Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 30, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=36313
Not long ago I happened to be on
a flight with BJP President Venakaiah Naidu. He was returning from Jodhpur
after campaigning for Vasundhara Raje and because the flight was a longish
one we got talking about this and that and during the course of the conversation
he mentioned that Sonia Gandhi treated the press with the contempt that
it deserved. I cannot remember his exact words but basically the point
he made was that here was a major political leader who refused to give
interviews, refused to answer questions, refused even to meet journalists
and yet she was revered by the media while the BJP despite being media-friendly
to the point of bending over backwards was usually reviled. I dismissed
his comments at the time but a couple of things have of late made me remember
them. Having closely watched the manner in which we of the fourth estate
dealt with the three leading ladies of this set of assembly elections I
am forced to admit that there could be some truth in the BJP's constant
complaint that the media is biased.
The three leading ladies, in my
view, were Sonia Gandhi, Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharti. And, it is interesting
to observe how differently they were treated. We who come from the plebian
world of hackdom have a natural aversion to princes and princesses so Vasundhara
Raje was sneered at openly for things that should be in the realm of her
private rather than public life. Her chiffon saris evoked critical comment,
as did her angrezi-speaking and in the most insidious way several newspaper
articles spoke of her having the disadvantage of being an ''outsider''
in Rajasthan. She rose to this one, pointing out that Madhya Pradesh was
a lot closer to Rajasthan than Italy but the outsider charge continued
to be hurled around.
Uma Bharti fared not much better.
Us hacks are liberal and leftist by nature so she has been a figure of
hate since the days when the Babri Masjid was demolished. Whether she actually
said ek dhaka aur do or not it became accepted wisdom that she did and,
in any case, everyone saw the grin on her face as she hugged Murli Manohar
Joshi.
Inevitably, when it was announced
that she would be the BJP candidate for Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
she came under instant attack. She was sneered at for being a sanyasin,
for being a novice, for her religious beliefs and just about everything
else. Memories of the Babri Masjid demolition have been routinely evoked
and even though she raised some solid issues during the campaign she was
generally treated with disdain and portrayed as being on the fringe of
religious lunacy.
Fine. Us hacks we like to be sneery
and disdainful and if we had kept the same tone with Sonia there would
be no question of bias but for her we adopted an approach that can best
be described as reverential. She is as much a memsahib as Vasundhara (without
the excuse of being a Maharani) and yet nobody mentioned her Italian shoes
or her expensive clothes. She is an outsider in the real sense but nobody
mentioned this either and as for being a novice its hard to think how Uma
- who has been a minister in the Central government - can be described
as more of a novice than Sonia who has no administrative experience whatsoever
unless one counts running Indira Gandhi's household. But, the reverence
came out most clearly in the assiduousness with which every comment she
made was reported on front pages.
Even when she tossed about unsubstantiated
charges of corruption they were reported without a single question being
asked. If this is not bias what is it?
Venkaiah's words came back to haunt
me last week for another reason as well. I happened to be in the lobby
of the Taj Palace hotel when a group of noisy, rent-a- crowd type protesters
marched in bearing placards and shouting slogans against Narendra Modi.
They were protesting his presence at the World Economic Forum's India summit
where he had been invited to make a pitch for Gujarat.
Now, I am no fan of Mr Modi and
have attacked him often in this column for allowing the violence after
Godhra to get out of control. But, he is the democratically elected chief
minister of Gujarat and has every right to seek investment for his state.
Yet, it was not just the protesters who thought he should be denied this
right but several businessmen at the summit as well. When asked to explain
why they said it was because he had allowed Muslims to be massacred. This
is valid, what puzzles me is why nobody condemned Rajiv Gandhi to permanent
villainy after he allowed more than 3000 Sikhs to be massacred in Delhi
in 1984 and then justified the bloodshed. When a big tree falls, the Earth
shakes. Remember?
Biased reporting is bad at all times
but becomes a serious nuisance at election time so Vasundhara and Uma have
found themselves fighting two battles simultaneously - one against the
opposition and the other against the media. This happened, please remember,
in Gujarat as well and worked to Modi's advantage. Who knows what will
happen this time, what worries me now that I have written this piece is
that once more I will find myself labeled a ''BJP journalist'' and condemned.
It has happened before and will probably happen again but I find it hard
to be politically correct particularly when political correctness amounts
to dishonesty.
Write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com