What does not happen in any other democracy in the world is about to happen in India: the Indian National Congress is ready to launch a national television channel in Hindi. Two regional channels in Maharashtra and Rajasthan are also in the works under the general umbrella of Jai Hind TV.
This is equivalent to the Labour Party or the Conservative Party in Britain starting a channel of its own. Or imagine the Republican Party of the US having a channel in feisty opposition to the Democratic Party channel. Brits will puke at the idea; Americans will revolt.
Italy is the only democracy in the world where the Prime Minister is also an active television owner. But Silvio Berlusconi was an owner of channels first and then political leader; it isn't that his or any other party in Italy has a news channel.
India will be unique. The Congress Party will own the channels and directly run them. They will of course be in addition to Doordarshan which is patriotically inclined to carry the messages of the ruling party to the masses. But a party channel can afford to be more strident than a government channel.
Stridency is going to be an important part of the Congress channel. Oscar Fernandes who is spearheading talks over the new channel said bluntly: “Party-owned channels will help to spread information in a proper manner”.
Not that party-owned channels are anything new in India. The southern states have been under their thumb for a long time. Channels owned by the Karunanidhi family and by Jayalalitha have a virtual monopoly in Tamil Nadu. Jagan Reddy's Sakshi came out of the blue and established itself with investments no one else could match. In Karnataka H. D. Kumaraswamy started his own channel. Very recently the widely disliked mining king, Janardhan Reddy, followed suit.
Perhaps the most successful party-owned channel is the CPM's Kairali. Actually Kerala is a case by itself with 20 channels already filling the air and 14 others about to enter the fray. Kairali, one of many entrepreneurial initiatives launched by the capitalist leaders of the communist party, is now a high-asset entity with its own very valuable real estate in the centre of the state capital.
No doubt to counter Kairali, the Congress leadership in Kerala started the Jai Hind channel in 2007. It has put Rs 60 crore into it already and has lined up another Rs 50 crore to add to it. Oscar Fernandes said “the Kerala experiment was a huge success”. By what yardstick, he didn't say. While Kairali disguises its partisanship with a touch of professionalism, Jai Hind lays it on thick. Probably it is a success because it gives an uninterrupted platform to Congress leaders to hold forth.
When Congress rushes in, will others fear to tread? The BJP may now launch three channels at once, to suit the three ideologies it is simultaneously pursuing – one for the country, another for Gujarat and the third for Karnataka. The Thackerays must follow. The channel worth waiting for will be Maya TV from Uttar Pradesh. And Mamta TV? What a free country is India!
But the ultimate question remains: What is the effectiveness – even relevance – of propaganda that looks like propaganda? Are voters swayed by what party mouthpieces dish out? Not all the propaganda of the emergency years could save Indira Gandhi in 1977. Not all the grand claims of the Janata Government could stop Indira Gandhi's return in 1980. And not all the propaganda of the Rajiv Gandhi years could prevent his rout in the post-Bofors election. Jai Hind TV will do no better.
The Indian voter has a surprisingly well-developed political instinct. Propagandists have failed to subvert this instinct. The voter will watch TV humbug, even collect his free TV set and 2-rupee rice – and vote as a responsible citizen should. Jai Hind!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
What's after Kasab? Another strike?
There are things you can do with Pakistan and things you cannot. Among the “cannot” is reasoning over the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. Pakistan's stonewalling on this issue has been so relentlessly self-serving that we should now expect a worsening of the situation. In answer to the death sentence confirmed on Ajmal Kasab, Pakistan may now show its defiance by (a) releasing Kasab's handler and the operational leader of the Mumbai attack, Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, and (b) attempting a new 26/11 as quickly as possible.
They have three advantages while India has none. First, the Pakistani military's visceral hostility to India gives it a motivation that matches only Israel's unstoppable motivation to destroy Palestine; even if they get Kashmir on a silver platter, the war against India will continue because the need to justify Pakistan's communal birth will continue. Second, China's unconditional support enables an otherwise emasculated Pakistan to match the economic giant that is India, bomb for bomb.
The third and surprising factor is America's support to Pakistan which is as decisive as China's. America's problem is that it recognises only terror against America as terror. To fight America's war against terror, it needs Pakistan's logistical cooperation. Pakistan cleverly takes the Americans for a ride, extending cooperation one day, denying it another day. In the process, India's war against terror makes no blip on American radar. American military supplies come pouring into Pakistan with user's manuals stipulating that they fire/fly only westward, never eastward.
