Wanted: strong-kneed scribes

Following the worst-ever attack on scribes in Kerala's history, journalists agreed to a judicial enquiry, and even attended a press meet by the man who catalyzed the attacks on them.

Ever heard of the anti-goonda squad of the police being employed to beat up the journalists? Yes it happened in Kerala recently. Never before did Kerala witness such a massive assault against media persons. Consecutively for three days, journalists from both the print and visual media came under attack by a section of the cadres of the ruling party and the police. They were chased and bashed up like criminals in different parts of the State. Attacks against journalists are not a new phenomenon, but the kind of concerted violence against such a large number of journalists is something unheard of in this State, known for its high regard for journalists.

What was the crime committed by these journalists? Did they do anything sacrilegious? No, not at all; all they did was their usual job of reporting. They carried the version of one of the four victims of the infamous Kozhikode ice-cream parlour case. It all began when a 24-year-old woman, Rejina, alleged that the Industries Minister and Muslim League leader P K Kunhalikutty had sexually exploited her at three different locations while she was 16-years-old. The eight-year-old story re-emerged on October 28 when she appeared before some TV channels and stated that she was cajoled to change her testimony by the Minister and his cohorts. She said she used to be paid regularly for not naming the Minister in the courts. Rejina said she was compelled to make the revelation now because the money had stopped flowing from the Minister's side. It may be recalled that the case was hushed up by the high and mighty including the concerned Minister when it came up for hearing seven years ago.

Given the sensitivity of the case involving a Minister of the ruling Congress-led government, the revelation rocked the whole State. With egg on its face, the Muslim League tried some damage control exercises, which turned out to be counter-productive. Unable to counter the allegations in any convincing manner, the party took on a belligerent posture and accused the media of defaming the party. The party workers were fuming against both the print and the visual media for its wide coverage of developments following the damning disclosure against Kunhalikutty. However, it should be noted that unlike in the past, no newspaper or channel tried to blow the scandal out of proportion or sensationalise the issue by concocting new plots and sub-plots.

The first attack was mounted against Indiavision, a private TV channel, which first telecast the disclosure by Rejina. After taking out a march, Muslim League workers hurled stones at the channel's office in Kozhikode. Then around 50 party men unleashed an attack on the journalists who had thronged there to report the attack on the office. They assaulted the Kozhikode bureau chief of The New Indian Express, and attacked the cameraman of Desabhimani, the Communist party's mouthpiece, and destroyed his camera while he was trying to capture the scene. Many other journalists were also beaten while trying to save their mates.

Shockingly, the police, who were there on a tip-off of possible attacks on media persons and offices, stood like mute spectators to all these atrocities even as the perpetrators were taken away in cars by the top leaders of the Muslim League. The media people heard the League leaders calling by name the attackers, lending credence to the charge that the Muslim League was behind the attack. The same day the League supporters hurled stones at Indiavision's Kochi office, and destroyed the glass panes of the car of its executive editor.

The next day as many as 20 journalists were injured in the worst attacks on media personnel in the history of Kerala, as the supporters of Kunhalikutty unleashed a vicious assault on camerapersons and reporters at the Karipur international airport in Malappuram district. The journalists present at the airport were surrounded by over 1,000 Muslim League workers who had come to accord a "warm reception" to the tainted Minister who was returning from Jeddah after performing Umrah. They went on an assault spree against the scribes while baying for the blood of the journalists of those newspapers and channels which gave prominence to the sex-scandal news.

The most heinous attack was mounted against Deepa, a young female reporter of a TV channel, who was instrumental in getting Rejina to confess publicly. The attackers seemed to be unmindful of the fact that their prey was just a 24-year-old woman. Initially, the miscreants stoned her repeatedly. After that, she was surrounded by a group of over 50 angry League supporters who kicked and beat her continually while showering abusive words all the way. They also attacked the vehicle of Indiavision. Those reporters who had hidden inside the vehicle were also beaten up. Nearly seven journalists sustained injuries.

