| Published on 15-07-2008 In General | | Viewed 1006 times | | Elitist Bias of the Mainstream Media |
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| Written by
N.R.Mohanty | 
The first aim of the journalist is to interest; of the historian it is to instruct – of course the good journalist and the good historian try to do both, said A. J .P. Taylor, the noted historian. I am not so sure of good history-writing, but there is a lot of good journalism happening these days in India, the kind of journalism that not only draws the readers, but also stimulates them for social action.
Last week's special issue of India Today (July 07, 2008) is a befitting example of this new brand of social journalism. In the introductory note to the issue devoted to the 'Spirit of India: 50 pioneers of change', Aroon Purie, the Editor-in-Chief, wrote: "Every day, all of us in the news business find ourselves surrounded by bad news: war, terrorism, natural disasters, national tragedies, economic crises. Yet, in a world full of adversity and hardship, we also know that people everywhere respond, and respond with great positivity, to the smallest stories of human endeavour. In a world of bad news, it is as if these stories about change for the better, about small acts of goodness enable people to renew their own faith in the future. It is with this in mind that India Today has decided to launch a series of special issues in 2008 celebrating the Spirit of India. We want to recognize and celebrate perseverance, optimism and unsung achievements that are to be found in this country."
Here, unsung is the key word. After all, India Today has had a series of special issues on the powerful people of India, which invariably featured the usual suspects: those who had made it big, often by illegitimate means. They have always been the toast of the media, because with their swank cars, designer clothes and night-is-young parties, they are the staple of interesting news.
It was not that India Today was the only one to follow this path; the Times of India (TOI), the country's highest circulated English daily, had at one point of time embargoed any news item that had anything to do with the poor, the starving or the tribes or anything the like as its market research team was seized of the insight that a majority of the readers of this elite newspaper did not want depressing news on its pages.
For quite some time, the TOI tried to be interesting, without being instructional. Presenting information in an entertaining way became its buzzword. Laxman's Common Man, continued to provide food for thought, but the sorrows and agonies of the man on the street were virtually banished from the paper.
This was a phase when the publishers of the Times of India raked in a lot of money; the paper's circulation increased manifold, but, as it turned out, it became a soulless behemoth. And the owners of the Times of India were soon to realize it. And then began the metamorphosis. Its obsession with the rich, the powerful and the sleaze, which was central to the newspaper, was relegated to the sidelines, to its glitzy supplements. The main newspaper recast itself, grappling with the issues and concerns of the lay man (and the woman), propelling the administration to act on their behalf.
Some may say that this is not radical enough; but, anyway, radical journalism is not the stuff of the mainstream media. If a newspaper succeeds in informing, and thereby empowering, the deprived sections to lay claim to their rights, it is a great tribute for its calling.
The turnaround came about not in the Times of India alone. There are many others who followed suit. The India Today seems to have joined the league for practising what Taylor called good journalism. Highlighting the unsung heroes is a testimony to it; it has marked a departure from the elitist perspective that the journal pursued for decades.
But, at the same time, one is constrained to say that strands of elitism persist, even in this special issue. The first person to be featured, in the galaxy of the 50, is Abhayanand, a senior police officer in Bihar who has played an important part in the Super 30 success story.
I must say he is hardly an unsung hero. In fact, the Super 30 has become a part of the national, nay international, folklore and Abhayanand has been featured in the media any number of times that one has lost count of. Thousands of readers of India Today, like me, would be familiar with his name and achievements.
There is nothing wrong with India Today re-packaging him before us as a can-do icon. But what I find a clear manifestation of an elitist approach is that in projecting the success story of the Super-30, the magazine chose to single out only Abhayanand for encomiums, and, in the process, relegated Anand Kumar, the driving spirit behind the concept, to the parenthesis.
I call Anand Kumar the driving force because it was his initiative over long years to help educate the destitute that gave birth to this concept in 2002. A brilliant mathematics student from a very poor background, he could not take up admission at the Cambridge University even with a fellowship as he had no means to provide for his basic expenses. But he was determined to keep the tradition of Ramanujam, the mathematics wizard, alive and started giving lessons to the street children and those in the slums in the early 90s. It was an outstanding voluntary effort on the part of someone who had no assured means of livelihood (he helped his mother to make and sell papads to make both ends meet). The local media gave periodic coverage to his stellar efforts, but it was not the stuff the national media would be interested in.
As a continuation of his decade-long initiative to educate the meritorious poor, Anand Kumar joined hands with Abhayanand, a brilliant physics student of yesteryear, to launch the Super-30 project. He deployed a large part of his income that he earned from his coaching institute for general students (where he charged money) to provide basic logistical support (classrooms, teachers, boarding, lodging) to 30 students free. In fact, his mother cooked food for all the 30 students and his brother looked after the nitty-gritty of the modest establishment.
Anand Kumar himself taught Mathematics but there were other Math teachers for back-up. Similarly, there were teachers to teach other subjects as well. And they had to be paid for. Abhayanand, being a government servant, did not charge money. He taught there because he found it an outlet for his 'inner teacher', as he put it to India Today. But being a senior police officer, he had a huge responsibility in the government establishment. He couldn't be expected to attend to his classes on a regular basis, given the nature of his job. So there were other physics teachers on the roll. Abhayanand was like a mentor and he discharged this role astutely.
Not, surprisingly, when Super-30's success became national news, the lion's share of the credit for it went to Abhayanand, as he was quite media savvy. Almost all the stories that appeared in the national media about Super-30 were centered round the persona of Abhayanand, with his larger-than-life image displayed prominently. Had Abhayanand not been in the scene, the Super-30 would not have perhaps attained such national recognition.
Abhayanand's was the persona that made news. As India Today puts it succinctly, though with a different emphasis, "with his sharply-creased police uniform, carefully-combed hair and flashy cell phone, he looks every bit an upwardly mobile IPS officer". That perhaps explains why he was lapped up by the elitist media and the kurta-clad, jhola-carrying Anand Kumar was dismissed as an appendage.
Had India Today featured both Anand Kumar and Abhayanand as icons for the success of the Super-30 experiment, one could still think it was closer to the truth. By sidelining Anand Kumar, our country's largest circulated weekly betrayed its elitist bias.
Nevertheless, with all its shortcomings, there is no denying that the '50 Pioneers of Change' issue of the India today will be heralded as a new benchmark in the history of good journalism. |
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So how can you say that ABHAY ANAND is elite ?? Whole world knows that this essay is dictated by ……………
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