Gateman

An Open Letter to Rahul Dravid

2007-02-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Rahul Dravid,Namaskar!

You, presently, lead the cricket team of India and wear the National Flag, Tri-colour while playing for India in different parts of the globe. You must be well aware of the fact that this Tri-colour represents a Secular-Democratic India and team led by you which includes players from different religions and regions of the country, undoubtedly, symbolize the same reality. I hope you are familiar with the glorious heritage which the National Flag and a Secular-Democratic polity represent. These are the products of great anti-colonial struggle and ruthless fight against theocratic politics represented by organizations like the Muslim League, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. Despite the partition ofIndia on the basis of religion mainly forced by Muslim League and dastardly killing of Father of the Nation by persons affiliated to the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, India chose to remain a non-theocratic state. That is the significance of the Nation which you and your team represent and the Flag which you display on your costumes.I am sorry to write that by participating in the birth centenary programme of M. S. Golwalkar (Guruji), the ideologue of the RSS, in Nagpur on January 20, 2007, you have not only violated the trust whichthis country has put in you but also saddened large sections of your fans who love and adore you because you and your team represent a Secular-Democratic India. According to a report which appeared in the Hindi organ of the RSS, Panchjanya (February 4, 2007, p.11), 'Indian cricket captain inaugurated the Surya Namaskar Mahayagya programme in the Vidarbh region (of Masharashtra)'. This campaign was organized by RSS 'to commemorate the birth centenary of Shri Guruji' who happened to be the second chief and the most prominent ideologue of the RSS. The cover page of Panchjanya also shows you lightening the lamp before the garlanded photograph of Golwalkar.I do not know who led you to join this programme of the RSS but I feel duty-bound to bring to your notice few crucial facts about the RSS and Guruji who led it from 1940 to 1973. The first Home Minister of independent India, Sardar Patel, held the RSS responsible for the assassination of Gandhiji. He in a letter to Golwalkar, dated 11 September 1948, clearly stated that it wascommunal poison spread by the RSS which was responsible for this tragedy. Without mincing words he wrote: 'As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable lifeof Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government, or of the people, no more remained for the RSS. In fact opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death.' I hope you know that consequently the RSS was banned for its role in the assassination. Dear Rahul Saheb! Golwalkar whose birthday centenary programme you inaugurated was a die-hard fascist who rejected any talk of a democratic-secular India. In 1939 he penned a terrible book We or Our Nationhood Defined which ousted minorities like Muslims and Christians from the Indian nationhood. Even after Independence, in another book his Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar declared Muslims as enemy number one and Christians as enemy number two of the country. I wish you hadboycotted such a programme as you can vouch to the fact that many Muslim and Christian players playing cricket with you have done proud to the nation. Golwalkar also glorified dictators like Mussolini and Hitler and insisted on adopting their methods for cleansing minorities in India. In his 1939 book while eulogizing Hitler he wrote: 'German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races - the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how wellnigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.' It is really astonishing that a renowned sportsperson like you went to be part of programmes dedicated to such a nasty person.I also would like to draw your attention to what RSS thinks about the Tri-colour which you so proudly wear. When the Indian Parliament decided to have Tri-colour as the National Flag, the English organ of the RSS, Organizer, ('Mystery behind the Bhagwa Dhawaj', August 14, 1947) denigrated this great choice in the following words: 'The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never [sic] be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country'. The RSS has been demanding the adoption of saffron flag as the National Flag of the country. It also needs to be known that when the Constituent Assembly of India finally passed the Constitution on 26 November 1949, the RSS demanded that it should be replaced by the Codes of Manu (Organizer November 30, 1949) which openly glorified Casteism, upheld persecution of Untouchables and denigrated women.
Dear Mr. Rahul! You went to commemorate the birth centenary of a RSS leader who hated democracy and declared (while addressing the top cadres of the RSS at its Reshambagh headquarters, Nagpur in 1940) that Hindu India of his dreams needed only 'one flag (saffron), one leader and one ideology'.Moreover, it is really unfortunate that you went to honour a person who believed and practiced Racism. Interestingly, his kind of Racism was blatant in glorifying the racial superiority of North Indian Brahmins. According to a report in Organizer (January 2, 1961) Golwalkar while addressing the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University declared: 'In an effort to better thehuman species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.' This only showed Golwalkar's hatred for South Indians. Isn't it shocking that you went to honour such a person! Let me end with the hope that a great cricketer like you who stands as a symbol of Democratic-Secular India will not betray the trust the country has shown in you and fall prey to the designs of Hindu Separatism.
Wishing you all the best.