Caught between a wild mob and indifferent policemen, several journalists/lensmen sustained injuries right before the eyes of the top leaders of the Muslim League. When some journalists desperately approached and sought the help of the police, they were bluntly told that they were not given any instruction to protect them. The police, who watched the assaults on the scribes silently, had no problem in letting thousands of League workers get on top of the airport terminal and hoist their party's flag flouting all norms.

The next day, it was the police's turn to join the Leaguers in attacking the scribes. The media persons, wearing a black tag and waving black flags as a mark of protest against the beating up of scribes at the Karipur airport, thronged a hotel in Kochi, where Kunhalikutty was to discuss the legal aspects of his sex scandal case. They demanded an apology from the Minister, but they were repeatedly lathi-charged by the police, while the League goondas again beat them up. The government used the service of its anti-goon squad to thrash the scribes. The journalists were pushed, beaten and abused by the squad. Around 20 media persons were injured in the incidents. Some news photographers even captured the scene of policemen in mufti beating up the journalists. The same day in Trivandrum, journalists were manhandled by the League workers even as the police looked on. A few days later, the Kozhikode reporter of Free Press Journal, a Malayalam magazine published from New Delhi, was beaten up by the League workers; they were furious over his participation in a protest march against the attack on media.

It is a well-known fact that Kunhalikutty and his party wield considerable clout in the UDF Ministry, and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy knows well that it will be suicidal to provoke the Industries Minister and his party at this juncture. Thus, he has been overly protective of the tainted Minister and has spurned all demands for the Minister's resignation. From day one since the latest controversy erupted, Chandy has been trying to defend Kunhalikutty by whatever means available, despite several incriminating pieces of evidence against the accused Minister, including a report by the Prosecution Director General which clearly stated that the Minister had sex with the minor girl on four occasions.

The whole State was stunned by the vicious attacks against the scribes. Protest marches were held across Kerala and in the Indian capital expressing solidarity with the journalists. The Chief Minister, who had been sitting on the issue, was forced to hold a meeting with the representatives of the journalists' union. In the meeting, the journalists conceded to the CM's offer for a judicial enquiry into the assaults against the scribes.

That was where the journalist community went wrong. On the face of it, a judicial enquiry seems the most foolproof of arrangements. But it is all too well-known that judicial enquiries have always been a farce and a total waste of public money. It is not that journalists are unaware of the futility of judicial enquiries in a country where scores of such enquiry reports are gathering dust.

A close analysis into the way the journalists were targeted reveals that the government was hand-in-glove with the assaulters and that it had even given the nod for hounding the journalists. Preliminary probes have revealed that there was obvious dereliction of duty by the police and that they extended their tacit support to the League assailants. There were also reports that instructions were given to the police to act in this manner.

So when the government has been seen to be a party to the atrocities, why did the journalists yield to the offer of a mere judicial enquiry? By doing so, the scribes virtually cemented the government's impression that the media can indeed be silenced through muscle power. In the process, the journalists have been shown up as a weak-kneed and pliant lot who will easily dance to the tunes of the establishment. The government must be now convinced that the journalists belong to a class that can easily be placated by sweet words or else by violent lathis. Now expect more such brutal suppression of the media, for our dear journalists have played into the government's hands.

This abject submission to the establishment is a grave mistake on the part of the journalists, because with this, the journalist fraternity has let the establishment go scot-free after it easily trampled on the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19 1 (a) of the Indian Constitution. By agreeing to a judicial enquiry, Kerala's journalists have shot themselves in the foot. Their obeisance amounts to an affront to the journalistic profession itself. Another calamity is that a communal party like the Muslim League, which has the backing of only a section of people from just one district in Kerala, may now start thinking that they can easily dictate the terms in the entire State.

Why did the journalists resort to hackneyed and fruitless modes of protest such as marches and dharnas? Here they should have taken some extreme steps like announcing a complete blackout of government programmes. Such a boycott would have made the government sit and take notice of the power of the media, and this would have acted as a deterrent from repeating such pernicious acts in future.

