This has got to stop at some point of time

“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight for your right to say it” – a famous quote from Voltaire that has been used by liberals like myself while fighting for absolute freedom of speech with no restriction whatsoever. I am very clear in my mind, rather than making efforts to stop a person from expressing him/herself, we must invest energies into how best can we choose to ignore or turn a deaf ear towards unpalatable sound bytes. The solution as well the choice is personal. I often hear people protesting some book, movie or joke citing reasons that it hurt their regional / religious and other sentiments. This does not make sense to me as there is absolutely nothing in this world which will be loved and accepted universally. Isn’t the best response then to choose to ignore things that hurt sentiments rather than try and enforce bans?


But, I digress. Today the topic is media itself. How many of us agree that news channels should not be showing entertainment segments nor should they be beaming spots where some “tantric/ baba” – quack is giving spiritual / medicinal advice to people in the audience. There is a healthy respect for the trade of journalism but in the name of television ratings and advertising money the news media has lost its JQ – journalistic quotient. Editors no longer take the time and employ their deep insights to find a position on the main story which best suits the audience. Today, more often the editorial is looking to find an angle to the story which is most controversial and hence will grab eye balls and in turn bring in more advertising money. Consequently, the 9 PM news becomes a slanging match between political and ideological opponents often not adding any value to the audience who are often frustrated with this nonsense sans news value. Every new item is being made larger than life and projected based on its ability to be controversial and eye catching. In the times when there is agrarian crisis throughout the country more time was spent in discussing about the holiday destination of the vice president of a political outfit and conjectures on how a certain son-in-law made million by finding loop holes in the law.


I ask, apart for voyeuristic pleasure, what benefit do such moronic news items provide to the viewers? We provide a service and there is a demand for it – is often the argument for such abomination. I ask again, there is a huge demand for pornography too so does that mean news channels should be beaming porn clips during the 9 PM “prime time” slots ? Can any news media get away with tabloidization of news because there is a demand for it? There many such pressing issues haunting Indian media today and hence I took the liberty of checking the program listing of BBC and CNN, two international news organizations which have become a brand in the field of news reporting. I found BBC and CNN have so many slots dedicated to human interest stories; issues faced within the country and internationally. They have journalist on the field in distant locations bringing to us the tears, joys, sorrows and accomplishments of people around the world. Compare this to the coverage of Indian media when the PM was travelling to the US or Japan. Instead of utilizing the opportunity to get some human interest story, our media was pandering to lowest common denominator by wall to wall coverage of the PM and his cultural programs. Every shit and every fart was being covered. There were embarrassing moments when the NY times and WSJ wrote an article on how the Indian media was gushing like a teenage girl meeting the movie star. The only reason why BBC and CNN gave 5 minutes each for this story was to report the “coverage style” of Indian media. Almost like saying, we get it!! Now please tone it down.


As embarrassing as the coverage of the “PM travels” was, nothing can make the case more strongly about news media tabloidization as the recent natural disasters – Kashmir floods and Nepal earthquake. In the month of October 2014, Kashmir faced a surprise flood on the banks of Jhelum which brought the capital and the government to a halt. Most government offices were flooded and help had to arrive from outside for rescue and rehabilitation. Given the fact that Jhelum laid siege on the capital, it was obvious the Centre had to help the state fight the disaster and the PM did admirably well. The rescue mission was taken up on war footing and the PM even spent “Diwali” in Kashmir to show solidarity with Kashmiris. There was a major problem despite the admirable work of the armed forces on the orders of the PM, his friends who own media channels either saw this as an opportunity to advertise “Government efficiency” or were advised to do so. Somehow, the narrative in the news media was of a larger than life savior (read the PM) saving people (Kashmiris) from natural disaster and hence they should now be beholden to the savior. Conjectures were being made on foreign policy and how the PM won over Kashmir from Pakistan etc. All this focus on Kashmir, while Assam was facing floods where no help arrived. If you remember Kashmir was to go to polls in December of 2014 and all of sudden it became plainly clear that media was talking at behest of the master for electoral benefits. While rest of India remembers the floods as a case of swift and decisive governance, Kashmiris remember this as cynical move by central government to use a disaster for electoral benefits. Again, I am not sure if the PM meant to put this message across but nevertheless that was the message put across by our tabloid news media.


