Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a polarising personality, to put it politely. Few seem to be indifferent to him. You either love him or you hate him. There is little or no space within the many shades of grey between black and white. Most of his supporters are blind in their adulation. And most of those who do not subscribe to his aggressive Hindu nationalist ideology, borne out of his grooming in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, believe that he has concentrated too much power in his hands and in those of Amit Shah, president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, to disastrous effect.
Journalists are supposed to be ‘unbiased’ while reporting and analysing the actions and words of prominent politicians. But no journalist is ‘independent’ in an absolute sense. Even while reporting “facts” and “events” the bias of the journalist becomes evident from the information that’s selected and that which is omitted or not highlighted.
For much of this book, senior journalist and television anchor Rajdeep Sardesai tries hard to walk the tightrope of “objectivity” and “autonomy” — words that are loaded with many meanings. In his columns, he seeks to present both sides of the story of Modi’s first four years as Prime Minister, but then he doesn’t succeed all the way. The “on the one hand” and “on the other” attempts at appearing “balanced” and the mask of the “false equivalence” in his discourse are cast aside. That’s when he comes through as most effective and emphatic.
In his earlier book,
The book reviewed here is essentially a collection of his articles written for various publications after Modi came to power in May 2014. Since there is the obvious pitfall of getting overtaken by the rush of events, the writer has appended a short note after the postscript in each essay. These notes seek to update and contextualise what Sardesai had felt at different points in time over the last four-and-a-half years. Some of the analyses are hurriedly written, as is the wont of the “newsman” that he is, and hence somewhat shallow. But, to be fair to him, other essays are more reflective and effectively stand the test of time.
Two years ago, in October 2016, he wrote what has become more relevant today: “In the cacophony of 24x7 media, there has been a conscious strategy on the part of the government to drown out alternative voices, dub them as ‘Pakistani-ISI’ agents, or virtually force news organizations to engage in self-censorship in the guise of a ‘nation first’ storyline.”
When the former chief of the Indian Army “who was involved in an acrimonious public conflict” becomes a minister in the Union government, “there is reason to believe that politics has now seeped into one of the few institutions that seemed resistant to its pernicious impact”. Sardesai is, at one level, a typical urban liberal engaged in animated discussions with India’s influential elite. At another level, his travels as a reporter have sensitised him to many of the harsh realities of the countryside.
He is at his critical best when he holds forth on his own journalistic fraternity and examines the current state of the electronic media. In an article titled ‘Divided media cannot provide justice to Gauri Lankesh’, he writes perceptively: “Sadly, the media is being driven by an ominous ‘them’ versus ‘us’ binary pushed by a morally bankrupt political class: It’s a systematic campaign of bilious hate that reflects in a growing intolerance of contrarian opinion and a constant manufacturing of ‘enemies’ who must be targeted, if not in a TV studio, then on the social media, and finally, on the street. In this bitterly polarized atmosphere, the space for an independent interrogation of facts is shrinking rapidly.”
The columnist, high on the adrenalin of constantly “breaking” news, writes on an incredibly wide variety of topics and individuals — from Jawaharlal Nehru to Babasaheb Ambedkar, the unrest in Kashmir to the floods in Tamil Nadu, cricket tournaments to water shortages, the “marketing” of “surgical strikes”, Lalit Modi, the Vyapam scandal in Madhya Pradesh and the “revolt” by senior judges in the Supreme Court. A journalist is often looked down on by academics for not being “scholarly” enough, while a journalist scoffs at those who speak a language that is understood — leave alone appreciated — by few outside their cloistered circle. Sardesai tries to bridge this divide in his short, pithy pieces.
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an independent journalist, author, publisher, educator, documentary filmmaker and consultant