Shamsul Islam.February 6, 2007.
notointolerance@hotmail.com
Gateman

An Open letter to Ashutosh, managing editor of Channel 7

2006-06-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Ashutosh (to be more specific, Managing Editor of Channel 7)...

This is an open letter to you regarding your article appeared in the daily Hindustan on June 22, 06 in which you have commented on the people who are crying over the current media scenario. You have tried to prove that all these people are damn fools and news channels are absolutely correct in the realm of the changing face of Hindustan.

Before saying anything on your article, first of all I would like to ask that have you written this article on behalf of a mediaperson/journalist or a representative of All India Congress Committe? I know that you belong to the same category of people who bend their backs according to the wind's velocity. I am asking this because I know that you are a well read person but it is not expected from you that you target marxism while writing on media issue or vice versa. You have tried to run away from the reality check while writing on such an important issue. You have just superficially touched the micro level happenings in the media as well as the ideological world. Otherwise you would not have written that after 1990, marxism got shattered. My dear, at least a simple reader like me knows the difference between marxism and the social structure built on its tenets like Soviet Russia. Shattering of Soviet Russia does not necessarily provide you with a cunning and clever clue that marxism is shattered. Just clean your Samajhdaani. You talked of the disappearing divisive line between left and right. I think that people like you who don't have the complete understanding of the issues and ideology talk like this like a layman. I know that you have not fallen prey to some post-modernist like Sudheesh Pachauri. May be at night, you had accidently read some excerpts from any post-modernist writer, but that doesn't mean you write any rubbish in the newspaper like Hindustan.

And my dear, mind it, newspaper is not a place of avenging someone and crying over the things against which you have serious/non-serious complaints. It is the conveyer of information and ideas; and a person of your stature if says that the difference between right and left has been over, it counts. Not because you are more learned and more read than Namwar Ji, Sudheesh Ji or anyone else, just because you have a face value.

Now, coming to the point, media is not a spilt milk that anyone crying over it is useless. As you said. It is a medium in process, specially electronic media which is still in the nascent stage at least in India. If people are having complaints and they are reaching to the media's office, this is a very healthy sign of democracy. Don't you think by rejecting these people's viwpoint, you are getting leaned towards those male chauvinistic (in your words only) half pantees shouting a fascist slogan only taking the ambush of a mass media?

Yes, if you go in detail in the post modernist theory, you will get to find that post modernism is basically a neo-democratic version of Fascism only, which is necessarily against Marxism. So I will not get panicked if you fall an unconscious prey to these ideologies. TV media is a viscious circle which never gives you a space to think over something. Only reactions, bytes and VO's...which have you have exactly shitted in your article.

I will not abuse you, as you have done to some concerned persons. Rather I request you to please use a vacuum cleaner to clean up your mind blog. I don't think this is a very tough work in the company of Rajdeep. You can take assistance from those people also whom you have assisted not to cry over media as India is changing. I expect that you must have read Bertolt Brecht...so, today at least people are speaking out. When they will come for you, no one will remain alive to express solidarity with you. Only in this selfish context, I hope that you will try to understand the aggrievance of any one who will come next time to your office. As far as I am concerned, I have only one small aggrievance against your Channel 7...I have not yet got my cheque which I deserved as I was called as a guest in your channel's morning show. I think in December. You can confirm this from Smita, Setu or Rudra.

Last but not the least, sometimes go out of your office premises and visit Sector-16 of Noida. You will get to know, how much India has changed. Just standing in the studio and shouting on behalf of D's sister (to which no one has least concern) ...Bhai, Mujhe Bacha Lo...is not the whole world. It is outside newsroom, studio and most importantly the people who cry over the milk which will certainly get spilt if left in the custody of cunning cats like you. God help you...