In April 2015, just couple of days after floods hit Bihar, a 7.9 earth quake hit Nepal and Bihar. Once again, the PM with the help of Army and NDRF started a rescue mission on war footing. This time help was provided to an Indian state and a neighboring nation simultaneously and I must mention that this was the best response to a calamity of this nature, until the media came in. In order to cover a human impact story, the media channels sent 600 media persons to Nepal (ignoring Bihar) for a wall to wall coverage of the calamity. Media persons took too much space in the rescue helicopters – space that could be used for ferrying the injured or for supplying food and medicines. The air force had to run additional sorties for rescue because of space taken up by media persons in each helicopter sent for rescue work. Again, the same old narrative of a savior (PM) coming in Rambo like fashion to save the world was being projected. In addition, reporters were seen asking leading questions to those being rescued – asking if they wanted to thank the Indian PM –something that will haunt the PM for now. Soon, the Nepalese people were nauseated watching the PR exercise of a politician on the backs of their loss and tears. #GoHomeIndianMedia and #GoBackIndianMedia started appearing on Nepalese twitter trends and the Government of Nepal politely asked the media and NDRF to return home as they felt the rescue was completed and Nepal could take care of the rehabilitation by itself. It was a major embarrassment to India in a world forum where 11 other countries worked as tirelessly as India without this PR exercise. Indian media managed to covert a humanitarian aid which could have won us goodwill into a debacle that earned us the ire of Nepalese people and its government.


So is there a solution to this? First things first, media must stop going after advertising money at cost of journalistic ethics. The media must stop being beholden to the administration or the corporate honchos who own the parent company and the editorial integrity must be maintained. Media must be allowed to take ideological positions but must do so openly by declaring allegiance to a party or ideology. Audience must be aware of the intention before they see the content. Finally, human interest stories must be given precedence over sensationalisation and entertainment.


So long.....

And you think she owns her body

And then He made woman – the best of his creation and He poured into her his beauty and sensuality. We all have read this (not verbatim but the gist) from each of our ancient scriptures. It describes woman as the perfect creation of God and since she was created after man, by inference she is much superior to him. We often quote the scriptures to make gender based laws that more often than not decide what women can or cannot do in our society but me thinks this is more in awe of the super being that seems uncontrollable and unfathomable to men. So we hear, “purdah” / hijaab laws for women; we hear of lack of inheritance rights to women; we also hear of not having a choice whether to / when to conceive. I often ask myself, who are these people who made these laws and it seems to me that whoever it was, should have been a man for there is a deep misogynistic agenda in all these laws. I wish to bring to fore two disturbing trend that is bucking the evolution of men and is becoming more prevalent now than ever.


Female genital mutilation (FGM) a term that was alien to me till very recently, until it started making headlines in The Economist magazine. The details would horrify you. Apparently there is a custom in Africa of using a knife to cut a girl’s clitoris before she hits puberty (around the age 9-12) and then in extreme cases sowing the vagina shut. This is an exercise to ensure purity of a woman to her husband who then performs a sort of surgery to remove the sutures on the wedding night. Imagine the horror a girl’s body is put through because a few men back in the day thought it was impure for a woman to have sex before marriage or outside marriage. It amazes me nobody thought of sowing shut a penis or chemically castrating men until they are married to ensure they do not have sex…..but, I digress. Women in Africa have associated this procedure with Islam (being prevalent religion) and have for generations accepted this to be a ritual similar to “khatna” – where the foreskin of the penis is removed for all male children. While khatna seems to have medical backing and is in fact a ritual mentioned in the Quaran, FGM is not mentioned anywhere. There is simply a notion that the practice is linked to Islam and is blindly followed not just in Africa but even in Pakistan and Afghanistan.


The consequence of FGM is terrible for women. To begin with women permanently experience pain near the vaginal area from a wound that never heals. Since FGM is performed by quacks rather than trained surgeons the scar never heals and bleeds very often. One must also understand that women who have undergone FGM never enjoy sexual relationship due to unbearable pain and women whose vaginas were sown shut suffer from infections due to unhygienic menstruation. Imagine a lifelong worth of pain for ensuring “purity” of a woman’s body. Who among us feels this was a ritual made by a woman for fellow women? It almost certainly is the thought work of a man who could not bear the fact that women are superior in sexuality and can in fact enjoy a healthier sex life than men. The best way to stop it is to destroy the genitals or mutilate them so much that sex becomes an unenjoyable task. It also ensures “loyalty” in women to their spouses. This to me is destroying beauty of nature because you cannot fathom the depth of it. Each of us has to fight these customs and rituals which harm a woman’s body so that men can feel better about themselves.


The second “ritual” I want to address can be called as marital rape for lack of a better or more suitable word. Now, I know it is not a ritual as such but we have for generations been told that sex is a duty a wife performs for her husband that we have come to think of sex as an enjoyable act that is provided by women grudgingly who in fact don’t like it at all. Movies and television serials always depict a woman as virtuous, who are incapable of liking carnal pleasures and hence are merely shown as a service provider for the husband. We celebrate these women and in many cases this depiction of woman stays in our subconscious mind. Then we try to practice the learnings in our own marriages / relationships where we force/ coerce the woman to provide the service at our beck and call. If God forbid she says “she is not in the mood” we start to feel “women are not supposed to be in mood and are supposed to do their duty to men”. Even in the movies the lady refusing sex to her husband or lover is doing to spite him rather than not being in the mood. So a woman’s mood is thought to be of no consequence to the act of physical love. This has dangerous consequences.


