The Dumbing Down of Debate — Of Bhagwat, Jayalalitha and a news anchor

Why are we a part of so much noise?

Sometime last month, a friend from Pakistan sent me a text message after a long gap of non-communication. He began by asking why I had not written anything on azadi and inquilab, the public protests of Imran Khan's party. I did subsequently post something, but the fact is that unlike earlier I did not feel the need to time it.

Part of the timing thing is, of course, old journalistic habit of commenting on an event or doing a follow up feature story. It wasn't mere deadlines I was meeting; thoughts were racing through my mind and wouldn't rest until they were put down. The mental race continues.

However, I have begun to wonder and ponder. There are many reasons for it, but here are a few.

I was trying to locate an old column of mine after Jayalaithaa's arrest. Not only did I recall where it was published around the time when the case first got in the news, I remembered the picture that was used as well. While rummaging through the piles, I stopped. What was I doing and why? Did I want to scan the piece and put it up? What would it achieve? Did I want to use bits of it? Both were possibilities, and although my views are not dated I am conscious that despite the long articles written now, what registers most are stray sentences. Like some others, I do have a few of such sentences that can be highlighted. But, it is tidbits that seem to overwhelm — the number of the Tamil Nadu CM's domestic staff, what she ate, drank, wore. Would one want to break the linkages, the ingrained cohesiveness? Would one want 'light' readers to snigger about what they register as pop psychology, the calling out of which is another pop fad?

In any event, I gave up the search. Along the way, I found several pieces. One of them was on the RSS, another mentioned Mohan Bhagwat, who is in the news today because as chief of the Hindutva organisation he managed to get direct entry into national TV as Doordarshan telecast his speech live. If he has said pretty much the same things on earlier occasions, why should what happens now surprise me at all? Nothing has changed. If anything, it is the public secularists who are claiming their pound of flesh by revealing how fearful they are when they cannot even critique this kowtowing to a non-party organisation and drag in religious heads of other communities that do not — and thankfully so — have the standing to be so propped up.

It is the political wayfarers who find sustenance in such liberal rabble-rousing. In the process they ignore that history was no different. Perhaps, the ignoring is willful: It is about grabbing a spot in the sun. It is about a whoa moment holding on to the crutch of a meme to make a point that skims only the crust and lacks the drive, patience and integrity to probe the crux.

One would understand had such testosterone response been from novices. Why do seasoned analysts too join in the dirge of "We are going downhill" when all this has happened before, and not in ancient times? It has happened before our eyes in the 80s, 90s and the 2000s. The RSS speeches are the same.

What we should be doing is to keep our antenna up and raise our voices instead of looking like frightened deer before headlights. There is a horrible fallout of this: the guys in the front are getting hit. The mastermind is safe. For example, Doordarshan gets blamed for the Bhagwat speech when we know that the national channel follows government diktats. Besides that, attention is diverted from similar rightwing nonsense from previous regimes. It is one reason you rarely hear about the 1992-93 riots. This bothers me a lot.

Everybody likes a good fight, to be able to nurse wounds and egos, knowing well that in this junk-food version of news things come cheap and don't last long. And that is such a convenient thing for them. There is no fealty expected in the long run, no commitment.

During the PM's trip to the US, the way the word Modi was used revealed how indebted many in the media are to the new government and its head. A play on the name became less pun and more about building the cult.

Following an altercation between a media person and the rightwing cheerleaders, an industrialist close to the PM reportedly conveyed a message that Modi regretted what had happened. This is what should concern us more, that a businessman is acting as the conduit between a PM and a journalist.

Those holding forth have little or no experience in or about the media, just as the neo-experts are not experts at all. Journalistic space has been taken over by rightwing think-tanks or liberals with too many books and a lot of dust in their shelves. All that is debated is not news. Trivia and gossip too are discussed, and they have a place. But in the enthusiasm to legitimise the trivia or the addenda, opponents are getting more importance. Which is what they want and what they probably incited. Worse, the serious is getting reduced to the level of the frivolous, with its own version of flouncy bouncy analyses.

RSS votes for British Rule...

...and the rest of India wants to be foreign

It is shameful that the chief of a ‘nationalist’ group, the RSS, feels that India was better off during British rule. Isn’t the RSS always crying itself hoarse to protect our heritage even if it means asserting it through violence?

Mohan Bhagwat’s reasoning is flawed, anyway:

"After Independence, the dominance of rich and powerful people in politics and rising inflation have worsened the country's situation, which is worse than what it was during the British rule. All political parties were in power some or the other time during the last 64 years since Independence, but the situation has not improved. Hence, citizens must introspect over what went wrong."

There were rich and powerful princes and even business houses during British rule; they were protected depending on how loyal they were. In that, nothing has changed. How is it worse? Development strategies are now the burden of the Indians in power; during British rule, the wealthy did not have to worry about these issues. They lived in their principalities and worked in what may be charitably called an obsequious federal structure.

