Mao TV, MoU TV. And Mahatma

Sat, Oct 31 06:08 AM

Mao TV. Actually, MoU TV. For days now, news TV has been bringing to us long conversations on Maoists with important people who have asked us to understand or admit that memoranda of understanding (MoU) on exploiting natural resources between the Indian state and domestic/foreign companies are the reason the state is waging a "war". This seems to be the current grand narrative of the "we don't support violence but the real fault lies with the free-market ideology" group. News TV seems somewhat shy in interrogating this thesis. Members of this group were asked several times if they condemn Maoist violence, but they were seldom asked to fully explain the MoU narrative. Even when some details were offered, anchors didn't seem interested. I am puzzled because it is not as if the same anchors didn't ask 20 questions on all the other stuff. Why not, say, two questions on the big economic claim?

Before expanding on this a bit more, let me first put on record that there was a moment when my sympathies were with Arundhati Roy. Roy, being quizzed by a CNN-IBN double-anchor team, was told Mahatma Gandhi would have appealed to Maoists to stop the violence. I am not Mahatma Gandhi, Roy said. Quite. Good answer to a very curious argument.

Roy appeared twice on CNN-IBN recently (the other time on Devil's Advocate) and made a series of economic arguments, including the one on MoU, most of which went more or less uncontested. On Devil's Advocate, she said:

1. Capitalism guarantees better living standards for a few at the cost of many — plainly wrong, but she wasn't asked to explain herself. 2. Many Dalits are living in famine-like conditions in India — plainly wrong, but no comeback from the anchor. 3. The UNDP's Human Development Index shows 80 per cent of Indians are living in extreme poverty — wrong, but she wasn't asked to give details on this data.

4. Even since Independence, the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer — all the poor haven't got poorer, poverty has come down, there're truckloads of data on this, but she got away with it on national TV.

This was more or less jaw-dropping to me. Hey, okay, I am an insignificant but sincerely committed member of what is now called the corporate media. But I can still ask, can't I, why news TV won't quiz big intellectuals when they trot out these big economic claims. There seems to be no attempt at product differentiation on this: what you see on CNN-IBN is also what you see on NDTV. On NDTV's We the People, Medha Patkar said the Indian state is hand in glove with corporates and international financial institutions, there was the MoU thesis again. Did the anchor, who fluently interrogated all panelists on many issues, ask Patkar to explain:

1. What she means by the state being hand in glove?

2. Which corporate is she talking about? 3. What does she mean by international financial institutions? Of course, not. Why not is the question that's keeping me awake.

You see, senseless violence is being committed — against economics, by important people, on news TV. My appeal: Will someone in news TV please try to stop it?

saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com

Inside News

Editor's picks