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| Diary |
Magazine | 18 May 2009 |
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| Delhi Diary by Vinod Mehta |
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If I declared I was an "independent" observer of the political scene, some—perhaps most—of you would burst into laughter. It would be pointed out that in a long and distinguished career as a Congress chamcha—hankering after an ambassadorship (with my luck they would offer me Sudan or Iceland), or a Padma Shri (which I hope I will have the courage to refuse, since, unlike heart surgeons and Odissi dancers, journalists are required to scrutinise and pronounce on the rulers of the day who are precisely the gentlemen honouring you), or a Rajya Sabha ticket (because I talk too much and say politically incorrect things, I would be considered a loose cannon)—I have disgraced myself and my profession.
If you’ve stopped laughing now, I will explain. No journalist is objective. He is not an ideological eunuch. If he were, he would be an extremely boring journalist. The independent journalist is a myth sedulously fostered by those who pretend that somehow journalists are "different". I have voted this weekend and you can be sure that my biases played a major part in my decision. Journalists the world over behave similarly. If they claimed that their individual biases had been set aside in their choice, they would be lying.
My personal preferences, on the other hand, do not restrict the range of my editorial agenda. A free and open journal which invites debate and dissent should be fair, even though it may have (like Outlook!) a broad political positioning. What do I mean by fair? Two examples should suffice. The Gandhi family’s assertion that it does not believe in dynastic politics, indeed that it is out to demolish the dynastic principle, is bogus. If you are a Congress supporter, you have to live with dynastic politics.
Second, Narendra Modi. For all his sins, Mr Modi runs an efficient, relatively honest administration which has performed remarkably well on developmental parameters. There are two sides to the Modi coin. The Muslim massacres do not cancel out his achievements as chief minister. And vice-versa.
I maintain I am an unbiased journalist, although there may have been occasional lapses since I became editor of Debonair. Even when I was editing the aforementioned girlie magazine, I was accused of bias: the centrespread ladies, it was alleged, were shown left-inclined!
Rants and Raves
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There is much talk of how real issues have been ignored in favour of black money bickering and weak vs strong prime minister spats. The real issues are laughably easy to identify. Thus, the frustration of concerned citizens at the Page 3 triviality of Election ’09 is justified. The media may or may not be a "feral beast", but one thing’s certain: it doesn’t take kindly to advice if it’s a question of TRPS. Business trumps social responsibility.
No sane person will quarrel with the triviality complaint. But I have another grouse. We know the issues, what we do not know is how to tackle them. The national debate therefore must shift from problems to solutions. Rahul Gandhi observed recently that only 10 paisa out of every rupee spent on anti-poverty programmes reaches its destination. India can send a rocket to the moon, explode an atom bomb, create the most clever and complicated software programmes, yet we can’t devise a delivery system through which at least 50 paisa out of every rupee reaches the needy? Are vested interests (ideologically opposed to social sector spending) in charge of disbursement and delivery sabotaging the schemes? In this context, I find Chandrababu Naidu’s proposal of direct cash transfers to the poor interesting.
Rants and Raves
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Some of the most celebrated writers, poets and playwrights of our time have been cricket fanatics. Samuel Beckett, a useful left-hand opening bat who found a brief mention in Wisden, was one. David Hare, Tom Stoppard and (please excuse!) Jeffrey Archer are also cricket nuts. However, the most passionate fan (and above-average right-hand batsman who had been coached by Alf Gover) was the late Nobel laureate, the playwright Harold Pinter. For Pinter the battle between bat and ball was "God’s greatest creation. Certainly better than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either".
Famous for his terse and laconic writing, Pinter once wrote a poem on his idol, the legendary Yorkshire batsman and England captain, Len Hutton. "I saw Hutton in his prime/Another time. Another time." He sent it to his fellow playwright, Simon Gray, for approval. When Pinter did not hear from Gray for a few days, he telephoned him angrily and asked him what he thought of his poem. "Harold, I haven’t finished it yet," replied Gray.
Rants and Raves
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Editor looks big and ferocious, but actually he is a sweetheart. His bark is worse than his bite (where have I heard that before?). So I am a little perplexed and unhappy that in the serene surroundings of Nizamuddin East he has been given a nasty name. Editor is called Predator!
Rants and Raves
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