Indian Media - Noise and Silence

Neither the noise nor the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted consequences.

It is in every one’s knowledge that media reports news and events selectively. ‘Breaking’ news and ‘sensational’ news are not just subjective in the general sense of choosing according to one’s interests or prejudices but they are deliberately chosen to raise the TRP ratings. In the process many more interesting, worth covering and important events are being deliberately left out. This discrimination is not just among various events/incidents, but also among various castes, classes and categories.  

This news article (“Ignored and discriminated against: The sad story of India's paralympians - http://www.firstpost.com/sports/ignored-and-discriminated-against-the-sad-story-of-indias-paralympians-2053495.html”) shows how less an attention these sports’ champs got. Better media coverage helps in garnering more support for various sports. But many media channels think that (and practically speaking rightly so) there is no need to cover certain things as there is not much audience, living the point aside that there is no audience because many are not aware.

What is the way out of this vicious cycle? It needs courageous visionaries from both the sides – media as well as audience, though it is more important for them to be present in the media. We have come across many movies (Taare Zamin Par, Chak de, Stanley ka dabba), ideas (Halla Bol – series highlighting social issues), shows (Satyamev Jayate) which took up a not-so-popular subject and through their work tried to make it popular. They proved that people actually supported good thoughts when presented in an interesting way.

On the other hand, even if they cannot make things interesting for audience, it is media’s responsibility to bring out the unheard and let people know. Certain ground realities like untouchability, caste and gender discriminations, child labour, poverty etc needn’t be packed nicely but a passionate presentation will suffice. Many a presentations by media tend to raise sympathy among the viewers, while it is empathy and compassion that are more important to be spread.

With every right comes a corresponding duty. Media has the right to speech (even selective) but has an equal amount of duty to give the whole information, and cover all events equally passionately. The movie “Hitler – The rise of evil” portrays a character of a journalist who dares to raise his voice against the atrocities, brutal and autocratic ideas of Hitler and how Germany and its people will pay for their ignorance and silence. He loses his job, and was taken to concentration camp and ultimately gets killed. His lone efforts might not have changed the course of history of Germany, but had his contemporaries in the media put a collective effort for the larger good of the society, things would have been different. Similarly, neither the noise nor the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted consequences.

What is paving way for cinemas into politics ?

If I have to identify three things that are common to cinema and politics, those would be loyalty, identity and interest articulation

It is popularly said that one needs money or muscle (2m) power or both to enter Indian politics. A third 'm' - movie has been making itself more visible. Though the affair between cinema and politics has a long history, the factors contributing to the nexus are not very clear. There are regional variations with respect to the extent of overlap of political and cinema fields. History shows that Southern India's experience is different from that of the north's. A few actor-turned-politicians floated their own parties and also were able to form governments. NTR (AP) and MGR (TN) are the classic cases. In the north, the cine participation confined to contesting elections on traditional party tickets and becoming legislators representing both people as well as the cinema industry.

This article is to try and understand what special factors laid such deep roots of cinema in politics, in South India (more specific to AP). People from both north and south equally encouraged and loved movies and thereby the actors. The craze is evident from the fact that people love to wait for hours infront of the actors' houses just to get a glimpse of their heros and heroines. The love shown by audience was unconditional both on screen and off screen. An anecdotal evidence from my grandmother - when she visited Madras as a tourist, she and her family waited for an hour just to get a glimpse of Telugu actor N T Rama Rao.

Though this was the scenario through out the country, two important factors that were more specific to South India are - language and religion. Unlike Hindi, which was spoken in many of the northern states, southern languages were prevalent in more confined geographical regions. And difficulty in understanding Hindi, drew the audience even closer to their respective film industries. Though Amitabh might be popular through out the north, when it comes to identifying him with a particular state, it would be difficult; whereas N T Rama Rao was identified with telugu people in Andhra Pradesh and same was the case with M G Ramachandran in Tamil Nadu.

Religion was another factor. Films based on mythological stories from Epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat were large in number. More importantly, people favourite actors played major roles in them - Rama, Krishna, etc. It is very difficult to imagine Amitabh Bachchan in the role of a Ram or Krishn; while people would not have hesitated to fold their hands in prayer in front of NTR's picture clad in Lord Ram or Lord Krishn's attire (though a bit exaggerated, not totally wrong). Such a devotion both on screen and off screen, somewhere blurred the lines between devotion to God and loyalty to an actor. This is clearly manifested in the number of statues built for the actors and a few instances where temples were also built for them.

If I have to identify three things that are common to cinema and politics, those would be loyalty, identity and interest articulation. In south, the "fan following" culture is seen prominently. Fans remain loyal to their actors; more loyal than their counterparts in political parties where opportunism, pragmatism etc also play simultaneously. Movies/Actors give people two types of identity - one, being fan of so and so actor is an identity in itself; two - a national and an international identity through language. I experienced this personally. Once I have been to a temple in Varanasi, and the priest there asked me the place I am coming from. I replied - "Andhra" and he immediately identified me with "NTR?" and so many such anecdotes from international experiences are also available. The last common thing is interest articulation. Usually Tollywood is audience driven industry, as in, the director may not kill the protogonist in the story just because the audience wouldn't like to see him/her die. This might be a very trivial example, but since the actors catered to the interests of the masses, they were able to withstand the political pressures. For example, without paying heed to loss of revenue to the State exchequer, NTR imposed a ban on alcohol.

Thus loyalty, identity and interest articulation are the basic building blocks paving path from cinema to politics. This has reduced the entry barrier into politics for many. Nevertheless, it confines to giving entry advantage only. As the interest articulated by the leaders change, and if the performance is not upto people's expectations, emotions play very less role and wisdom comes to fore. FOr instance, Chiranjeevi a renowned Telugu movie actor floated his own party - Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) and was supported by people wholly based on the craze they have for him. Later when they realised that he is low on political acumen, he is being ignored.

There might be so many other factors acting simultaneously like caste, money, manifesto, political situation in the State etc. But this affair between politics and cinema has a long way to go, especially in South India.