To view Ashutosh's article go to the following link or paste it in your browser.
http://www.hindustandainik.com/news/2031_1725184,00830001.htm

New Breed Journalists: Making Nuisance of Newssense

2006-05-31T01:29:00.000-07:00

Every day and now, I get calls from the people searching for jobs in the electronic media, say categorically TV media. No one seems interested in the radio and forget about print. Almost all of them are the new breed of fresh journalists coming out of the media institutes and universities in bulk who want to be taken in any TV channel as anchor or reporter. The last day I got a same call from a newcomer who did her internship in Aaj Tak and wanted to get absorbed somewhere as Reporter in Delhi. When I directed her to Star News, she asked the address of the channel office and didn't knew about the DLF building in Connaught Place. When I asked her that how she will be going to work as a reporter if she didn't knew the basics of geographical locations. She just said, "Wo sab to ho jata hai Sir!"Now, as she has spend more than two Lakhs in Amity, she was not ready to work in less than 12k p.m. Now, where is the merit? What is the basis for this huge demand? Huge in the sense that most of the capable print journalists manage to get over 10 k p.m. in three to four years span of their journalistic career. There is a huge imbalance between the pay structure in print and TV. Although, one will be surprised to know that all the TV channels are headed by those people who have basically come from print. But the thing which upsets this scenario is their choice of the candidates. I know that this girl will get through her unemployement in a short span of time and cross me after one year in monetary terms, then never look back to me as if the print people are the most louzy creatures on this earth.This is not a complaint, neither to cry over the difference between print and TV. Rather, we are more concerned about the output which is being given by these young chaps who spend two Lakhs and get easy entry into the important outlets of social responsibility. Their selection has a huge impact on the content and form of the whole TV media. Let's forget about the structural aberrations, but we as journalists are always accountable for the news items, their selection, their rundown and priority, visuals shown and the images left out. If we are not taken in on the basis of our journalistic understanding and a minimum level of humanistic morality, then the social responsibility theory of the media gets shattered to the finest level. Whenever we talk of the media's responsibility, let's never forget about these new entraints who are the most responsible factors in dilapilating the news.But, remember, their heads are also equally responsible for this crime. Just to cite some examples. The newcomers are never told by their seniors to understand the difference between naxalite, terrorist and banned outfits. They are never told the difference between CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) and other communist parties. They can never know if they are not told that what is the full form and difference of S.H.O. and S.O. Go and ask any crime reporter the hierarchy in the police department. You can easily check this out. Nowadays, reporters covering the reservation issue are now and then using the term Mandal Comission. Just ask, how many of them know who was Mr. Mandal and what he did that put the country on fire? You can easily check this out also.So, the crux is that, there must be an informal training of the newcomers in the media group which they join by the heads of those organisations. This would firsthand increase the collective responsibility of the media group, secondly clear the common minimum agenda of the the group and last but not the least, help to create loyal journalists. Our senior journalist and writer of daily Hindustaan Mr. Rajendra Dhodapkar was once telling me the story of the golden days of daily Jansatta when Prabhash ji and Banwari ji went abroad for more than a month without handing over the responsibilities to anyone and the newspaper ran smoothly and responsibly without any hurdle. Prabhash ji is a journalist as well as a trainer in the sense that, as Mr. Dhodapkar accepts, " We are all children in front of him because today also, he keeps on teaching us the basic tenets of journalism and most importantly, requirement of the freedom of a journalist."It's not like setting standards like Jansatta of those days in the news channels, but at least we must help our colleagues and newcomers in keeping them aware of their social responsibility as a journalist. So that next time, when Nepal arises from the shackles of supression and someone comes from news channel to cover the rally at Jantar Mantar, we must not hear the questions like....Sir, please first of all tell me what's happening in Nepal? Yes...a byte carrier(I call TV reporters by this name only) from Sahara samay asked this question exactly the same way and the person who was standing in front of the gunmike got amazed. He was in dilemma...what to say. Not only this, even, a new journalist from Jansatta was heard saying Nepal and North-East are same. He had to take an interview on the insurgency in North-East and the person he chose was the senior journalist Anand Swaroop Verma. When I told him that Verma ji specialises on Nepal issue, I came to hear this nonsense from him. This was the nuisance of the newsense.Do you also want to keep this nuisance going on? If no, and certainly no, then come out with some suggestions so as to build a pressure on the key people sitting in media groups to keep an eye on these nuisances being played by there subordinates and correct them. Waiting for the same.........