The spineless act of submission was followed by yet another faux pas by the journalists when they gleefully attended the press meet called by Kunhalikutty. They didn't have any qualms in listening to a man responsible for all the atrocious acts against them. The men from the so-called Fourth Estate appeared as if they had no problems with the Minister, and it seemed that each question regarding the sex-scandal was carefully screened so as not to peeve the respected Minister. It's not that the Minister should have been derided or mocked at. His press meet should just have been plain boycotted.

So who were the journalists afraid of? Did they fear that by antagonising the government, the free flow of government ads would stop, thereby provoking their pay-masters? Did they fear that such a boycott would hinder the free flow of perks and other freebies from the government? Their submission to the government establishes beyond doubt the slave mentality of these journalists who are indifferent to the huge responsibilities resting upon their shoulders.

The whole episode is a sorry commentary on the current crop of journalists in the country in general and Kerala in particular. This also proves that the journalist fraternity in this country is a loose outfit that lacks coherent leadership. What we need are some stalwart journalists who are above petty career-oriented goals.

You can call it a cliche, but it is a fact that the media is the last resort in a country where the other pillars of democracy frequently fail to deliver. A thriving democracy obviously warrants a vibrant media that always rebels with the ills and evils of society, and one that calls a spade a spade. In a democracy, the media is supposed to act as a corrective mechanism that leads the establishments into the right path. But when that entity itself kneels before the authorities, it is time to despair. The last thing journalism in this country needs are slaves.

(Written for MEANTIME magazine and republished in The Hoot: http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=1374&bg=1)

The Racial Media

By ignoring Africa, is our media showing that it is racist?

In this era of 'new-age media' and sophisticated news-gathering methods, onewould expect catastrophes occurring at various parts of the globe to getdeserving prominence in the media. But what has been happening is just the opposite.

There is selective omission when it comes to reporting certainissues and events that take place in some parts of the world. This is especially true about the conflicts occurring in central Africa. An objective analysis would reveal that the level of murder and sufferings in Africa makes all other world problems fade in comparison, including the gory tales emanating from Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan. Mass murders in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Somalia happen with such regularity, but the media tends to play them down. This blatant trivialisation or virtual blackout of the bloody happenings in this part of the world is indeed intriguing. Why is it that these conflicts receive so little or no attention of the world at large?

A search for an answer brings out some unpleasant truths; truths that wouldquestion the very moral bearing and the so-called progressive outlook of the mainstream media. The majority of the Western media portray these conflictsin a simplistic vein.

For them, it is "tribalism" that foments troubles in what they call the "Dark Continent"; here the same old colonial yardstick is used. So, in this fight among "various tribals", hundreds may get killed on a daily basis, which then need not be displayed on the front pages or in the main news. That is why when "rebels in Congo kill 100 civilians", all we have would be just a one-paragraph report by the Associated Press.

In the course of this cursory reporting, there would be a cache of clichés like "rebels", "civilians", "internal strife", and "civil war". See how the media has been trivialising these cold-blooded killings by using some sugarcoated words like these. What is 'civil' in a war?

The point is, for the Western media, the life of a Black African is hardlyimportant. For them, the Africans might as well be savages constantly at thethroat of each other; what happens to these savages will in no way changethe destiny of the world and its rulers. The poor Africans are also not a ready consumer of multinational goods. They are merely--as occasional TV footages show us-half-naked, bony men and women jostling with each other each time food packets are air-dropped.

The under-reporting of the African crises is a prime example of callousnesson the part of the Western news agencies and newspapers. These agencies have not thought it fit to have enough reporters stationed in the Africancontinent to cover the crises.

So, we don't get any comprehensive analysisof the turmoil there, not even the ones seeping with Western prejudices asin the case of Iraq. In short, in the sidelining of the African Story, whatwe have is another instance of Western racism.

Bosnia and the events there — be it mass rape or anything else — get immense coverage because, after all, it is in Europe. But the world gets to know only a smattering of the horrendous happenings in Congo-a country the size of Western Europe. In one rare instance of reportage, the US left-wingweekly,

The Nation, recently carried a comprehensive story on Congo byjournalist Jan Goodwin who reveals that the country witnesses whole-scalerape-from three year olds to those of over 70 years. Goodwin describes howMaria, a 70-year-old woman, was gang raped before her three daughters andfive sons were murdered. The report also quotes a human rights worker whonarrates the tale of a 30-year-old woman whose ears and lips were cut offand eyes gouged out after she was raped so that she would not be able toidentify her attackers. Doctors testify that 30 percent of the rape victimshad their private parts pierced usually with spears and gun barrels.

