Frontline

July 2000
Media X-Ray


Whose mouthpiece is it anyway?

It is very clear that the media’s role in our society is evoking some fierce passions among different sections, and most of these reactions are bitter and confrontationist

NP Chekkutty

In his 1997 book, The People’s Plan — Theory and Practice, brought out by the Kerala State Planning Board, Dr TM Thomas Isaac, a member of the board, darkly complains about a "conspiracy of silence" in the media to the revolutionary concept of decentralisation of power launched by the LDF government in Kerala just a year before. The media has been generally lethargic in its attitude. It gave pretty little by way of a serious study of the programme, and whatever came in the press those days were a caustic attack, often peppered by political animosity.

The media has been an active participant in the vertical political divide in the state and it always took up cudgels on behalf of its own perceived masters. Often the results have been a bit comic, something like the heroic struggles Don Quixote undertook against those devilish windmills. The media, too, suspiciously looked at those windmills, check dams, orchards, and hundreds of other minor productive efforts that were being slowly sprouted all over the state as nothing but the offspring of a devilish game of decentralised corruption.

Despite this predictable response from the mainstream media, Dr Thomas Isaac, one of the leading lights of the People’s Plan programme, did have his reasons to feel bitter. He cites one example in his book. He had to devote a whole chapter to explain the historic significance of the Kerala state budget 1997–98 which had set apart almost 40 per cent of its resources to the Panchayati Raj institutions with a view to kickstart the new development initiative. It was a quantum jump compared to the past records of paltry financial allocations in the state itself and stood leagues ahead in comparison with other states of the Indian Union.

"Despite all this, no newspaper in the state cared to pinpoint the fact that this budget made the process of decentralisation of power to the lower bodies quite inevitable," he writes. The only exception that he could find was an editorial in The Hindu, a newspaper published from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. The same attitude has been a common feature with every media, the electronic no exception, thus giving rise to thought about launching a new channel devoted to development news to be run under the aegis of C–Dit.

Here a question arises: Is Dr Isaac’s complaint an exception?

Serious media–watchers and professionals who work there had raised similar views in the past. The sense of alienation from the media is too deep and should cause alarm to any sensible person. Only recently, this writer had an occasion to attend a seminar organised by the post–graduate doctors of the Calicut Medical College, on the issue of media and the problems in the health sector. All the speakers from the medical fraternity who addressed the gathering were united in their view that the media failed to do justice to their profession and most of them were speaking on the basis of their own experiences.

There was unanimity in their views that the media treatment of medical issues has almost always been uninformed and based on hearsay; reports were often one–sided and facts were not once cross–checked, and even those matters which required some professional expertise to comment upon were handled by hacks with no clue as to what they were writing about. There were bitter comments and one senior doctor went to the extent of asserting that he feared three P’s the most in his life — police, politician and the press, not necessarily in that order. Keep a safe distance from all of them, he warned his young colleagues assembled there.

Is the media in Kerala, which has the largest reach among the readers in all the Indian languages, being the easy whipping boy of every frustrated politician and failed professional or is there any grain of truth in what they say? It is very clear that the media’s role in our society is evoking some fierce passions among different sections, and most of these reactions are bitter and confrontationist. Many view our media as a pestilence; a hurdle for social progress and free flow of information, true and unbiased; a role contrary to the designated agenda for the fourth estate in a democracy. We must accept the fact that instead of being perceived as the voice of the voiceless, the advocate for the downtrodden, the distressed and the dispossessed, our media is seen just the opposite these days: it is an organ of the elite, a weapon in the hands of the vested interests; a lawyer for the lawless; the agent of the forces threatening our society, culture and independence. It is a mighty fall in a matter of just fifty years: from being the mouthpiece of the freedom–loving masses at the time of Independence to this pitiable social status we enjoy today as media professionals.

The manifestations of this public disillusionment with the mass media have come in a variety of ways. The first is the drastic decline in the credibility of the media, once its major achievement. At another level, many people today simply reject the media as inconsequential, a non–entity, something which could be ignored safely. Its impact can only be peripheral and not substantial, it has at the most a nuisance value.

Kerala’s chief minister, EK Nayanar, who has often taken a critical view of the role of the media in his public pronouncements, brings up a point to substantiate his line of argument. The majority of Kerala media, except for a handful with limited appeal, has been consistently anti–communist. It opposed tooth and nail the Left forces in all the past elections but in spite of such resistance the Left has regularly won polls to come to power here. The media simply cannot replace the power of the mass movements, the collective gains of a society led by progressive ideals; a mature political education campaign among the ordinary people will empower them to see through and reject the conservative and reactionary media’s propaganda.

Professor Kancha Ilaiah, a prominent Dalit scholar, also argues forcefully along the same lines when he says that the Bihar electorate consistently rejected the media’s lampooning of Laloo Prasad Yadav through such an instinctive political education at the folk level.

This is a powerful argument and largely true at the political level. It is a fact that the collective opposition of the organised right-wing media in Kerala has more or less consistently failed to have any direct impact on the political fortunes of the Left forces. But politics is just one aspect of a society’s life, an integral part of its superstructure. At a more sub–surface level, such collective opposition from the media did have an impact, seriously hampering efforts at mass mobilisation for social and economic programmes.