What’s “Larger Than Life”?

2006-05-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

"Larger than life" is a very common phrase in the English literature; we have got a music album also with this name and whenever there arises a discourse regarding any commited goal, the phrase strikes the mind. Let me ask, what is larger than life? A very individual question, but may be answered in a general framework of the dialectics between life and death. Last day, 22 medicos asked for mercy death from the President of India just for the sake of their protest against quota.There seems no discourse on this incident in our culturally great society.
Is reservation such a matter, say "larger than life" that one can ask for mercy death? There are many aspects of this nuisance. Don't forget our rebellions and independence warriors like Bhagat Singh. They never asked mercy death rather sacrificed themselves for the noble cause. Asking mercy death for the cause which can be, say the most important in the lives of the Indian students, is a cowardice in this respect. Protest and demonstrations are alright and there must be a conscious solidarity of the people against/for the issue, depending on the personal stand. But this is the height of escapism and cowardice which is is being rapped in the hypocrit colors of Rang De Basanti.
It's as simple as anything to understand that life may be experimented in many ways but you can't experiment with death. It never gives a second chance if the experiment succeeds. And after all, knowing that the provision of mercy killing has not yet been a part of the Indian social, political and cultural process, it is being asked for. The simple reason being publicity and the greater reason being the increasing alienation in our culturally tolerant society due to the consumer culture pervading all over.
India is not Japan or U.S. If a bunch of young people have asked for mercy deaths, this shows that the new era of civil protests is rather going to be more defensive and the leading middle class is blunting the whole youth spirit. If there is a disagreement with my views, let's wash it out. A simple recipe. See.
Let the reservation question be a launching pad for the civil protests in India on a much broader scale. Mass needs a slogan, so let this only be the starting point. Forget about poverty, unemployement, eviction, displacement, tribal killings, imperialist suppression and many more. (Let it does not depend on any personal agreements/disagreements including me) But then, two questions will always remain unanswered.
Firstly, the demand of mercy deaths is being asked in the same political system which is going to implement quota. This is a major contradiction. If the system has become corrupt and the whole political scenario needs a revamp, then why to seek mercy from the ruler class? Is the President of India working in an isolated system? Is he not a part of the ruler class?
Secondly, hope that some student from the medical community gets a decisive place in between the rulers, say becomes the HRD Minister. Let's assume that he can curb all the reservations and quotas on his own. But then how will he tackle the upheaval arising from the SC, ST and OBC protest? The argument seems circular, and definitely this is a viscious circle from which mercy death could not provide an exit.
Basically, as far as I have my own understanding of the protests and issues, the doctors are losing the grip against their own interest only by doing these type of populist activities. They will never appeal to the masses because the hospitals are closed and people are suffering. No propoganda will work out, although they have largely circulated a news of the death of a doctor, some Srivastava of AIIMS. No one believes, and the media is not such a fool's foul play at least that it will ignore and not cover a big news like this, if it is true.
We need a right direction and framework to analyse things around us. Don't let the whole issue break up into pro and anti. Rather thinking rationally from a social stratification point of view will sort out the ways. And please, my dear Doctors, don't let your lives wasted to the mercy of the ruling class. Understand the class politics and decide your stand at a macro level, if you are really a rebel. Otherwise, you will be solely responsible for spoiling the whole possibility of any left out and much awaited social revolution in your country, India. Let's care of the revolutionary future. You are our comrade in arms!

A Question reserved!

2006-05-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

Much fuss is going on in media for the last few days regarding reservation of OBC’s in Medical colleges. Arjun Singh just threw out a lollypop for the people to lick for some days so that the attention from the basic issues gets diverted and the whole question of Women’s reservation got succumbed to the pressure build up by the current issue. Is this our media which has created a hype of the medical professionals’s protest against reservation?

A Question must be certainly asked to the people, to the doctors and the intellectuals who are opposing the reservation. And certainly, it must be asked to the media as well that why it is not putting up this question. Assume that the government is already corrupt and anti-people and you cannot mould its decisions just by lighting the candles and shouting “Rang De Basanti”. But then, are the medical students and doctors ready to work on the countryside for one and a half decade if it’s made compulsory?

