A fake sadhu sits under rexin propped up on two sticks curing diseases by piercing skin by knives or placing thick acidic paste on infant skins.
A woman writhes on a thatched mat to seduce a snake, who is supposed to be her lover from a previous birth.
With what purpose did IndiaTV provide a whole afternoon’s worth of coverage to those events? One can only wonder.
Meanwhile, the G-8 summit goes on and India continues to carve for itself the seat of a major player in the way world trade policies are to be determined.
TRADITIONALLY, media were supposed to be instrumental in forging national psyche. It is not surprising that the worker’s revolution in Russia began through pamphlets and secret magazines. What is typical about most social upheavals is that behind the scenes there was some agency that played the role of a herald. Communism did not evolve independently and simultaneously in workers of Russia. It was spread. Wide acceptance was created.
The Second World War and the consequent thrust towards democracy changed the picture, at least in principle. Ideals evolved and the media were then considered independent from the political engine. Transparency is the founding stone of democracy. Once again, the media have the same role, of spreading awareness and information. Their job now however is different, at least in theory.
The media are supposed to function as critics of government policy. Media are meant to provide checks and balances that keep the administrators on the straight and beaten path of honesty. It is romantic to include a long list of rights to citizen in the constitution. Not everyone is aware of them still because very few of us spend time to read the document. The media play its role here.
Kennedy might take a little break. His famous rhetoric- "What can you do for the nation?"- is good when nationalism has some value. Today, it is hardly so. The central questions are, inevitably:
What can the government do for you?
What is the government doing for you?
What has the government done to you?
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Democracy necesitates a two-sided approach to governance. The times when a single authority decreed and the mass of commoners obeyed are gone. The role of the government is more of a facilitator. People have economic and social objectives of their own and the government’s job is to carve out the path of least resistance and maximum gain for people to achieve them. Therefore, it is beyond doubt that such a society cannot function without an effecient system of disseminating information.
In short, media have an even more crucial role today.
What sort of a system should this be?
1) It is almost compulsory for this system to focus primarily on information. I have something of a fondness to describe this as "a fixation for naked facts". Analysis of facts is more or less always biased by opinions and ideologies. That is allowed in a democracy. But at some level, there has to be a focus on disseminating "naked facts".
2) This system should enjoy a higher order of credibility than any other institution. Credibility is something we expect from colleges and hospitals as well but we are habituated to taking it with a pinch of salt. But when it comes to the media, the society functions are a less-than-optimum effeciency if there is even a hint of alkaline. If the system responsible for disseminating "naked facts" itself is corrupted somewhere, then our troubles are far beyond reservations and communal politics. Our trouble then is- What really happened?
3) Preferably, this system should have no political agenda of it’s own. Media have always been instruments for manufacturing social opinion. In a democracy like India, where things are moving faster towards the egalitarian dream of completely free markets, anyone that gives you a belief system becomes your enemy. At first, this sounds anarchist but it doesn’t take time to understand that the principle behind pure democracy is essentially this.
4) This system should be, as far as possible, fearless in depicting the truth. Yet, it must exercise this freedom with a sense of responsibility. Not all truth should be shone fully naked. A fig leaf makes the picture more abashing than the naked truth. In other words, this system should operate in a harmonious manner with prevalant social sensibilities. I recognize and admit that "social sensibilities" are inexhorably subjective. But what has to be said, has to be said. And what has to be done, has to be done.
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Perhaps the biggest quagmire that we face today is the following question. Are media doing their job like they should be?
I cannot deny that media have indeed risen well to the task of spreading awarness of what a citizen of India is empowered to do. In no way have media spared the government where it has failed to deliver. Certainly, the government has been compelled to mend its ways although their solutions might still lie in the range of "symptomatic and appeasing".
But on a number of occassions, media coverage focuses on issues that are most certain to boost viewership. Sex scandals of celebrities and the likes. Independently, they are important issues. We do want to know the real morality behind the characters youth tend to idolize. Yet, some issues are more pressing. I’ll leave it at that.
There could be a case for keeping some part of the media within the control of the government. People of earlier generations, still loyal to the government’s supposed all-caring nature, believe that only government control can prevent the media from going haywire with snake-seducers and babas. But I do not support media content being subject to the vagaries of those in power and desperate to remain there.
The only real "advice" I can give about media is very simple. It did not need the entire preceeding write up. This is what I have to say.
Yes, perhaps the media is moving towards what it is supposed to do. Yet, there is a long way to go. The media must build confidence among people. There must be a reasonable assurance that facts have not been tampered for the benefit of a hidden agenda. There must be some honesty in distinguishing between what is fact and what is opinion. Analysts must confess to their own ideologies. None of our "egalitarian ideals", as I said earlier, can be achived unless we make a world that is not gray but is black and white.
But as we all know, this is impossible.
Perhaps Heisenberg was right. Perhaps in everything that we do, there is always some minimum error, some minimum abnormality that we cannot eliminate. So, once again, we are perhaps left to do what Indians are best at doing.
Take it with a pinch of salt.
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