Despite the best efforts, public debate in Kerala has almost always remained clung to peripheral issues, often decided by a few powerful media organisations.

Remember the concern expressed by many senior legislators on the slippage in the quality of debates in the legislature, one reason being the media’s obsession with tidbits and the speakers’ inclination to search for media–savvy one–liners instead of a serious study of the issue under debate.

Such an approach could crowd out the serious and substantial, retaining only the trivia and the junk for the common readers who are now fed on such a diet everyday. Recent criticisms about the conspiracy of silence in the media about the larger issues thrown up by the People’s Plan experiment are just another example of this phenomenon. Those who have closely monitored the local media would agree that it has been generally focussing on the peripheral issues in its coverage and so far there has not been any major attempt at a serious critical evaluation of the project on its part.

The atmosphere of collective strength experienced by the masses in the wake of the decentralisation of power should have had an electrifying impact on our society and reflected in its cultural and intellectual attitudes. Do we see any change in our cultural atmosphere, is there a re–flowering of people’s culture, a reawakening of the progressive traditions in our literature and theatre? Or do we see the familiar and depressing scenario of cynicism and despondency in our midst? Do we see a new kind of intellectual, one who is keenly aware of the society’s needs and aspirations and willing to work with the common people? It is to be hoped that the sense of cynicism that predominated our social life at the time of the launch of the programme in mid–nineties should have been wiped off like cobwebs in these past years of collective social engineering. It appears that even the architects of this programme had secretly nursed such high hopes. How far have our hopes been justified?

We must remember that even the most ardent critics of this programme had actually recognised this revolutionary potential of the programme to change our lives. Dr MGS Narayanan, surely the staunchest critic of the Communist Party and its social and economic programmes, wrote in his paper, The Concept of Decentralisation: Expectations, Limitations and Possibilities, presented at a workshop organised by the Calicut Press Club in October 1997: "There is a general mood of self–confidence among the people though it is made to stand on inflated hopes and extravagant promises of power and wealth in the near future."

Dr Narayanan, suspicious of the programme as a clever stratagem of the CPM to perpetuate its hold on power, called upon the press to be the vigilant watchdog lest the whole exercise became a means of partisan politics and self–aggrandisement. "Decentralised power in the panchayat should mean freedom from centralised bureaucratic control as well as freedom from centralised political control in order to be effective. Have the Marxist party and its allies prepared themselves mentally and organisationally for such a change," he asked.

Dr. Narayanan called upon the press to discharge its duties in the democratic system, taking up case studies in villages making creative suggestions and highlighting weaknesses then and there. "This is essential to present a correct and comprehensive picture of the reality as different from the official and partisan propaganda."

The theoretical issues raised by Dr. Narayanan in his paper, the first comprehensive academic critique of the programme, have been largely answered by the leaders of the programme themselves. And many of his apprehensions have been dispelled by the actual experiences of the past years. Did the People’s Plan prove to be a sham and a mere stratagem of the "Stalinist CPM" to amass its own wealth and cadre–base or did it actually contribute to the state’s economy and productive growth?

Recent academic studies have brought out the fact of a substantial jump in Kerala’s gross state domestic production (GSDP). A recent NCEAR–CII study, the results of which have been published by Business India (April 17, 2000), shows that Kerala’s GSDP which has been at an abysmally low 2.2 per cent in the 1980s rose to 4.5 per cent in 1990s. Its rank went up to the fourth among all the States, after Gujarat (8.6 per cent), Maharashtra (7.1 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (4.9 per cent).

The NCEAR–CII analysis is also significant as it points out that in the whole of the eastern region, an area which has shown a massive decline in growth along with the north, the only exception is West Bengal, another CPM–ruled state, which has recorded an impressive growth from 2.4 per cent in the 1980s to 5 per cent in the 90s.

I do not think we need any detailed enquiry as to how much the People’s Plan programme has contributed to this growth. Kerala and West Bengal were the only two states in the country which chose to differ from the multinationals–driven growth strategy initiated by the Central government during this period. We also know that while the western region which has shown good growth did receive an excellent dose of foreign investment, Kerala and West Bengal had to essentially depend upon their own resources and strategies. It is also to be noted that unlike the western region whose growth is more capitalist oriented, it has been more people–oriented and based on egalitarian concepts in the two states of Kerala and Bengal.

It is a known fact that the mainstream press had made every attempt to thwart the development initiatives of these two states, lampooning and ridiculing the ruling establishments simply because they were led by communists who had fundamental differences with their ideas about growth.

So the question remains why a mood of buoyancy is still missing and why we do confront a general mood of despondency and cynicism again and again in our society. Isaac rejects the contention raised by people like Dr Narayanan that this programme "with its false hopes" would add to such a situation. It is an argument that actually puts the cart before the horse.

Dr. Issac observed in his article, A Response to a Critique: "The political cynicism does not have to be developed by anyone: it is the contemporary reality. The general despondency and lack of faith in democratic process is a fertile ground for the communal and divisive tendencies, particularly their semi–fascist varieties." He predicted that the People’s Plan campaign, uniting people across sectarian divisions to solve some of their real life problems, should raise hopes and thwart these tendencies.