Let’s give them a chance. Say, the reservation will be taken back on condition that there must be introduced a conditional column in the medical exams application forms that the people who will qualify will compulsarily work in the Indian villages for say at least one decade. Then who will get ready for that?

These are the “Youth For Equality”, so called, who are protesting on the roads and as soon as they get a chance to go abroad, they will never come back to their motherland complaining that India has a corrupt system where everything is decided by caste politics. It is true, but it must be asked that why the responsible mediamen like Rajdeep and Co. have not raised this issue? Has someone asked thet self-proclaimed medical leader Aniruddha that how much time it has been since he is on the roads? Has he ever protested for any other issue in his lifetime?

This is a question reserved for media, Aniruddha, Arjun Singh and others. It is certain that Arjun Singh has hit an axe on his front foot and he will also meet the fate of Raja Manda V.P. Singh. There is no doubt in this. But how will you react if at this point of the article, I tell you that the whole protest in delhi and the rest of the country is being managed by some event management companies? Yes...this is truth and harsh truth.

So, when you get a message next time which reads like...Support the anti reservation movement...96 hours of Dharna...94 medical students collapsed...circulate this news like fire...(the same as I got twice in a day from some unknown numbers), just think before you act. Just ask this reserved question from the people around you and the message senders. And you will see the magic...your call will be get unusually aborted and disconnected. Then you will understand the reason why media is avoiding this question. After all, it has to take into account the popular sentiment also.

The Right to Forget...

2006-05-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

I got a sms exactly at 18.10... Meerut on Fire...500 under trap...100 feared dead.

This reminded me of the same time but different place when I got the sms regarding Varanasi blasts: I was sitting in NSD in New Delhi enjoying a play which was as boring as anything in our times. I was enjoying because I had no option...and as I got the sms, the first reaction was to ask the well being of friends and foes, both in Meerut and Varanasi.

The next day I was watching the headlines...The life goes on in Varanasi... This has been the most trendy feature of our media to first hype the things as if something very unusual has happened in the country where people just get lost due to Dengoo or Malaria or anything of that sort. After some hours of hitch-hike and formal P2C's and VO's, how could the life comes to normalise? We saw burnt dead bodies on our screen; Sahara Samay, India TV, Aaj Tak and the list goes on. Leave ND, Dr. Roy is that's why honoured amongst his TRP rivals also. He is mature at sometimes. (Don't remind me of the April Fool melodrama which Abhisar and that Takkarwala Ahirwal played shamelessly. I thought that I must send sms to 6388 and I did so. The original text was, "This is the most foul game of TRP ever being played by the mass media in the Indian History. Down NDTV" and lo...I got back thanks for the message.) But this time he has shown that Sharm unko magar kabhi-kabhi aati hai.

Indian Electronic Media has not matured yet. There was no need to have shown the roasted human beings, without that also the weight of the accident would not have been affected. Now, you just keep an eye on the idiot boxes and you will see that the next day they will run the news as..."Meerut ke logon ne itni badi ghatna se bahut kucch seekha hai. Yahan ka jeevan hi aisa hai ki koi bhi ghatna inhein hila nahin sakti. Jindagi dobara patri par aa gayi hai. Aag ne meerut vasiyon ko is baat ki roshni di hai ki ve picchla bhool kar aage ki sochein...". Last but not the least...cameraman so and so ke saath so and so meerut ke victoria maidan se soso TV ke liye.

Now, first create hype, show dead bodies, roasted bones and then console by saying that everything is alright. Who cares about the people's views? Do they really forget the tragedies? They have the right to forget, but necessarily they don't. This is the camerawallahs who decide whether they have reacted to the situation or come to 'patri'.

Someone said in the 'Gladiator'(I saw it in Hindi dubbed), 'Logon ko bhoolne ki aadat hoti hai...' I think this is not an aadat but an imposed right by the state, media and all the wings and compradors of elite exploiters. Let's erase all the fundamental rights from the constitution and incorporate only one i.e. The Right To Forget. After all, we have forgot Godhra, Gujarat, Mandal, Kalinganagar, Afghanistan, Iraq, Delhi slums, Varanasi and now slowly forgetting Meerut. At least this right will have no resistance from the people's side b'coz it requires no legitimacy.

