Television news: The impunity of irrelevance

Some are born irrelevant, some achieve irrelevance and some have it thrust upon them. To say that our TV channels have reached the height of irrelevance is to state the obvious. What is more galling is the impunity with which they peddle their junk 24/7 and the affront to the common sense of the audience. More about that later.

There is one more gifted category. The one that raises irrelevance to an art form. The discourse of our Prime Minister in his Mann ki Baat belongs to this rare class. It is so charmingly disarming that it comes wafting across from the Himalayas with a sense of Nirvana untouched by the reality of here and now.

On August 30, the Prime Minister waxed eloquent about ‘Sophie’ and ‘Vida’ -- two trained dogs of the Indian Army that had been bestowed the Chief of Staff’s ‘commendation cards’ for their exceptional duty in protecting the country. He then exhorted the countrymen to adopt Indian breed dogs such as the ‘Mudhol hound’ or the ‘Himachali hound’, ‘Rajapalyam Kanni,’ etc. If you are wondering where the PM was going with this, it should be quickly added that aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) was his focus. Nevertheless, how the adoption of an Indian dog would make either the dog or his master aatmanirbhar was lost on the innocent listener.

Before that, the PM had dwelt at length on the merits of our indigenous toy industry and how India could become a ‘toy hub’ for the world and capture a sizeable market share. This was again a pitch for Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Buy more Indian toys, he exhorted. Last year, the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries acquired the British toy-maker Hamleys for around Rs 620 crore. Any coincidence was entirely unintended.

However, the Prime Minister’s touching concern for our struggling toy industry seemed a tad out of sync with reality when the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy had revealed, a few weeks earlier, that 12.2 crore workers in the MSMEs and daily-wage earners had lost their jobs in April 2020. That was the period of the Great Lockdown. That was toying with whatever little aatmanirbharta they had in their lives.

Soon, when GDP numbers for the first quarter were announced, the country learnt that its economic growth had dived into negative territory of unheard depths to reach -24%. The International Labour Organisation had a grim warning. It said that “about 400 million people working in the informal sector in India are at risk of falling deeper into poverty due to the coronavirus, which is having ‘catastrophic consequences.’” But let us not get distracted. Reality is so boring!

Mann ki Baat is so soothing and calming. As the title suggests, it is straight from The Heart of the Great Leader to millions of little hearts. He is in the ‘Guru’ mode -- teaching, guiding, cajoling and persuading the listener. The pace of his words and the voice modulation are so intended as to transport the audience into a make-believe world away from their humdrum worries, such as loss of jobs and incomes, inability to pay rents or school fees or the EMIs for a scooter loan or home loan. Of course, all that can wait but listen to the Great Leader. There is a Talisman for everyone. Aatmanirbharta. Now buddy, you are on your own.

If you still don’t get it and are burdened by your problems, switch on the TV. There is 24/7 coverage of a fascinating suicide/murder mystery of a Bollywood actor. Every twist and turn in the investigation is revealed by the agencies to TV channels that provide a ‘Breaking News’ every hour. And this has been on for over 100 days and counting. What else does the nation want to know?

Poor Indira Gandhi had to censor the media, after declaring Emergency in 1975. That looks so gross and medieval now. Today, ‘someone’ has to simply throw a juicy bone to the media and they run after it like ‘Sophie’ and ‘Vida’, tripping one another on the way.

If distraction and irrelevance is right in your face 24/7 and on such a mega scale, the little man feels lost and out of sync with reality, especially when he cannot take part in the one and only national pastime. The little man without a job and income starts to wonder whether he belongs to the same country.

Every four minutes someone in this country ends life. Last year, 129,000 people ended their lives. Who cares? But there is one suicide that keeps the nation glued to the TV, or at least that’s what the managers of media believe and we, the people, have to consume whatever rubbish they offer.

If one starlet is arrested, then add another’s story – Kangana Ranaut compares Mumbai to ‘Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir’. This angers the ruling Shiv Sena. Her ‘illegally constructed’ office is razed to the ground by the Municipal Council. She takes on Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and another media circus begins.

What is unfolding here is that neither Rhea Chakraborty nor Kangana Ranaut matter. It is the circus that matters, and that must go on. The question is, who is the ringmaster? We don’t know, but the rules of the game are clear. Don’t talk about the economy. And don’t even mention China.

Our electronic media has finally realised its mission in life. That it should always remain, first and foremost, a source of entertainment. The State cannot give you bread but surely, the media can give you a circus. The idiot-box has conquered us all. The idiot is not in the box but outside.

(The writer, a former Cabinet Secretariat official, is a Visiting Fellow at the ORF, New Delhi)