Water, water no where nor any drop to drink. From the golden sand dunes of Rajasthan to the green fields of Karnataka, the people complain about their parched lives. If it's not water, it's light -- the absence of it. You enter their kerosene-lit worlds, briefly, as a reporter thrusts a pole of a microphone down their throats. They may have only a nodding acquaintance with technology of any kind, but they're not impressed, or even intimidated by this strange contraption; it's enough that they're being allowed to speak. One woman explained that the distance between her and the nearest health care facility was a journey too far; another complained that film star, Vinod Khanna, BJP candidate from Gurdaspur, would return to his constituency (won or lost) but only on the big screen; a studio audience member wanted to know from a panel of veteran politicians why there was so little (or nothing) about population control in their election manifestos and a farmer in Mandya asked a candidate about the GATTagreement.When television turned away from the politicians and the "experts" to the people, infrequent though it was, they, the people, expressed their opinions quite freely. Across channels, they voiced their concerns; but it was their subterranean anger and frustration that you heard. So very different from the subjects the politicians and "experts" were quibbling about: Bofors, 1984 riots, (in)stability, hung Parliaments, Uttar Pradesh and the BJP, Sonia Gandhi, prime ministerial candidates, 45 years of Congress rule...
Watching the political campaign on television, the debates, interviews and analyses, the inescapable (but unoriginal) impression was that the people and the politicians speak different dialects. When the people talk of power, they mean electricity; when candidates do, they're meaning political clout. Ask yourself, how can the twain ever meet?
On television, they seldom do. Most of the election coverage, so far, has been conducted in the studios. A bevy of hastily assembled TVanchors, invite former editors, present editors and god help us, future editors, to help them fill in the next half hour. Print journalists, often so openly scornful of the trash tube, are nothing if not obliging. They've never had it better: this is their brief brush with that candle in the wind: fame. And they're openly enjoying it, especially as it gives them the chance to lord it over the species they so often despise: the TV journalist/anchor. The latter is soliciting their views, their analysis of the situation. Ooooh, it's all too juicy to resist. Journalists have been almost more ubiquitous than the politicians -- more so than even George Fernandes who has either taken up residence in TV studios for the past week or else possesses a cupboard full of green, khadi kurtas. Switch from any channel to any other, and you can't miss him, unless you're colour blind.
When journalists have to get back to filing stories, the TV channels fall back on politicians and the occasional academic.Normally, this is the way it goes; politicians speech, speak, prevent others from speaking; the academic/expert stares -- probably wondering how he or she looks to the people back home. Suddenly, there is a pause and he/she breaches it with a question or opinion.... Then he/she relapses into silence.
Occasionally, the public, represented by a studio audience, does get to ask a question or two; often, however, it is furniture, lending decorative colour to the drab proceedings. Sometimes, we encounter the people at campaign rallies. Seldom, someone with that pole-mike asks them a question. But that's not their function: they're captured by TV cameras to indicate the standing of the politician(s) on the ramp.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that on the very few occasions when there is a programme devoted to the people, it is scheduled at bed time. For example, STAR News Channel's Village Voice and Walkabout deserve to be prime time attractions --8.30 pm. Instead, they're tucked in (alongwith most of us)at 11.30pm. Television is a mass media. But the mass is only to be seen. Not heard.
Apology time: to Mahesh Rangarajan mistakely identified as Ranganathan (STAR News Channel). Error is regretted.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
