punjabi antenna
Top billing, ordinary coverage
Randeep Wadehra

There was nothing extraordinary in the coverage of the Anna Hazare episode by Punjabi news channels. Tribune photo: Manas Ranjan Bhui

A media-induced chimera or an irrefutable reality? This question worried me even as PTC News, Zee Khabraan, etc were hyper-telecasting the flag-waving, slogan-shouting crowds that had gathered in the national Capital in support of the diminutive but iconic Anna Hazare. From August 16 onwards, various Punjabi news channels have been telecasting the drama involving Anna Hazare’s arrest, release and indefinite fast with "expert comments" from anyone the channels could get hold of.

On the other extreme, DD Punjabi stuck to its pre-Hazare telecast schedule and behaved as if nothing of import was happening in New Delhi but more than made up by giving Team Anna-related discussions top billing in several Khas Khabar Ek Nazar’s episodes.

Unfortunately, the debates on the private channels were uniformly run-of-the-mill. There was neither a fresh perspective on the developments, nor any out-of-the-ordinary observation. Mediocrity fused their identity into one single yawn-inspiring entity. So, we had panellists railing against the government, mouthing all those "charges" that have been bandied about ad nauseam in the mainstream media.

Fears were also expressed that Anna Hazare might force the government to set up a Constituent Assembly and rewrite the Constitution! Now, what exactly provoked such fears? Another gent, a politico, pronounced in all seriousness that "total revolution" was at hand.

Then there was the familiar charge that the government had "abdicated all its roles", viz., development to the private sector, law and order to the police and lawmaking to civil society. In fact, observed one worthy, the Anna Hazare phenomenon owes its genesis to this abject "abdication" by the UPA-II government!

He conveniently ignored the fact that the current turmoil is due to the cumulative effect of the acts of omissions and commissions (pun intended) of successive governments at the Centre and various states ever since India’s Independence. In fact the anchors abdicated their roles as moderators of these debates and, more or less, joined the panellists in berating the government. Intellectual sloth was too conspicuous to be ignored.

Nobody even mentioned the 1999 Indian law commission report that had drafted a detailed anti-corruption Bill with provisions for confiscating properties of those who have been proven to be corrupt; a Bill neither the NDA nor the UPA Governments cared to enact. It was much easier to ask PYTs what the youth thought of Hazare’s movement.

The majority on various talk shows seemed to be supportive of Team Anna’s demand that the Lokpal Bill must be passed post haste in the form outlined by it — a debatable posture. No anchor thought of asking the panellists what would be the consequences of accepting Team Anna’s version of the Lokpal Bill.

Since these consequences would manifest themselves gradually over a period of time, who would be accountable if things went wrong eventually? What would the possible remedies be then? Moreover, nobody enlightened the viewers about Anna’s roadmap to corruption eradication. After all, the Bill is only a gateway to that destination.

The panellists who compared Anna to Gandhiji were way off the mark. The Mahatma was a visionary who was well versed in the art and craft of politics of his times. Anna, on the other hand, may have perfected the art of getting things done at the quotidian level but national governance is not his competency. On certain talk shows the UPA II alone was held responsible for Parliament’s non-functioning, forgetting that the Opposition is equally culpable. Parliamentary proceedings have, more often than not, been disrupted by assorted Opposition parties.

Irony-laced humour marginally redeemed the debates’ quality when a panellist came up with the tongue-in-cheek remark that those who indulged in corruption and those who were fighting against it had both been lodged in the same jail — Tihar!