greeted him from outside, from the stations en route, coming up to the window where he sat. But that didn’t last long, as photographers decided that stationing themselves outside his window was the best vantage point for them.
The ratio of photographers to AAP volunteers in the compartment was so uneven that one volunteer who was carrying food for the diabetic leader, could not get it to him. He kept pleading with those around him to let him through; the photographers turned on him and bit his head off. Another photographer raised his hand to strike a volunteer who was repeatedly requesting him to make way for others. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? What are you doing here anyway?’’ he asked the volunteer belligerently, while another mediaman asked the same volunteer to shut up. Remarked the volunteer wryly: “If we dare to give it back to these guys, the media will say that AAP members attacked them.’’
When Kejriwal alighted at Churchgate, the same feverish rush of cameras followed him from the train, adding to those already stationed on the platform to meet him, which included the media. Forget the two metal detectors that fell. It was a miracle that serious accidents didn’t take place. While a virtual stampede was on, a train drew up on the adjacent track, and those on the platform who didn’t want to be part of the melee were pushed to both edges of the platform.
Could all this have been avoided?
On the eve of his visit, Kejriwal’s Mumbai office told this columnist that it was only to save time that they had decided to take him by local train to the city centre, not to prove a point. They also emphasized that they had not booked a train for him. When I asked would it be possible to travel with him, they replied, “Madam, in Gujarat with such a hostile atmosphere, thousands turned out to meet him. In Mumbai, people are waiting with love to meet him. Of course you will be able to do so.’’
One elderly volunteer at the station told me he had made a dry run of the journey and chosen a compartment which would give least trouble to regular commuters. But even as he and I were waiting there, Kejriwal came down the bridge surrounded by cameras. As the train drew in, the undefined mass of human beings with Kejriwal at its centre got into the nearest compartment. All plans went for a toss.
Didn’t the Mumbai office expect this media frenzy? Any print reporter would have known that s/he stood no chance of getting close to Kejriwal as long as the cameras were around him. That AAP Mumbai was fully unprepared was evident by the media advisor’s SMS to me to wait inside the compartment rather than come to the station entrance where AAP members were waiting for their leader. Every train has six general second-class compartments; which one should I get into, I wondered, specially when the train hadn’t even arrived? But then I met the dry-run volunteer, and congratulated myself at having come early enough to be able to position myself exactly where Kejriwal would get in. As it turned out, that too was of no use. Be it dry runs, or the “love’’ of Mumbaikars …nothing worked in the face of the photographers’ frenzy.
What could AAP’s Mumbai office have done to ensure Kejriwal’s access to the aam commuter? Ban photographers from entering the compartment? That would have been both physically and legally impossible, for the train is a public vehicle. It would also have spelt even further animosity between AAP and the media.
Which brings us to the question: is it necessary for photographers to carry on taking pictures knowing they are blocking access to others, including their colleagues? Is it ethical for them to do so? How many shots do they really need, given that just a few are finally used? TV channels simply play the same ones again and again. I’ve always wondered why, but after seeing what happened during Kejriwal’s train ride, I understand: those shots are the only ones they manage to get. One can understand the pressure on photographers vying for that exclusive shot. But at what cost to themselves and others, including the object of their attention?
This columnist is old enough to recall the pre-news channel era. The only reporters then were from the print media, and they had to contend only with their photographer colleagues. After the latter finished taking pictures, reporters got the politician to themselves. Of course, exclusives depended on your connection to the politician. That’s the case even now. The difference is that today, the print reporter either gets an exclusive, or doesn’t even get a sound bite. To compete with TV photographers, you need brute strength, recklessness and your own vehicle to keep pace with the person you are chasing.
What should politicians do? While most mainstream leaders today have no interest in meeting the common voter, the most privileged of them all, a prime ministerial candidate to boot, has managed to do so. In 2010, Rahul baba pulled off a Mumbai local train ride successfully, actually interacting with regular commuters. He even changed two trains, thereby travelling by both local lines.