That's dumb. But what we should note here is that Pakistan, client state though it is, has the guts to stand up against its provider. It did so when unmanned US drones wreaked havoc in its tribal areas. It is doing so right now over a US embassy man (CIA ?), killing two Pakistanis (ISI ?). America has threatened the worst, and eventually Pakistan may yield, but not until it gets its pound of flesh.
Does India ever stand up when it is bullied, challenged, insulted? When Australian racists took it out on Indian students, when American security guards body-checked India's ambassadors because one wore a saree and another a turban, when America put radio-tags on Indian students who had valid visas, when Sri Lankans killed our fishermen, we said gravely each time that it was unacceptable. Then we went on to accept it lying down. Never once did we take action that was acceptable.
The result is : Not one country in the world respects us, to say nothing of fearing us. And fear – of military might, trade retaliation, diplomatic offensive, covert countermoves – is one of the more effective planks of international relations in today's cynical world. Our weight in this world is far below what our size, economy and potential warrant.
Pakistan knows this all too well. Pakistani leadership not only has no fear of India; it has contempt for India. This came out most tellingly when the recently ousted former Foreign Minister, Mehmood Qureshi, brought his full arrogance to bear on S.M.Krishna – with Krishna taking it in stoic silence. Civilised behaviour is wasted on the uncivilised.
Pakistan uses big words like “non-state players” to justify its inaction over 26/11. And why not? India, meak and eminently bulliable as always, is suddenly saying that it is ready for a resumption of dialogue, no conditions attached. So what happened to the earlier publicly stated policy that dialogue was meaningless when terror went unchecked ?
The answer in all likelihood lies in Washington. It does not require inside intelligence to guess that America must be pressurising India to resume normalcy with Pakistan. It doesn't take much pressurising either because Manmohan Singh's India loves nothing more than being in the good books of America.
So Pakistan is free to do what it loves more than anything else – appearing to assist America's war on terror while carrying on its own war on India. Unless India learns how to stand up, we have reasons to worry.
They have three advantages while India has none. First, the Pakistani military's visceral hostility to India gives it a motivation that matches only Israel's unstoppable motivation to destroy Palestine; even if they get Kashmir on a silver platter, the war against India will continue because the need to justify Pakistan's communal birth will continue. Second, China's unconditional support enables an otherwise emasculated Pakistan to match the economic giant that is India, bomb for bomb.
The third and surprising factor is America's support to Pakistan which is as decisive as China's. America's problem is that it recognises only terror against America as terror. To fight America's war against terror, it needs Pakistan's logistical cooperation. Pakistan cleverly takes the Americans for a ride, extending cooperation one day, denying it another day. In the process, India's war against terror makes no blip on American radar. American military supplies come pouring into Pakistan with user's manuals stipulating that they fire/fly only westward, never eastward.
That's dumb. But what we should note here is that Pakistan, client state though it is, has the guts to stand up against its provider. It did so when unmanned US drones wreaked havoc in its tribal areas. It is doing so right now over a US embassy man (CIA ?), killing two Pakistanis (ISI ?). America has threatened the worst, and eventually Pakistan may yield, but not until it gets its pound of flesh.
Does India ever stand up when it is bullied, challenged, insulted? When Australian racists took it out on Indian students, when American security guards body-checked India's ambassadors because one wore a saree and another a turban, when America put radio-tags on Indian students who had valid visas, when Sri Lankans killed our fishermen, we said gravely each time that it was unacceptable. Then we went on to accept it lying down. Never once did we take action that was acceptable.
The result is : Not one country in the world respects us, to say nothing of fearing us. And fear – of military might, trade retaliation, diplomatic offensive, covert countermoves – is one of the more effective planks of international relations in today's cynical world. Our weight in this world is far below what our size, economy and potential warrant.
Pakistan knows this all too well. Pakistani leadership not only has no fear of India; it has contempt for India. This came out most tellingly when the recently ousted former Foreign Minister, Mehmood Qureshi, brought his full arrogance to bear on S.M.Krishna – with Krishna taking it in stoic silence. Civilised behaviour is wasted on the uncivilised.
Pakistan uses big words like “non-state players” to justify its inaction over 26/11. And why not? India, meak and eminently bulliable as always, is suddenly saying that it is ready for a resumption of dialogue, no conditions attached. So what happened to the earlier publicly stated policy that dialogue was meaningless when terror went unchecked ?
The answer in all likelihood lies in Washington. It does not require inside intelligence to guess that America must be pressurising India to resume normalcy with Pakistan. It doesn't take much pressurising either because Manmohan Singh's India loves nothing more than being in the good books of America.
So Pakistan is free to do what it loves more than anything else – appearing to assist America's war on terror while carrying on its own war on India. Unless India learns how to stand up, we have reasons to worry.
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