Mumbai blasts: the hullabaloo over 'sensitivity' - Part 2

The irony is, the country is in a fragile environment where people are seething with anger and frustration. Anybody and everybody has the might to draw the lines of what can be considered insensitive and what can be considered acceptable. No doubt the media wields great power at such times. But who is holding the media accountable for their insensitivity? As the siege at the two hotels and Narimaan house progressed, every news channel reduced the sad clips and disturbing images from these places into a musical montage - CNN style.


Visual graphic teams returned to their desks, sound guys mixed some quick techno beats with harrowing music and editors hastily stitched whatever clips they could find. The result was a plethora of shaky 'realistic' music videos. What should have been solemn moments on TV, of respecting, honoring and paying homage to those affected turned out to be an all-out contest between news channels... who had the best graphics team in town.


No different was the fate of the state Home Minister Mr. R. R. Patil who resigned a few minutes before the Chief Minister did. Adamant till the end, he refused to resign until a phone call from the higher ups told him he had been too 'insensitive'. At an earlier press conference, he had callously remarked that the Mumbai blasts were in no way an intelligence failure on the government's part. He further added, indifferently, that rather one must accept that big cities will often face such situations. His 'insensitivity' at trivializing the issue went down extremely well with the media as they had found their next scapegoat. Tsk tsk, it had been only hours since their first one.


Now, there is no doubt in my mind that these ministers should be thrown out. I will go even further and say that they should be barred to represent their respective parties for a good few years. Yes, they were incompetent, unprepared, and definitely insensitive. They undoubtedly deserved the axe.





But what is a little scary is the way they were forced to leave. The way the media hunted for scapegoats by inciting public opinion was a little unbecoming of the media (they played the 10 second footage of Mr. Deshmukh in the hotel and Mr. Patil making the comment three times in a row on CNN-IBN meanwhile NDTV kept senselessly zooming in and out of Mr. Varma's picture continuously).


Of course the media is human like any one of us. Humans with prejudices and emotions. And emotions are certainly running high in the country right now. And it wouldn't surprise me if the media has taken it unto them that it is their responsibility to rid the political echelons of bad leaders. .. that it is for them to get the country back into its tracks. But I wonder how long will such good intentions last?


Already the frantic squabbling over TRP ratings and viewership seems to divide the news channels as each tries to get the 'exclusive' on every report. Every news channel is dying to impress upon their viewers that theirs is the place to receive the latest, newest and never-till-seen-now footage... that their 'exclusive' interviews with victims and citizens offer the freshest perspective.


But in all this mayhem, I wonder if they have forgotten one tiny thing... that people whose relatives have been killed in a terrorist attack or people traumatized in a shootout probably should not be subject to 'exclusive' reports in the first place. That the victim's sorrow is universal and not proprietary to any channel. And even if they did get the exclusive rights for such interviews, at least have the sensitivity not to proclaim it.

Mumbai blasts: the hullabaloo over 'sensitivity' - Part 1

Minutes before I started writing this post, thundering splashes of "Breaking News" sprayed across all Indian news channels. The Chief Minister and Home Minister of Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is located, had both resigned. Funnily, the reasons for their resignation had less to do with accountability and more to do with their 'lack of sensitivity'. Let me explain.


A day after the siege ended, the Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, visited the scarred and devastated remains of the two hotels with his actor-son Ritesh Deshmukh and a Bollywood film-director Ram Gopal Varma. The media picked the term 'disaster tourism' and flayed the minister's insensitivity of such an act. "How dare he visit such a place in an official position with his son and friends?" asked angry citizens (and the media).


The sad truth is had it been a B-grade director instead of the realistic film-maker Mr. Varma, half of the media's antics wouldn't have erupted. Mr. Varma's own reputation of making films grounded in authenticity and realism made the media speculate that he was visiting the hotels with the intent of making a movie on it. When Mr. Varma replied via text message that he was only casually accompanying Mr. Ritesh Deshmukh and didn't even know the Chief Minister personally, none of the media channels did a backturn that their speculation was ill-founded. They rather went forward with the story that it was indeed very insensitive on the Minister's part as well as the film-maker's part to visit such a place at such a time.

Mumbai blasts: I'm angry and a bit incoherent

As TV journalists attempt to gauge the public opinion in the streets of India, one emotion rings out greater than the rest. Anger. Anger at politicians at the state and central level. Anger at the politicians in the opposition. Anger at a 'system' that has failed us.


After 18 long and painful hours since the first acts of violence were reported in Mumbai, the Prime Minister finally addressed the nation. What should have been a moment to inspire the nation and the people, to bind us in unison, was wasted in a most lackluster speech. As Thursday, November 27th unfolded and people woke up to the horror that had gripped the nation, people stared helplessly into their television screens and clenched their fists. They could do nothing to help.




The last four days have been extremely harrowing for me. Far from home, as news trickled down from tens of news websites I waited and prayed and cried. Yes, I felt helpless too. Helpless, sad and angry. Helpless because at this time of grief and despair, my country and my people have not one person to look upto. Not one man or woman who can lead us out of this misery ... who can offer compassion to those affected and hope to the helpless. A country of more than a billion people stands leaderless. Those few people whom we depended on, our dear politicians, were busy. Sadly not at fixing what was happening but sharpening their knives to launch their political attacks. Or am I being too harsh on them? Maybe I am. After all elections are only months away.


As turbulent emotions flare in the hearts and minds of the Indian people and certain ignorant groups of Hindus and Muslims find themselves insecure and threatened by each other, I continue to pray. If anybody sees this act as an act by the Muslims in India, it would be a wretched thought indeed. When somebody has decided to act this inhumanely, he has lost what in essence makes him human. These terrorists cannot have any identity of country, religion or faith to define them. They cannot be Pakistanis or Muslims or be ascribed any such label. They are not human at all. So let not our anger be channeled to a country or group of people but to a cause. A cause that has affected and will affect all of us.


As dangerous terrorism has become over the last few months and must be dealt with and rooted out, we must also look at accountability. We must look at our leadership and tell them they are no leaders at all and that enough is enough. As much as we intend to purge our country of such inhuman elements, the catharsis must also include our incompetent politicians. As helpless, leaderless and sad we Indians stand today, let us at least hope that our anger does not cloud our judgment. And yes, forgive my incoherence. Anger seems to have clouded my grammatical and rhetorical sensibilities, for now at least.