Whilebestiality reigns in Congo's rural areas, the report adds, diamond dealers and businessmen from Tel Aviv and New York are feted and fawned upon by Congo's armed group representatives in luxury hotels. Goodwin reminds us how these businessmen and armed groups foment chaos in this Central African country for their private gains.

The armed groups have been plundering Congo of numerous natural resources on behalf of their masters sitting in the citadels of democracy. Those richminerals that are being siphoned off go directly to Western markets andoutside to whet consumer appetites. Diamond, gold, cobalt, copper and coltan are the primary minerals being taken out of Congo; the jewelry you justbought may have in it raw materials that came from Congo (or perhaps SierraLeone or Angola, two other African countries whose wars provide the Westwith cheap minerals). And the main component of your cell phone or laptop isthe "pinhead capacitor", which is made from coltan, a mineral found inCongo. The business and vested interest is in keeping the conflict raging,as then the minerals can be shipped off dirt cheap.

Here's the cruelty of it all: while Congolese blood flows, the outsideconsumer revels in luxury goods without even knowing that it is all taintedwith blood. And the consumer in Mumbai or Texas can't be blamed because his newspapers or television have never told him that what he is using has gory origins. He will never know about the kind of politics being played out inthe African badlands; the kind of stakes involved there; and about themultinational powers that whip up trouble there.

One of the oft-offered journalistic justifications for the poor coverage ofthe African crises is that it is far too remote, and does not at all influence world events. So the media would, without any compunction, play down a massacre where about 200 people got killed in Angola or Congo. On theother hand, if some 10 or 20 people are killed in a bus accident, say in NewYork, it would be front-page material, and even editorials would follow.Such is the relative worth of life of an American and an African.

Another justification for playing down such events is that the readers wouldbe less interested to know the happenings occurring miles away. This is justabsurd. Here media acts under the skewed theory which explains the relationbetween distance and news value. What is being taught in journalism schoolsabout the relation between distance and news value is illogical and shouldbe reviewed as it contravenes the cardinal purpose for which the mediastands for.

The African Story is indeed a glaring instance of the lack of social commitment of the Western media. The problem is also one of presupposing the interests of the readers and the powers-that-be in the media establishment deciding what is important for the reader and what is not. So, while the death of an American soldier in Iraq is 'news', the deaths of hundreds in any part of Africa seem to have no news value at all.

The Indian media too is guilty of aping its Western counterparts when it comes to news selection. Here is an instance among hundred others: "Ugandan rebels kill 120", read a headline in The Hindu (February 23, 2004) of a one-column AP report.

And it did not appear in the front page but among news briefs in the international section. But at least The Hindu carried it,while the same cannot be said of other national newspapers nor of theregional ones. Exactly two weeks after the Ugandan incident, the same paper(of course all other papers as well) cried out in banner headlines, on thefront page, the blasts at Madrid which claimed 180 lives. So why is it thata blast in Spain becomes the lead news, while a similar disaster in Ugandais non-news? What is the criterion used here? Are the people in Uganda nothuman beings or are their lives not worth enough to be reported? Doesn't itpoint to the obnoxious fact that our media is racial? These are questionsbegging to be answered. There's something seriously wrong here, and is a reflection of the power imbalance in world
affairs.

The media's marginalisation of the African crises reinforces the skewedassumption that these events have little to do with world politics in general. Whatever is taking place in this continent, it is assumed the average reader is not disturbed. Here, the very edifice of the term 'news' comes under the spotlight. What is news? Can a particular incident be considered news purely on the basis of the 'interest' of the 'customers' (readers)? And by the same yardstick, some other event may not be news at all, like the starvation deaths in Somalia.

