Inside the Hate-Modi Industry | OPEN Magazine

http://ift.tt/2fVOMvl Journalists often aim to change things through their work, which is also a revolution of sorts. My Leftist friend considers the Sangh Parivar his enemy and wants to see it routed, at least democratically. But when this desire starts clouding one’s judgement as a media professional, then it becomes problematic. The visceral hatred for one man who is now the Prime Minister of India is making many observers of politics lose their objectivity and sense of proportion. In their desperation to see Modi on his knees, they find meanings where none exists. They experience unwarranted euphoria over insignificant victories such as the ABVP losing a seat in Delhi University student’s union election; they are even willing to hear bugles of war in Rahul Gandhi’s Berkeley speech. It is not as if before 2014 the roads in India were paved with gold and that milk flowed through its rivers. It is not as if previous governments had done wonders for the welfare of the poor and marginalised. Of course this government has problems and one of them has been intimidation in the name of cow vigilantism. Of course the Modi dispensation needs to be called out on promises that have turned out to be hollow. In other words, roads in India are not paved with gold and no milk flows through its rivers even after 2014. But reporting this has to be done realistically without spelling a constant sense of doom and without conveying this impression that Modi is personally supervising an imagined Armageddon. Biases and hate crimes against Dalits, for example, have existed since the very beginning; farmers have committed suicide for years; law-and-order has been non-existent in many parts and continues to remain so; there has always been tension with Pakistan. Nobody, including Modi, has a magic wand to make these things disappear even if he and other leaders before him have given us such an impression. Journalists doing their job must nevertheless highlight the failings of this government. But it should not feel as if we have his voodoo doll inside our drawers into which pins must be stuck every day. It is sometimes vital to take a step back and look at how certain things have worked for Modi even as most of us predicted that they would prove to be his Achilles heel. It is okay to be anti- authority, but that should not be only because there is a particular man at the helm of affairs. The idea is to write about the wrong policies of any government, not to hold meetings on how to bring it down CONSIDER DEMONETISATION. We have written and spoken about it extensively. We have shot videos of long queues outside banks and of marketplace gloom with our cellphone cameras. We still don’t know the long- term effects of this decision, but it also needs to be recognised that Modi’s BJP has scored a spectacular win in UP despite the disruption caused. This should make us pause and wonder if we are disconnected from how the people of this country think. Somehow Modi has managed to convince people that this is going to pinch the rich more than the poor. He has managed to impress upon them that he seeks no personal gain, that he has no Robert Vadra in his family who requires fancy bikes and cycles and expensive SPG cover, but only a mother who wears a worn sari and whom he goes to meet occasionally. Instead, some of us seem to have turned antagonism towards Modi into a sort of spectator sport without realising that Modi would not be who he is if he was not hated so much. A journalist friend speaks of her colleague who, while travelling through UP, would ask for her driver’s opinion on demonetisation and when told he had a good feeling about it, shouted at him for being so ‘ignorant’. Earlier in September, Pratik Sinha, founder of AltNews, a website that exposes fake news, published a clarification over a post put up by former police officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, a known critic of Modi. Bhatt had claimed that believers were stopped from offering prayers at the Sidi Saiyyed mosque in Ahmedabad when Modi accompanied Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there on a visit. Presenting evidence that no such thing had happened, Sinha writes: ‘It is absolutely irresponsible on part of those who circulate such rumours on social media without cross-checking facts. Such rumours lead to communal polarisation. As it is, we are living in times when the strife between various religious/cultural communities is alarmingly high. We do not need social media rumours to further magnify this divide.’ Immediately afterwards, Sinha was trolled on social media, with many telling him that Bhatt and he were on the same side and that they should not be fighting among themselves but with their ‘common enemy’. One Modi critic went on to tell him that he was growing too big for ‘your boots’. Sinha had faced similar criticism for taking on the Left activist Shehla Rashid for asking a TV reporter to “get out” from the parking lot of the Delhi Press Club where she was making a political speech. We have written and spoken about demonetisation extensively. We still don’t know the long-term effects of this decision, but it also needs to be recognised that Modi’s BJP has scored a spectacular win in UP despite the disruption caused Modi bashers often use a term, ‘Godi media’, for those who they think sit in the proverbial lap of this government, doling out a favourable narrative of its efforts and achievements. But they sometimes forget that they themselves have become ‘Goop media’, turning to jelly whenever they try looking at the failings of non- BJP politics. Before her death, Gauri Lankesh had tweeted, ‘Ok some of us commit mistakes like sharing fake posts. Let us warn each other then. And not try to expose each other. Peace...comrades’ [apparently referring to photoshopped pictures of a Lalu Prasad rally which some had shared].
from Dark Ritual http://ift.tt/2fVOMvl