He isn’t just hitting headlines, he’s bludgeoning them. UCC, ‘fertiliser jihad’, ‘flood jihad’, compulsory registration of Muslim marriages and divorce…Then, last Thursday, Assam’s unstoppable Himanta Sarma demanded to know the name of a journalist who raised a question about hill-cutting at a press meet. And on hearing he was Muslim, baselessly linked him to the Muslim owner of a Meghalaya university whom the CM had accused of creating artificial floods in Guwahati. Media associations are up in arms. As one statement declared: ‘A journalist’s duty is to ask questions. To answer or not is the prerogative of the person being asked the question. We appeal to those in positions of authority to avoid making such comments so that journalists can carry on with their duties and without fear.’
Assam’s journo protest centred on pernicious communal foregrounding, but I want to ask if questioning per se is well on its way to extinction. Yes, yes, children are encouraged to use the ‘Why’ word, and do so sometimes to exasperating extent. Especially for those who aren’t the admiringly indulgent parent during such an Inquisition-grade barrage. But encouraging mother-father is quite different from ma-baap sarkar. Vis a vis that lofty party, lowly hacks are not to question why – or what, when, who, or how much (especially about their claims). Ours is but to dumbly accept BS about largesse.
At media-meets, some netas get communal or turn differently ugly; some ignore the unfriendly journalist even if he’s been waving his upheld arm as vigorously as a palm tree in a storm, and some netas avoid the whole distasteful business by simply not holding press conferences.
On television, netas mostly leave the dirty work to stooges, aka party spokespersons. Or depend on those pliant anchors who obligingly won’t ask what the nation really wants to know.
Since CMs etc are so averse to answering journos, here’s my suggestion. Why don’t they borrow the old ploy of students in Calcutta who would routinely tear up question-papers and march out of exam halls shouting, ‘Out of syllabus!’?
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Alec Smart said: “Why must netas always refer only to ‘mothers, sisters, daughters’? Sir-ji, women are just women, not merely male appendages.”
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