This is a question deserving serious attention and debate today as we face the real dangers of a semi–fascist ideology taking its roots in our society. It would be stupid to argue that any initiative that unleashed the creative energy of the masses across caste and communal lines would in anyway help those reactionary forces. Quite to the contrary. This is the only initiative that could withstand the communal and consumerist onslaught that threatens our society because of its potential for uniting the people across these differences, and recent experiences seem to prove this point.

A large section in the Muslim community who in the past were ardently anti–communist in their political outlook, today seems to be eager to join forces with the Left ranks. One of the reasons they have cited for this initiative is the beneficial impact of the new development-oriented politics. The Indian Union Muslim League, a major UDF partner, has passed a series of official resolutions warmly welcoming the positive contributions of the People’s Plan which has helped transform vast areas in the backward Malabar region where the Muslims are the majority community.

The IUML, which controls a large number of panchayats and municipalities in this region, has acknowledged that the People’s Plan is one point where the party is fully in agreement with the CPM despite other political differences. This is one indication of the tremendous long-term political impact this new initiative could have at the grassroot level in the days to come.

The point to be noted here is that the current atmosphere of cynicism and despondency are the products of a reactionary culture which originates from economic stagnation coupled with a culture of communalism. The media has dutifully played to the tune of the elitist political agenda, keeping the backward sections and minorities firmly under their control. The media, it seems, is taking up the role of an opium peddler, providing large doses of soft communal propaganda every day.

In an insightful article on contemporary Kerala culture and the role of media, Dr. T. K. Ramachandran writes: "When we attempt to study the ideological inputs of the transformation in the nature and functions of the media...we are bound to come up against a vexing paradox: Outwardly the Kerala society remains progressive and urbane, the organisational structures of the Left are largely intact, and in spite of the vigorous and violent campaign unleashed by the sangh parivar, their strength, in electoral terms, is miniscule. But the moment we turn to the cultural realms, the picture becomes totally different; the print media is replete with the jargon of spirituality; the visuals, whether in the little screen or big screen, are surcharged with feudal nostalgia and revivalist rhetoric; godmen/women are sprouting everywhere; superstitions of every hue from astrology to black magic are spreading like wildfire. It is as if the political unconscious of contemporary Kerala is full to the brim with retrogressive ideas and images and the modern Malayalee is leading a strange dual life."

This is a powerful characterisation of our contemporary dilemma. What we are experiencing today is not simply a political attack from the right; it is a collective onslaught with the media and other cultural products playing the role of foot–soldiers. No surprise then, the People’s Plan programme which they find as the natural enemy to their designs for a political counter–coup, should face either a ruthless attack or the conspiracy of silence that in fact it did encounter.

It is in this context that we have to seriously ponder over the media’s role in our society. I feel, as a professional with almost two decades of experience, that the best way to go about it is through a mass struggle at the level of the media also. This requires in depth enquiries into the progressive elements and initiatives still available within the media and a conscious attempt to promote and enlist them in a broad movement in which the professional organisations of mediapersons could have a decisive role.

It is only in such a situation that we could find any meaningful foothold for an alternative development channel which the planning board had initially thought about. If we fail to co–ordinate our efforts, those feeble voices could simply be buried in the collective decibel powers of the dominant media. Such a struggle is also necessary to liberate today’s middle class Malayalee from his dual life; a life of sleep–walking which takes him to the comforts of the soft embrace of the godwoman even as, in his waking hours, he religiously declares his sympathy for a democratic, rational society.

Notes:

1. Thomas Isaac, TM Dr: The People’s Plan — Theory and Practice, Trivandrum, 1997, page 203.

2. Ramachandran, VK Dr: On Kerala’s Development Achievements, in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives, OUP, 1997, pages 260–262. Ramachandran says that the circulation of newspapers in Malayalam per 1000 speakers of Malayalam in 1989 was 61, and the comparative figure for all newspapers in all languages and speakers of all languages in India was 28. Language–wise the second position for readership went to Urdu with 34 readers per 1000. Category-wise, even agricultural workers in Kerala read much better: 32.9 readers of any publication per 1000 people while the all–India average in this category was just 2.6 per 1000.

3. Kancha Ilaiah: Dalit Commonsense and the Media, Media Focus, Calicut Press Club, Sept. 1999, page 37.

4. Narayanan, MGS Dr: Article in The People’s Plan: A Debate on Kerala’s Decentralised Planning Experiment, edited by NP Chekkutty, Calicut Press Club, 1997, page 28.

5. Thomas Isaac, TM: People’s Plan: An Interim Assessment and Response to a Critique, in People’s Plan edited by NP Chekkutty, pages 50–51.

6. Ramachandran TK, Dr: The Land of Lotus-eaters: Media, Ideology and Political Unconscious, Media Focus, Sept. 1999, page 45.

(NP Chekkutty, a senior journalist with The New Indian Express, Kozhikode, edits Media Focus, a journal on media and society (www.mediafocus.8m.com), published by the Calicut Press Club.

 


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