By the selective omission of certain events especially in Africa, the mediahas created an unsavoury precedent. While acting out the role of amarket-oriented establishment giving out what pleases and attracts the reader, the news media is failing in its cardinal duty of telling the truth to the world. The media is abdicating its social responsibility by overly depending on glamour. What is needed is a change of conscience. Will the Western media as also the Indian kind, which boast of progressive leanings, take a hard look at this issue and re-think their policy? Will there be a change in their outlook on Africa?

(Written for MEANTIME magazine in 2004 and re-published in The Hoot)

Journalism of exclusion and derision

They were stimulated by sugar cane juice instead of Coca-Cola, and by computers running the free Linux software instead of the corporate Microsoft Windows. A platform for thousands of like-minded people opposed to imperialism and globalisation, the World Social Forum held in Mumbai, despite its many shortcomings, was an inspiring and extraordinary event that many will not forget in a hurry.

It is true that in these dark times of war and destruction, a gathering like this may not be able to offer a panacea for all the ills faced by the world today, but the fact that there are people out there to put up at least a symbolic fight against the evils of neo-liberalism and capitalism, evokes some rays of hope.

It will be interesting to take a look at the way our print media covered the Forum. Even as the WSF meet unfolded, some Indian English newspapers covered the meet as if the whole event was an annual carnival of nomads! Such was the way they trivialised this significant event. In fact, the importance or lack of it given to the WSF reveals the individual newspapers’ stance on the issues raised at the Forum.

The coverage of WSF by The New Indian Express was rather minimal and cynical. On the other hand, true to its Left leanings, The Hindu gave extended coverage to the WSF proceedings without relying on news agencies. The Hindu gave a front-page summary report on the opening day (January 16) of the WSF.

The war against Iraq figured prominently at the meet and the report by The Hindu detailed the opinions and feelings of the various delegates, including that of writer-activist Arundhati Roy. But The New Indian Express relegated the same to its inside page with just one three-column report by the UNI; the report ended with a quote from British MP Jeremy Corbyn.

On the same day, The Hindu also carried a second report titled, "Where a thousand flowers bloom", which was an apt narration of the mood of the delegates from different countries. "If the idea of democracy were to let a hundred flowers bloom, then the World Social Forum 2004 would surely be a bouquet of the most fragrant blossoms," the report started with this colourful sentence. "As South Koreans opposing the war in Iraq mingle with Pakistani Sindhis singing ‘Dum-a-dum mast kalandar’, as the drums from Tamil Nadu mingle with the cymbals of Tibet, they all seem to say, ‘another world is possible."

The following day, The New Indian Express carried an interview with Lisa Jordan of the Ford Foundation regarding its funding of the WSF. The Express would want us to believe that it reproduced this interview "in view of the controversies regarding the role of the Ford Foundation in the WSF", but it may well be a case of the paper trying to malign the Forum.

During the course of the interview, Lisa says that the Indian Organizing Committee of the WSF refused to receive funds from Ford, as the contributions made by the Ford Foundation had "helped prevent India from undergoing communist revolution". The paper happily put out this point in the headline as if communism was some huge catastrophe that would befall India.

For The New Indian Express, the whole WSF event was a "bubble". On January 19, it carried an editorial titled, "That WSF bubble", which took a cynical view of the six-day meet. While calling the WSF gathering as a "road show", the editorial went on to slight—tongue-in-cheek--the delegates and activists as "cultural conscience keepers", "anti-globalization polemists" and "anything-goes anarchists". According to the editorial, the Mumbai meet was a place where these "agitationists" set up "temporary base".

But after the snub, the editorial conceded that the WSF delegates "represent real, urgent problems with the international order". While agreeing that the WTO hasn’t been able to deliver the benefits of fair trade to Third World farmers, the editorial cited the problems faced by Third World countries due to globalization.

So what was the editorial ultimately trying to convey? We got the answer in the last para. It said that global financial institutions and superpowers cannot be wished away by "painting suburban trains" (another damning reference to the WSF), but the leading lights of the WSF "must engage with those much-despised financiers and corporates". Grand idea indeed, but if only it were that easy—as if the IMF-World Bank executives and a certain George Bush have no clue about the WSF’s valid opposition to their policies.