The situation of the poor was as bad, if not worse. At least on paper today one can question concepts of slavery and bonded labour. The colonisers, in order to avail of chattels, permitted the brown sahibs their indulgences as reward for fidelity.

It is a bit strange that the RSS that was formed to protest against British rule is now singing its praises. Stranger still is the confusion. Mr. Bhagwat states:

"Today, there is an insistence on education in a foreign language (English), instead of education in the mother tongue. As a result, the importance of the foreign language has increased to a large extent in the country.”

So, what language were the British promoting? How foreign is a language that is constitutional and, more important, just how many people know that language? This is hitting out at straws. Most people learn their local language, and education has to be broad-based. The concept of the ‘mother tongue’ is limiting, and inherited. Listening to lullabies in it is fine, but what beyond that?

Mr. Bhagwat does come to the nitty-gritty:

"Even 64 years after Independence, India is being threatened by China and Pakistan. With rising concerns over internal security, we should give top priority to military education to students to make India strong.”

Obviously, during British rule we had no threat from Pakistan and China. The colonisers were the internal threat. Did Indians have military training then? Except for some of the rebel armies and the revolutionaries, the battles were fought with passion and little else. What we are faced with now are security issues that have to deal with diplomatic ones as well. While there are border disputes, the governments are also talking about other things. There is insurgency, but neither of these two countries will ever colonise us.

Military education would entail the power of procuring licensed weapons. How many such students will make India strong? Why not encourage them to join the army or other legitimate combat forces? Do we want a militarily equipped country without any other form of education? What has the RSS done for India with all the training it gives its members in the camps?

It is pertinent, though not surprising at all, that Mr. Bhagwat makes no mention of the terror within and the several states and groups at war for space and identity.

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I’d like to digress here about this attitude towards what is foreign. It has to do with our utter contempt for what is indigenous. Even parties that talk about our culture and fight petty battles against westernisation want to be like others. UP Chief Minister, through a leap of faith and imagination, thinks Lucknow is like Paris. With those granite pedestals and statues in different materials, this would not even qualify as kitsch. That aside, does Lucknow not have a fine culture of its own? What about those nukkads, the food, the weaves, the ambience?

The whole of India is in rapt attention over the elections in that state and we have to listen to this tripe about a local Paris. Imagine what would happen if Sonia Gandhi were to say that Amethi is like Sicily, or Delhi like Rome, or Mumbai like Milan? Her foreign origin would be skewered yet again.

Obviously, it does not make sense. But, from the lakes in Nainital to the backwaters of Allepey, we are Venice. Mumbai’s leaders want it to be like Singapore or Shanghai, depending on what noodles they prefer.

Can’t we have some pride in what we are and what we can be? Weirdly, when it comes to marketing our filth for filthy lucre, we are quite ready.

End note:

“A judge should live like a hermit but should work like a horse” 

– Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia

The law is an ass, and it is donkeys that work. Perhaps the CJI should have considered the fact that the best horses run races, and hermits live by ‘absenting’ themselves. It might have made more sense if he flipped his statement. Let them work like hermits – sparse with no strings attached, and live like horses – always in a ‘stable’ position wearing blinkers occasionally.

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Images Times, cartoons by Raj Thackeray (courtesy my inbox)

The Swami’s True Lies

Aseemanand is right. He probably has been forced to confess to his role in the bomb blasts in the Ajmer dargah, Mecca mosque, Malegaon and Samjhauta Express. But he is wrong that it is the investigating agencies that are doing so. It is likely that the Sangh Parivar put pressure on him when the saffron terror dragon began its first leap in public domain. In The Saffron Smokescreen, I had written:

So, what is the role of Swami Aseemanand? It is to create a soft-focus photoshopped image of the RSS. Has he mentioned any high-level functionary in his confession or any remote link to prominent leaders? Do any of the persons mentioned claim to take their instructions from a higher authority? No. The demon of Hindutva terror is doing its dance and there is no way in which to wish it away. The best course is to accept the extremists in the fringe fold of Hindutva, the over-enthusiastic, misguided people.

He now says that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had put pressure on him. The smart thing is that because all the cases are in different states he can blame one at a time. He says that the Rajasthan ATS has not allowed him to hire a lawyer. So which lawyer had said that he was tortured into making the confession, although he had recorded his statement before a magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC which is admissible in a court of law?

If he is innocent, then why did the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, say that there may be some radical members but they were told to leave the organisation since there was no place for extremism within it? He had said that the accused are not in any way connected to the RSS. Why, then, were they asked to leave?

As for Aseemanand, what happens to his heart-tugging story about the Muslim boy who reformed him? Kaleem who was wrongfully imprisoned and his “good conduct” affected him so deeply that he wanted to do “prayaschit” (penance) and therefore confessed. Was Kaleem from the investigating agencies?