THE DIARY OF Z

While every secular-sounding newspaper and TV channel is crying itself hoarse on how Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is the Hitler of India post the government-sponsored Gujarat riots of 2002, I have a simple question: who made him that? Is it LK Advani who rode drunk on his chariot to reclaim the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ and helped in demolishing the Babri Masjid? Is it Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishat whose inciting speeches can light the fire beneath any normal human being least associated with fundamentalism? Or is it you and me for remaining silent over the issue and not reading too much into it?

In this murky scenario where everyone looks to the other for raising a voice, Tarun Tejpal’s Tehelka played a proxy war on behalf of the silent majority by exposing the misdoings of Modi on national television only recently. He had irrefutable visual proof of Modi’s henchmen boasting of how the Gujarat riots of 2002 were indeed genocide, a systematic ethnic mass murder pogrom to eliminate the Muslims from the Hindutva heartland. Some even argued that the looting, raping and murder seemed to be far better planned than Hitler’s. When Tehelka showed a visual proof of how the riots were actually a state-sponsored genocide, it opened the eyes of the staunchest of Hindus. What could be worse than a Modi henchman claiming to have slit open a pregnant Muslim woman’s womb? Or a daughter being raped in front of her father?

The TV channels played and re-played these visuals for greater TRPs the day they were made public. But no follow-up stories were carried thereafter either in print or visual media. There was no concerted campaign to indict the culprits who boasted of their nefarious sins on camera. Even the courts didn’t so much as take cognisance of the visual misdeeds. What’s worse, even the Congress government at the centre seemed impotent. Some say, this is for fear of the “Hindu vote” and others say, the Congress is as communal and therefore keeping silent. After all, weren’t they behind the Sikh riots of 1984 that left nearly 3000 Sikhs dead in just three days following Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards. But what about the Gujarat genocide that lasted three months and left 2,500 Muslims dead and several thousands injured?

Whatever be the case, it’s the job of the media to create a furore a la Jessica Lal murder and keep airing the revelations, reactions and keep the momentum going until the guilty are brought to book. At a time when the fortunes of business houses, films and politicians are decided by what is shown in the media, it becomes even more important to follow-up a story that is in far greater national interest. But sadly, it is not to be.

Then again, who comprises the media? People like you and me. Therefore, if we are really looking to stop mass rapes and murders based on ethnic and religious lines, tolerance should begin at home. We should remove the biases we hold within us towards people of other castes, creeds and religions and imbibe the same set of values in our children. When this reaches a crescendo, politics based on caste and creed will disappear. That is when the real idea of India will take root. Until that happens, lets pray real hard that this happens.

Amen!

Ekta Kapoor and her counterparts like Dheeraj Kumar and Aruna Irani seem to be intent on saffronising television. Pick any soap on Sony, Star Plus or Zee, and you will see some or the other pooja being telecast into drawing rooms across the country. Agreed, it’s a Hindu-dominated country and such rituals are part and parcel of the majority, but the frequency of such rituals has gone beyond tolerance levels. Remember, this is on national television and therefore needs to be tailored to every other religion in the country. What’s more, much of the customs and rituals shown in these serials are predominantly North Indian and find no resonance to South India. The TV channels seem to be happy overdoing one religion and ignoring the rest. If this isn’t a sign of national disintegration, what is?

There is more to this. When the odd serial does have a storyline involving members of other communities, it’s only by name. There are no rituals being shown, no pilgrimages being captured on film and no recitations of their sacred texts. Why these double standards? Why can’t an equal emphasis be paid to all the other religions and showcase their customs and rituals as well? And by this, I don’t just mean Muslims (sunnis and shias) and Christians (catholics and protestants), but also the Jains, Sindhis, Punjabis, lingayats, vokkaligas, Brahmins, vaishyas, shudras – each of them have their uniqueness, be it in the way they conduct marriages to the way they eat and dress. If the media is a mirror to society, then why is the mirror not functioning like one? Why can’t we show what is real and leave the interpretation to the viewers? There are numerous cases of inter-religious marriages of the famous and the not-so-famous. And like everything else in this world, some work out, some don’t. But the reality today is that there is more of an integration of cultures than ever before, and barring the fundamentalists, several others are co-existing in a multi-religious environment. Why isn’t this being reflected on the small screen? Why is their a bias not only towards non-Hindus, but also towards different regions, creeds and colours? Why can’t a real India be shown on national television?

Films are worse off. They of course represent the minorities, but only to reinforce stereotypes. A Muslim crops up if it’s to do with terrorism, a Sikh is in the picture to convey colour and variety and a Parsi couple figures if it’s to give a comical touch. This is particularly predominant in films, language no bar.

Thankfully, our regional TV channels are much more rooted in their portrayals. If there’s a pooja, it’s rare and it’s only because the script demands it. What’s more, they use non-Hindus to take their story forward. There isn’t any perceived religious bias. And even if there is, it isn’t so in-your-face like the Ekta Kapoor serials. Will she and her ilk drop their regional bias and become truly national and stop furthering the RSS agenda?