Meanwhile, the ‘hot story’ of the rape of a woman delegate by a South African Judge kicked up a huge ruckus with some sections of the media going gaga over it as if it was what they were looking forward to in order to trash the WSF agenda. The whole attention was diverted from the conference per se and almost all newspapers took special interest in giving out ‘exclusives’ on the rape saga.

The New Indian Express, which never cared to carry a single report on the WSF proceedings on its front page, flamboyantly displayed the rape story plus the pix of the accused on the top left of the front page. And rather than relying on news agencies for covering the WSF, this time the paper managed to get its own reporter for covering the rape issue.

"WSF reels as SA judge is held for raping delegate", The Times of India cried out on its January 20 report. The headline gave the impression that the entire WSF conference came to a standstill because of this rape issue. Predictably, the report failed to mention how the rape incident affected the smooth conduct of the meet. Instead, the paper dwelt on the ‘rape’ details. Here it has to be mentioned that The Hindu displayed journalistic decorum and restraint on the issue. The rape story was given its ‘due importance’ by placing it on the inner pages.

Again, while papers like The Times of India and The Hindu gave prominent coverage to the closing ceremony, The New Indian Express did not carry a single report on the event--not even a photograph. On the other hand, it gave four follow-up reports on the rape case on its "national" page; this included a five-column report including a photograph of South African delegates visiting the accused. While omitting the WSF closing ceremony, on the same day Express gave the picture of delegates at the World Economy Forum in Davos.

The rape episode once again showed our media’s tendency to go after the spicy aspects of a particular event while discarding the vital ones. They helped create a mystery over the rape allegation, and there was one report saying that there was widespread criticism on the handling of the case. The report quoted some delegates criticising the WSF organizers for not owning up responsibility for the rape.

Quoting a delegate, the report alleged that the "organizers were resorting to the same sort of the conspiracy of silence that they were attacking". In all this, one suspects a conspiracy to malign the WSF meet. The kind of enthusiasm shown by some of the papers in demonising this anti-globalization meet was intriguing.

There were also positive stories about the WSF. The Times of India carried an IANS report on the use of Linux software at around 120 terminals at the media centre and in about 400 computers around the WSF complex.

"When you are talking about a different world, free from globalization, how can you overlook the major technology entrapments? Microsoft started as a liberating force that made everything in software open for people, but later turned the other way," the report quoted Jitendra Shah of the Free Software Foundation of India as saying. Further, The Hindu carried an interview with Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney-General and human rights activist. He talked about how the US public was being fed lies by the mainstream media. "You still read about mass graves in Iraq; but people still don’t know about the 1.5 million deaths after the first Gulf war and the economic sanctions that followed," said Clark who is an outspoken critic of Bush.

Journalism of Exclusion

The main theme that figured during the WSF meet was the US invasion of Iraq. This being the prominent item in the speeches of the delegates on the first day of the meet, a whole lot of media outfits including some international news agencies gave this as the lead.

The AFP (Agence France Presse) of France gave this as the headline: "Activists at WSF declare war on Bush". The report captured the emotions of the delegates for whom Bush was the chief villain. But all the reports by the Associate Press (AP) of the US deliberately omitted the anti-Bush factor.

All of its reports were sugar-coated with reductive phrases such as the "anti-corporate forum". Known for its unfailing obeisance to the US establishment and its policies, AP’s selective reporting and omission wasn’t really surprising. And here is something for you to munch on: Had the WSF organisers included "terrorism" on their agenda and opposed it, what would have been the AP’s coverage?

(Written for MEANTIME magazine and republished in The Hoot)

Devils in God’s own country

Call it monkey business or cat and mouse games. For the last several months, Kerala’s prime TV time and front-page newspaper columns have been occupied by the mumbo-jumbo politics being played by some leaders in the Congress party. The main actors in the political (?) show are: senior Congress leader K Karunakaran, his son Muraleedharan and Chief Minister A K Antony.