The secret of his success was keeping his plans under wraps, and actual Z-plus security, which kept the media at bay. Visuals of the trip available on You Tube show him walking unhurriedly on the platform, flanked by uniformed and plainclothes cops, waiting for the train to draw in. Inside the 1st class compartment, too, things looked quite orderly. Rahul initially stood like any aam commuter, then sat down and shook hands and spoke with commuters. No wonder he won them over.
Reports of Kejriwal’s Mumbai trip spoke of Z-plus security. Where was it? The only time cops were visible around him was in the sanitized surroundings of the airport. The cops waiting on the Andheri station bridge could do nothing to prevent the man they were supposed to protect from being engulfed by the media; inside the compartment, a beefy cop was squashed, unable to move, not even within touching distance of Kejriwal. Had he wanted to shout to get the media men out of the way, his voice couldn’t have been heard in the din.
Throughout Kejriwal’s road show, too, it was AAP volunteers who formed a human chain around the open vehicle in which he travelled with his Mumbai candidates. Occasionally, the chain broke to let people shake his hand. An intrepid Congressman even climbed on to Kejriwal’s vehicle to confront him. The cops followed leisurely in their jeep.
Given all this, the media coverage of Kejriwal’s trip was confusing, to put it mildly. “Chaos and vandalism’’ were phrases used across the board. AAP volunteers were blamed for “breaking’’ metal detectors, even as TV visuals showed the metal detectors falling as people – not wearing AAP caps – rushed through them. The same visuals showed people almost immediately picking them up too. Reports of Z-plus security were belied by visuals. One shot (outside Andheri station) showed him standing on a wall, flanked by joyous people on one side (they weren’t wearing AAP topis), and a solitary cop on the other. In both situations, the AAP leader was a sitting duck for anyone who wanted to target him.
“Inconvenience’’ to the ordinary commuter and traffic jams were mentioned in all reports. When other VVIPs visit Mumbai in their cavalcade of cars, the inconvenience is taken for granted, mentioned only when a patient gets caught in the inevitable road blocks. Did the media want Kejriwal to do the same? And wouldn’t it then have gone to town about his hypocrisy?
While the ‘India TV’ anchor fumed at the violation of traffic rules (five to an auto, breaking signals from the airport to Andheri station), the IBN coverage was a class apart – it was the only one to say that AAP had booked a special train for Kejriwal.
The media could hardly be expected to blame itself for the chaos. Yet, what was noticeable (but not surprising), was its unquestioning reportage of police action against AAP, and State Home Minister R R Patil’s officious declaration that action would be taken wherever laws had been broken. The honourable minister should know. When Shiv Sainiks ran riot in 2006 after the statue of Bal Thackeray’s wife was disfigured, Patil went on record to grant them 24 hours to stop their violence. In 2010, he defended inaction by his police in the face of prior knowledge about Sena violence in Pune. Since 2008, Raj Thackeray’s goons have routinely vandalised public property. Patil’s silence has been deafening. Even Raj Thackeray supporters were amused at the police’s uncharacteristic zeal to file FIRs against AAP. “Pure politics,’’ they said. But our media stuck to faithfully reporting the sections under which FIRs were filed (including a ban on more than five persons gathering at the airport without police permission!).
Kejriwal reacted to media reportage of his Mumbai trip with his by-now predictable “paid-media’’ allegation. His AAP office was more accurate. In a statement issued the day after Kejriwal’s visit, they held the police’s unpreparedness to handle the “overzealous media, who risked public safety in their quest for visuals’’, responsible for ruining AAP’s plans. The statement gave specific examples of this. Of course no one carried the statement.
The question — how can a popular leader interact with ordinary people? – remains unanswered. Meetings with select small groups (Kejriwal had one with the elite of South Mumbai; admission was by registration only; in another meeting with Muslim ‘leaders’, there was little interaction, just a brief speech by him), is not the way. Z-plus security cannot be the answer for an aam aadmi leader. Is the answer: “not possible’’?