if one were to trust the indian media, the ipl and varun gandhi are the only important issues these elections have thrown up until now.
if he wasn't varun gandhi, and the indian police weren't the indian police, he would've been arrested while he was making those speeches and would have earned a mere mention in one of the inner pages of local dailies. and the ipl? if the indian media weren't the indian media, it'd still have been big news, but definitely not on all front pages. or on the best slots on television.
why aren't the careers of politicians like varun gandhi nipped in the bud (because there are enough provisions in the law to do so)? the answer lies in another question: why weren't several others like him stopped earlier? it isn't just indian politics that makes the indian police the indian police but a whole host of other institutions like the indian media etc., and it isn't just indian politics that makes the indian media indian media, but indian media too helps in making indan politics indian politics. all of that is confusing, yes, but this final attempt to explain all might help: indians are behind all this. certain classes of indians.
check what the bbc had to say a few hours ago: indians saddened by ipl decision. and who were the indians bbc's prachi pinglay spoke to? the ipl, i guess, is popular in the villages too- but the question is: would any issues that occupy the minds of the marginalized in india ever really make such a big splash in the so-called national media? definitely not. not as long as even the newsmen who generate reports for the international media too come from certain classes of indians.
madigas, and over fifty other dalit castes in andhra pradesh have been agitating over the last fifteen years for dividing the scheduled castes into categories (as it is done in the case of obcs) to ensure that, according to their view, not all the fruits of reservations are cornered by a couple of castes. there have also been barely covered reports of similar movements across the country. now this demand needs to be debated seriously across a wide range of fora because it involves not just madigas and other castes in andhra pradesh, but dalits, primarily, and all other classes of people across the country. from 300 million to one billion people.
ipl's lalit modi gets almost unhindered access to top elected and other officials in the central government and the states, and at any given moment you'll find him on a couple of television channels. how many newsmen working for the national media have heard of manda krishna madiga? has rajdeep sardesai heard of him? or barkha dutt? or m.j.akbar? or vinod mehta? or pick any other big name. have they ever interviewed him?
but the dalits in andhra pradesh are seriously agitated over the issue, and their demand requires a constitutional solution that could only be found through the parliament. and that'd involve the whole country. yes, it is regional or local news, but only because the national media ignore it.
if indian media started listening to the marginalized, why would the marginalized sit around listening to empty-headed bigots like varun gandhi? wouldn't they be talking instead? and making a citizen's arrest? they face people like varun gandhi every day, in villages across the country- people who demand a two glass system at tea shops, for instance. if those minor bigots go untouched, it isn't because the people like them or think they're right. it is because the people who work in institutions, like the media and the justice system etc., which are supposed to work for all citizens believe in the two-glass system themselves.
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5 comments:
kufr
> it is because the people who
> work in institutions, like the
> media and the justice system
> etc., which are supposed to
> work for all citizens believe
> in the two-glass system
> themselves.
possibly true about the justice system, but to nowadays think that the media is supposed to work for all citizens is stretching it, no? the media is simply in the business of "manufacturing" what its consumers demand (this is a chicken-and-egg thing, of course, they equally shape this demand). whatever brings in viewership and advertising... as such the media are just being very conscientious capitalists, and if this was any other business you'd probably be praising them for being so good at what they do :)
'...and if this was any other business you'd probably be praising them for being so good at what they do :)'
no :) i wouldn't be praising them. i am not praising banks for not providing credit to small businesses in the informal economy, am i? i hope you've read those posts.
i see a link between sub-prime lending and the election of obama- a conservative president such as bush wouldn't have overlooked not-so-conservative lending by america's banks would he? well, the logic from some quarters says bush is the epitome of the extreme 'neoliberal' or 'free markets' ideologue. it didn't take much time for him to rescue those banks after the crisis, did it? how did he change so fast into a socialist? if someone were to ask bush now what changed his mind- how did he become such an interventionist, he'd probably say he hasn't changed at all. and he'd be speaking the truth. the crony capitalism that he practised- doesn't that he was always a regulator of non-cronies?
i don't believe in the two glass system that dictates that everyone who expresses himself on these issues belongs to either the 'free markets' or the 'socialist' school. i believe every country chooses its own levels of competition and regulation. i believe all countries are societies that have chosen their own levels of competition and regulation- which means there never ever was or will be a 'free market' or 'socialist' society, not as we visualize them now. now who chooses these levels depends largely on how that society is ordered and has evolved, which means we've to look at its pre-industrial/capitalist character too.
let me try to illustrate what i am trying to say- please think of the average govt school and the best among the elitist colleges in india, say, the iits - think of the distance, in terms of resources and the attention the state pays to them, between them. now think of the average public school in 'capitalist' societies like america or the u.k., and their best colleges.
the indian variety of the left- the communists, socialists, opponents of liberalization, accept so happily the existence of this distance, or so universally choose to ignore it, that should we think they support capitalists' interests? public schools are a theme in every election campaign in the capitalist societies that i talked about- they occupy large space in the media. why does the capitalist media in those countries initiate debates on how the state should support public schools, less or more, but never on why the state should withdraw totally from those schools?
now on the link between obama and sub-prime lending- i don't believe lending to people with weak credit records makes little business sense. and i don't buy the theory put forward by certain leftists (like the post on space bar's blog, if you remember)that bankers who were doing so believed that the government would ultimately bail them out, anyway. i believe they had come to accept the borrowers,who also included a large chunk of blacks, as 'humans/people like us'. which also mean a wide acceptance of the idea that obama was 'human/people like us'. no i am not saying that america has graduated beyond racism, but that it has evolved a lot.
coming back to why i think lending to people with weak credit records makes good business is because there is a large amount of evidence now that supports this idea- the grameen bank for one. evidence from india, for instance. the poor have an impeccable record of repaying formal credit, across the world, now.
my theory is- media is a business, but how businesses function in a society is essentially determined by how that society is ordered. and a society isn't necessarily ordered along solely class lines (the evidence, you'll agree, doesn't speak like god) . sectarian interests do significantly influence economic regulation and competition.
"why does the capitalist media in those countries initiate debates on how the state should support public schools, less or more, but never on why the state should withdraw totally from those schools?"
"withdraw partially" gets openly discussed all the time, aka school vouchers. "withdraw totally" is discussed too, but covertly in discussions about iq and the underclass.
anon,
the point i was trying to make is schools get discussed and are an issue in every election. and there seems to be an overwhelming agreement on the need for the state to play *the* key role in education- what's usually debated is how the state should spend on education- directly or through vouchers.
i'd written a few posts on the 'school choice' campaign in india, on vouchers etc.,
While we are fighting the caste hindus.
Oppressed Brahmin widows are wailing in the land of periyar. See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDjYZcCOhvA&feature=related
Brahmin men and women singing manusmrithi in temple with gay abandon. See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6IiEk352ic
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