The papers and channels in the State want us to believe that what has been going on in Kerala is a tug of war between the father-son duo and Antony. The political yarn unravels like this: Karunakaran raises the bnner of "revolt" (one of the many clichés being used by our newspapers to mention such political fights) and demands the removal of the Chief Minister. Karunakaran’s main complaint is that his ‘I’ faction (‘I’ stands for Indira Gandhi to whom Karunakaran re-affirms his loyalty day and night) is being sidelined and that his MLAs weren’t given enough representation in the Antony-led UDF Ministry. Each utterance of Karunakaran is hair-split in the media by analysts, ‘special correspondents’ and the like.

The media fondly christens Karunakaran as "leader". Wherever possible, this pronoun is used unreservedly as if this is the most suitable way of referring to Karunakaran. In their haste to paint Karunakaran as an immaculate leader, these writers and columnists are committing the serious sin of whitewashing the past atrocities of this man. Infamous for serious human rights violations during the Emergency period, Karunakaran is someone who climbed the political ladder by manipulation and intrigue, and it helped that public memory is always woefully short.

The father-son duo of Karunakaran and Muraleedharan have faced several charges of corruption and nepotism. But nowhere in these recent reports, these facts have found any kind of mention. Instead, the newspapers and channels outdo each other to accord an aura of acceptance and respect to their brand of politics. The media outfits go overboard in covering anything the father and son would have to say, which is a sad reflection of how Malayali politics and journalism have degenerated to the crass level of personality worship, and that too of the dirty kind.

It is not that these journalists are unaware of the frivolousness of all these father-son stage shows. Even the politically naïve knows that the likes of Karunakaran are fighting not for any great ideology or cause, but purely for their own gains.

But the way the media projects their stories, it is as if they are the most important stories to be told, as if these are the stories the readers are dying to hear about. But then, it is the same media that dictates and fuels reader interest. The importance of stories is not decided by the stories themselves but by the interests of the powers-that-be in the editorial rooms.

Every other day, the papers and channels would come out with main news on the Karunakaran-Antony spat. ‘Special correspondents’ cover the latest in the saga and ‘exclusive’ analyses on the likely fallout of the fight has become a daily and nauseating dish.

One day it would be about the "unhappiness" of the "veteran leader" over Antony’s rule, and on another, it would be about a date that the "leader" has set for a formal split and a new party. This goes on… Such statements and more statements by the main actors would be followed by assumptions and deductions by reporters about the likely ending of the ruckus. Here, the eagerness of these journalists in playing to Karunakaran’s ego is astounding.

In this mad race to capture whatever Karunakaran and Murali has to say, and what stance the Congress "High Command" would take on the issue, matters of national and international importance are often discarded.
The high point of the drama came when Karunkaran--as the papers said in ‘banner’ headlines--announced the formation of a new party. But Muraleedharan stayed away, expressing unflinching loyalty to Sonia Gandhi. So we thought the whole drama had come to some sort of an end. But that was wishful thinking. The same media on the following days, acted as if no such new party was formed by Karunakaran. The last, surely, has not been heard about the issue.

Here it would be amiss not to talk about the Congress "High Command"--the creator, sustainer and destroyer of the whole Congress party.

But alas, going by the happenings in the Karunakaran-Antony tiff, it becomes clear that the "High Command" is such a weak-kneed set-up that stands baffled and powerless before the pranks of three egoistic leaders. The Malayalam media covers this "High Command" (read Sonia Gandhi) with special reports from New Delhi describing the High Command "monitoring" the "developments" in Kerala. In some cases, readers and viewers are ‘informed’ that the High Command shudders before Karunakaran and his son. One paper went to the extent of calling Karunakaran the "I Command" (referring to the "leader’s" group).

What has been going on in the State of Kerala is a classic case of how petty politics can eat into the main issues. Reams of papers and prime-time TV have been wasted over the ego and greed of some politicians. By doing so, the media is setting a bad precedent; a precedent whereby ego-driven personality politics is given undue importance while major issues are pushed aside. It is time for a break.

Written for MEANTIME magazine and re-published in The Hoot) February 2004