“Fourth Estate” as in the novel of Jeffrey Archer, is a serious word coined by an 18th century Scottish satirical writer, Thomas Carlyle; author of Heroes, Hero worships and the Heroic in history (my present reading). The term fourth estate has played some very important roles in the early history of revolutions and formation of democracies. Though several meanings are attributed to the term, yet eight fingers veto for “The Media”.
The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Deccan Herald, Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle , The Hindu, Statesman etc., are some of the major dailies that have been holding sway over the courses of the events in the country, the mind of a commoner, aspirations of a politician and the bigger role of connecting people. Though the first daily in India dates back to 1700s, “The free press” facet showed up much later, after independence. The role of media widened with technology: Radios, Televisions, Internet , resulting in shrinking of the world.
Guys, wake up, drink some water but pour a pot full on your head and realize that your dreams and bookish definitions are more like Sir Thomas Moore’s Atlantic island, Utopia. Let us face it the John Milton way in Paradise lost. The system is confused. The job of media is now Sensationalism driven by the only motive of business profit for surviving as the fittest king of the ring. Association of every news daily or television channel to different kinds of political parties for the sake of monetary gain is the other thing that is corroding the fourth estate. Things are now how the world looks at them. Misnomers such as addressing family news channels as national news channels have caused discrepancies in the actual news causing confusion in the mind of the people.
The attempts to single out the faults on the side of media have been many without a single apple falling down. One dialogue that impressed me with regard to sensationalism is the one that Shayaji Shinde shouts at the media person shooting questions at him in the Telugu movie Pokiri. Page-3 as a movie shows the struggle of a female reporter, Madhavi Sharma enacted brilliantly by Konkona Sen Sharma. The movie shows the media profession in black and white. However these are always forgotten after the pop corn and pepsi get over.
Elections are probably the only time when at least some real issues of the people and country are addressed in the dailies in place of bash-babi second honey moon, the packs of khans, brothers from Jharkhand : cricket and politics, jitt-polie babies and the rest anointing the west. The truth and the essence of the news gets veiled forever in the aura of nepotism and sensationalism. Journalism in India is full of nepotism and sensationalism.
It has been bad times of india right from the beginning of (hin) doosra sthan times brimming with the full flow of the anti- Hindu news which even a secular Indian doesn’t Express (expect). The press drama is a really old one. It dates back to its juvenile days during Indian independence and reached its peak in Indira days.
It was Vasili Mitrokhin who did the damage. He was not aiming to malign the Indian media rather his attempts were to bring to light what he thought as the planned evil when he was reading the Russian archives. Mitrokhin was the first chief directorate of KGB. The archives containing the stealth operations of the KGB and the Soviet Intelligence operations were carried by him to Riga and then to Britain from where he started publishing them as books. All the exploits are explained by Mitrokhin and Andrews in Parts I and II of the Mitrokhin archives. The part two is the one with chapters shedding light on the KGB operations in India, infiltrations in to Indian intelligence, communist party and the Congress. It stresses on the role of the ruble in the Indian politics to an extent that rubles decided the party that formed the government and the person who can be the prime minister: former defense minister Krishna Menon, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were some of the ruble beneficiaries. Moraji Desai is an example of a person who ended on the other side.
An excerpt from the archive reads as below.
Now that Russia is not a superpower, rubles don’t rule but for sure something else is. Anyways the press is not free.
Just like everything else in India, journalism exists only in name does not exist in its true spirit; it is another cover up word for exploiting the disparities in the society for personal hypes working in tandem with business gains. Given enough technology and motivation each press in India can become Danny Boyle and nominate their channel news for Oscar!
Now for a lighter moment:
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1 comments:
Interesting archive.
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