A Preliminary Recipe for TV News

2006-05-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

I was going through a research published somewhere regarding the impact and viewership of TV in the rural India. It said that more than ninety percent of the population watches TV not for news (forget about views i.e. JANMAT, it must be renamed as SAHMAT where you can see everybody nodding his or her head in the anchor's i.e. Alka ji's consent) but only for entertainment. ten percent or so who watch TV News prefer Sansani and Dial 100 type melodramatic nuisance and others wait for their chance to be selected in the Indian Idol. Is this the TV News foeticide?

Remember, whenever we talk about electronic media and its impact, we must always draw a dividing line between news (and views together) and non-news. The reason is obvious. You start with the term Electronic media and end up in a mess because you found that you were talking only in terms of news as you are a journalist. This mindset has to be broken because as and when you say that the electronic media in India is in a very immature and nascent stage, you always keep in your mind's core the fate of TV News, not the POGO cartoon and MTV Bakra. This creates a viscious circle and we start indulging in a that discourse about which no one is sure what the fuss is all about.

The fate of Electronic media i.e news media in TV must always be talked about in terms of content, keeping in mind the dialectical relationship between it and the form i.e visuals. If someone is very keen in creating the pressure points for the electronic media; again the same mistake...electronic news media...then the best way to do this is to scan the daily news items and their relationship with the visuals. This can create a perfect balance between what we think and what we speak.

Firstly, to make a corresponding relationship between our thought process and the the spelt words. Don't use Electronic media. Instead use TV News Media or anything of that sort where news comes in. We can't create pressures on the video of Shakira running day and night on MTV but it is possible to make a justifiable balance between the news items and their relationship with the visuals.

The second step in this whole exercise must be to prepare a lexicon or say style sheet which we can usually find in a good newspaper's office. Lexicon must contain the strict rules and regulations categorically of how to select and use a visual according to the story on the run. All types of news must be dealt with in this manual. As and when it needs to be amended, it must be. This can be done in the first phase through the critical analysis of responses to a questionnaire which can be send to the respective news channel heads and chief functionaries.

When you get the lexicon in place, it must be shared with the Press Council of India or the analogous governmental regulatory body like Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Pressure must be build up through the journalist unions to strictly impose this kind of thing on the news channels. Let the government think on the proposal so as to take out any ordinance of this type or anything of this sort.

Virtually talking about the media musings is not going to pay anything, as I have stressed time and again. We will have to enter the physical realities and fight for the people's demands. Otherwise, the ten percent will get down to two percent or so and the media persons will just get amused by watching their PTC's on the screen. Then no one will be left to watch them leaving themselves only. Why to dig our own graves knowing that people don't want information only, they need correct information. And for that, conscious media persons need to assert themselves. Blogging is good, but watch that it doesn't turn into begging.

