Too poor, too far from Delhi

Dhanbad is 1,100 km from Delhi, but the rest of India is much more distant. In the media, fashion shows carry more weight than human interest stories. And journos have followed the social warp, tailoring their ethics to the demands of what the readers want..
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

The physical distance between Delhi and Dhanbad is roughly 1,100 km. But the metaphorical distance between the political capital of India and the country’s coal capital is much longer. If one read only Delhi’s “dumbed down” dailies, one may be forgiven for believing that the arrest of socialite Bina Ramani—for allegedly forging documents to run a restaurant where Jessica Lal was murdered more than seven years ago—was much more newsworthy and significant than the sudden deaths of 50 miners in a ghastly accident that took place more than 400 metres underground in Dhanbad on the night of September 6.

Sections of the mainstream media in India show a kind of insensitivity to the reality of this country that is nothing short of callous. It has been officially acknowledged that at least 100,000 farmers committed suicide in different parts of India in the decade between 1993 and 2003. No less a person than Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has stated that 16,000 farmers continue to kill themselves each year in 32 “vulnerable” districts in the four states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka
and Kerala.

It is not as if the English language corporate media has ignored such developments altogether. At the same time, the coverage given to farmers’ suicides pales into insignificance in comparison to the space and time devoted to fashion shows. Media owners and editors claim they provide what their readers and viewers “want” and according to them, their audiences are less keen on trying to understand the circumstances that led to a farmer consuming pesticide in some remote village in Vidharbha than on the wardrobe malfunction of an anorexic model on the catwalk. One is perhaps being unduly moralistic. An exposed nipple will surely grab more eyeballs than the hard-luck story of a nondescript farmer.

Agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan was correct. Gnawing and persistent hunger does not a story make, nor does widespread malnutrition. But talk about a so-called starvation death and the cameras are ready to roll. So what if the local district magistrate denies the story? The gradual denudation of hillside of its forest cover will attract the attention of a few bleeding-heart journalists with contacts in non-government organisations. But such an event will certainly not make headlines in the way a landslide that kills and disrupts normal life would.

There was an era not very long ago when journalists claimed they belonged to not just any other profession, when it was not considered unfashionable to believe in causes. True, some journos took themselves a bit too seriously and sported the holier-than-thou halo of a crusader. But many also sincerely believed they had a role to play, however small it may have been, to uphold the truth, to fight for the underprivileged and to expose the rich and the powerful if they transgressed their power and authority. Is one sounding like a hopeless romantic?

Perhaps! Still, the way in which substantial sections of the media in India have subverted ideals and ethics in the hope of earning easy and quick profits, rankles when not being downright disgusting. Poor Gudiya’s life became a reality show on television. Everyone and his sister decided who she should live with and why. Hours of precious primetime were used up explaining the intricacies of Muslim personal law. And, when she passed away on New Year’s Day, a victim not only of excessive media exposure but also of having to bear a second child too quickly, the mass media that had milked her story to death had all but forgotten her tragic real-life denouement.

Mass media the world over and not just in India tend to be crude and crass; melodrama is a staple part of the diet; insulting the intelligence of the viewer, the norm. We in India—as in so many other walks of life—have imbibed the worst from the rest of the world together with just a bit of the best.

So why should we be surprised that the deaths of 50 miners in Dhanbad were considered less important than an account of the time a socialite spend behind bars? The members of the families of the dead miners don’t belong to SEC-A (Socio-Economic Category A); they don’t normally buy chewing gum and the womenfolk don’t wear panties. Television, after all, is chewing gum for the mind. After the short period during which the gum has taste gets over, we keep on moving our jaws incessantly although what’s between our teeth is, well, tasteless.