Very often we hear horrid stories of women having to face the brunt of insatiable male lust. Whether it is in a relationship or a marriage, she is often told that love equates sex and the only way she can prove her love for the man is to lay with him anytime he wishes. Failing to comply is often met with one of the two consequences. Either the man emotionally blackmails her to comply, which makes her feel low self-esteem and dirty about herself or the man resorts to violence and beats her up and shoves objects up her vagina to show his dominance. The horrid part of it all is that this is not a crime in the eyes of Indian law as it stands today where rape is not recognized between a husband and wife. Sure, she can press charges of cruelty but I think we can agree this is a lot more than just cruelty; it amounts to physical and emotional torture that simply is not covered enough in the definition of cruelty.


So how do we tackle marital rape? Surely a first step is to recognize it as an offense. But then the immediate question is how you say “consent for sex was given”. Well, if there is love in a relationship and not merely the transaction between a subscriber and a service provider the consent thing will take care of itself. Educating men on female sexuality is a second important task. Men should be able to wrap in around their heads that women are human and are capable of enjoying sex much more than men and even without the help of men. If we all learn to recognize and respect the woman as a superior being we would not have to resort to disgusting rituals and practices to control her body and sexuality.


So long..

All-out attack

In May 2014 – after three decades of ‘policy paralysis’ due to compulsions of coalition politics, India gave an outright mandate for a new administration. There was cheer all around and the hope was palpable in every voice. It did not matter so much as to who the victor was but the fact that we overcame a three decade old curse was reason enough to celebrate. The business sector was happy as many tough decisions could now be taken easily and the man on the street was happy hoping the economic indicators would improve under the new regime and the trickle down benefits would make life much better for all. I must make a quick side note: Elections in democracy is one of the most potent drug, it enables the governed to vote out the Government and at same time help them erase past memories and make a clean cut to new tomorrow. It almost breaks my heart to see how often this goes wrong.


The new administration in Delhi marked a change in ways we think and work with the PM laying emphasis on fast and efficient government. Once again, we cheered that we finally are a country of doers than speakers. I was not too hopeful of the new government doing much fruitful because I am forever wary of the PM. I am very aware of things he is capable of and his legendary loathe towards any criticism. To me, power – when mixed with narcissistic tendencies makes a heady cocktail that sweeps most people off their feet and here we were dealing with Narcissist himself. I was very sure that sooner than later the PM will run roughshod over contradicting views and it would be a hoot and half to see how he handles it from the seat of power. To his credit, he had two successful terms as a CM but being in Delhi under constant gaze of media is a whole different game than being a CM of a state. Round one was won by the PM when he managed to get his corporate friends buy large stake in national media and through them control the media narrative. The media had a dictat to not speak against the PM and the government and hence we had a good long run of 8 months of sycophancy in the media. This was broken by the Delhi elections of 2015.


The thing that scared me the most of these 8 months was how easy it was for an elected Government to use levers of power or influence with the corporates to effectively muzzle all criticism. Now, I know most of what Indian media does is noise; but even so, the response to wrong news is right news but here the Government was encouraging the approach of “no news is good news”. Access to all information about the administration was cut and the media had to depend on heresy to report on any happenings in the corridor of power. Contrast this to the position of media advisor equivalent to a press secretary - that existed not so long ago who effectively liaised between the media and administration. If you thought it was bad that the administration was blocking the access to media, it went a lot further.


Right to information act was modelled on the US Freedom of information act which ensured that the working of the administration would be open to public gaze and any information that is not a national security issue could be sought by a citizen by filing a RTI. In cases where information was not forthcoming, the chief information commissioner would release the information or order the administration to comply. The new administration has not appointed a chief information commissioner for the last one year, since the incumbent retired. So the administration is effectively starving the media and the citizen of any information of the happenings within the corridors of power. The question that begs to be asked – Why, exactly is the administration wary of sharing any information of its actions? Is there something worth hiding? Does it bode well for a democracy if the administration is going all out to muzzle voices of all possible opposing views and is wary of its own citizen. Why is the current administration going out of the way to hide its tracks and wipe its finger prints off its deeds.


While all this was going on, non-governmental organizations (NGO) were petitioning the courts to force the hand of the administration into being more open and transparent in its dealings. Several such petitions ended up as litigations which embarrassed the administration and hence, in a pure vindictive and ham handed way, the administration has cracked down on NGOs for violation of FCRA norms and is trying hard to out maneuver the NGOs by piling counter litigations so that they don’t have time to look into dealings of the administration. By this one act, the administration has proved convincingly that it does not appreciate criticism from any quarters and will fight with all its might to muzzle these contrarian voices by drowning them in litigations. How much this bodes well for our democracy is a question we need to ask ourselves the next time we step out to vote.


So long....