The Electronic Gandhis of our times

2006-04-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, the 16th of April, a 24 hour news channel Sahara Samay National was running a special package on the Naxalite movement going on in Chattisgarh with the name "Dahakta Bastar". It was amazing to have seen the purely one sided story on the Naxalites as if they were terrorists of some sort or the other who have put Bastar on fire. The treatment was more or less same as the treatment in the case of Jama Masjid or Banaras blasts where Islamic terrorists had left the signs of mourning in the last days, according to police. Just have a look on the words used for the Maoists- Naxali, Ugravadi, Atanki, Algavvadi and the list goes on.
I just called up one of my old friends in the channel and requested him not to run the story, and if it is required, run with some basic amendments. The story was factually and reasonably incorrect. In the 30 minutes package, there was not a word on the the gory details of Salwa Judum and the reason for the masses uprising. No one was bothered about the massive mining campaigne which has left thousands of tribals landless and without the basic sources of their survival. I don't know from where the reporter Ruchir Garg got those bytes which were against the Naxalites. But it's not very difficult to understand that the coverage of the Naxalite issue in that area is more or less completely in the hands of the Salwa goons and the state machinery. That state machinery which has send proposal to the president that any one covering the issue in that area will be declared as sympathiser of the Maoists. Obviously, if anyone goes for the coverage, he or she will have to be hand in gloves with the anti people lumpens and do the story in their favour. So it's not very heroic, Mr. Garg that you have covered the issue.
"As the Dandakaranya revolutionary movement triumphantly completed it's 25th year and as the Adivasi peasant masses started to steadily build their own organs of political power though in a rudimentary form, the ruling class in their desperate bid to wipe out this movement root and branch, further intensified their campaign of brutal repression, drowning the masses in rivers of blood. As a last resort, the state is resorting to all the notorius strategies of the fascist rule book i.e. kill all, burn all, loot all; shatter the people's lives by hitting at their economic lifelines; use violence against women; and finally forcibly evacuate people from their villages and shut them up in concentration camps."
This is precisely what is going on in the Dandakaranya area of Chhattisgarh State for the past eight months in the name of Salwa Judum.And I asked an electronic friend of mine, "What do you understand by Naxalism?" Such an innocent reply I got that I was stunned a second, "Terrorism..." Now what to do of these electronic jokers and byte carriers of the first order who are always Gandhi when it comes to the coverage of anti-establishment issues.They see everyone with one eye. So don't get shocked when you hear from these guys next time in response to the question, "Who is Medha Patkar?" They will certainly say-"The same women in support of which Aamir Khan is shouting, bull shit."

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? A postmodern speak!

2006-04-29T03:54:00.000-07:00

One day, the boss called me in his chamber to discuss the future plans for eradicating poverty, discrimination, unemployement and exploitation. He spoke at length about What Is To Be Done...words in bracket are writer's comments.
"You see, Abhishek, the basic problem in our country is the marginalised people.(Gareebi Hatao se Gareeb Hatao Tak). How can you imagine that many of our people don't get their food, their daily bread. We are insurance holders and why should we cosmopolitan chaps think about them. Because we are getting funds to think about them. You know, World Bank has withheld billions of dollars for the health sector in India. I said to David Page that you just give me a few 10,000 or so dollars. It will suffice, but beta, before that we will have to device the plans so that we get funds and utilise in the projects.
You see, our work is not very easy. In the whole of Adivasi belt starting from Orissa to Chattisgarh and West Bengal to Jharkhand, violent people's movement is going on. I have devised a name for our project Violence and Development. I think this is a nice balancing act in the sense that if we use only violence, state will put us in jail which is a political sort of thing. Basically, we are apolitical. (As if anything is apolitical on this earth...) If we shout on behalf of the state, then our People's Voices type of image will be in danger. So we must try that we create a balance between the two and think of what is to be done in the area of development.
You see, Abhishek, yesterday I was talking to a Member of Parliament who was the first student leader of Meerut University. He told me two amazing things which I think will be of great use to us with respect to story generation. He told me that first, at the accident site no student went armed. Usually students of Meerut University keep arms with them.(As if he had checked each and every pocket) Secondly, no one was drunk. Excellent! (As if you had put your nose into each mouth) So the crux is that, every youth is having his back to violence in this country. They are gradually turning non-violent which is a good sign. We want this only and for this, we want funds.
You see, my boy, You must have a developmental eye (for funds) in each area. Don't let your human spirits get blunted. Mere facts and figures will not suffice. You must go down and watch that how a common man goes to daily haat and buys vegetables in the minimal amount he earns. (This person takes lunch in IIC Annexe Dining Hall) It's so horrible.You must keep an eye on the lower middle class of this country.(I said I too belong to that class only) So, what do you think that I am speaking bookish language? (He never gets angry)
You see, Abhishek, we all have risen from that class only. (That's why you don't know Hindi). We feel the problems of the masses. I had a meeting with the minister yesterday and he has promised for funds so that we can start an ICT project in the Lunkaransar village of Rajasthan. We are planning to equip the villagers with a laptop so that they can have the information regarding their propriets at any time they want. (Sir, there is no electricity in that village). For that, we have made alliances with local NGO's and we are mobilising people that they don't take a violent path as we are experiencing in the red corridor. We want development and for that you will have to work hard, my dear. (That's why it is written on your coffee mug 'A worst day of golf is better than the best day of work!)"
If this is what is going to be done in this empire without clothes, better leave us to play golf...sorry...gully-danda and remain docile beasts only.

Watching the Watchdogs is a bit dangerous

2006-04-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

I got a call from one of my friends in Hyderabad at a very odd time. He works in ETV, a part of the huge Eenadu group. He told me that one of his colleagues has been sacked from the job. Incidentally, I had also an aquaintance with that colleague, even older than the friend who called up. I got to know that he tried to speak against the workers exploitation in the channel. Basically, what he did was created a blog and revealed the secrets of the group, it’s loyal journalist workers and their internal deals and relationships. I called him up and listened carefully to the details straight from the horse’s mouth.

The other day, a team from Delhi was send to Ramoji Film city to investigate the allegations which he had send on e-mail to the Labour Minisry and PMO. This news was completely unheard in the Delhi media and no one is aware of it till date. The Eenadu group tried its best to cover the whole melodrama by calling computer experts from UK and deleting all the matter which was on the blog, hacked his e-mail and left no signs of truth.

He is now in Delhi. Sad, depressed but again rejuvenating himself to join some other group more or less of this character only. There is no way out. You can’t speak about the media if you are specially in the media itself. A few months back one of my friends tried to reveal some old facts against the giant Benett Coleman. It was an old case and it is pending in the courts till date.

If someone could remember the old issues of Onlooker, a publication of the Free Press Journal and Frontline, it can be easily recalled that some of our revered journalists and intellectuals had criticised the editorial policy of Times Of India and Economic Times. These twin sops had tried to influence the Enforcement Directorate in regard to the FERRA cases against Ashok Jain. When the then Editorial Advisor Mr. H.K. Dua refused to do so, he was sacked from the group. Justice P.N. Bhagwati was appointed as the ombudsman of the Times Of India and this was also criticised in the Onlooker. After a long judicial case, Onlooker ceased to be published and the matter got stucked in the volumes of Supreme Court and High Court.

Why this matter had got new life, became relevant was due to a NRI who is fighting a long Judicial case against the group i.e. Sahu Jain & Co. This NRI is charged with 44 fake cases by Delhi Police and not only this, the Parliament Of India has been misleaded in this regard by an Ex-CBI Chief. Inspite of this hue and cry, the matter has not been even taken into notice by any of the Presidents or Prime Ministers as this is directly related to the most rich Watcdog of this country. To say least, the reporter was got sacked from the publication where this story came out recently and the Editor jailed on a fake charge. So, what do you think now, can you speak against the media group being a journalist. No. It’s a bit dangerous.

Have you heard any voice of dissent from the Hindustan Times group when recently key post holders in the editorial were given VRS. No. Rather, the Chairperson has been awarded with a chair in the Rajya Sabha and the Editor Padma Shree. Don’t talk of small publications like The Day After where the Editor is day long engaged in liasoning with the politicians and casting-couching. He is now a member of Press Council Of India and a member of INS. Ooooh...INS reminded me more than 300 newspapers many of which only publish file copies. The Bureau Chiefs of many of them get a meagre salary around 7000/- p.m. but if one offers them with a key post in any national newspaper and high salary, they will just refuse to come. Why? Because they are getting seven thousand bugs simultaneously from many sides. So why to leave a Sarkari Naukari of this sort? If you don’t believe, just have a look at the stringers of the newspapers in Delhi. I know one of them who is covering Greater Noida nowadays, gets paid for the news published, walks with a Hyundai car and has pistols on his sides. How? We know better, but can’t speak out.
So, can any tribunal or a committee be formed in future to keep an eye on this Fourth Estate mischief? But who will form it? I think if it gets established, it will not act more than the IAS Association of U.P. where the aggrieved and the allegators are the most corrupt. So if at this point of the article, I reveal to you the most breaking news of our times that Ashok Jain is alive and living in Caracus with a fake name, abbreviated which is only A.K.J., will you say yes! Can’t say. When I told this fact to my previous boss, he just said two words; Bakwaas and paranoic talk. He did not want to go into details because he had to survive in the media and for this, you are bound to cover your eyes, shut your mouth and listen to orders only. Better were our ancestors with at least a long tail to keep off flies from their bodies. We can’t even do so. In Hindi, there is a phrase which goes like...jinda makkhi nigal jana. We all are doing the same.