Faultlines in the Fourth Pillar

“Punjab Farmers seal the Singhu Border.” “Save the Farmer.” “Repeal the Black Laws.” I was taken aback, seeing the headlines and the slogans, and the sheer scale of protests. But most striking was the composition of the protesters. Protests from this section of society were the least expected. Also was I disturbed to see people, who harbour sympathy for farmers, accuse the government of targeting the farmer.

Why I say so is because one does not expect a beneficiary to oppose his benefactor. The new farm laws are largely pro-farmer. Moreover, they are not limited to being pro-business but extend to being pro-market (which means that they lay the foundation for an ecosystem which not only benefits the incumbent businesses but provides fair opportunities for startups or new businesses to come up with innovative market solutions).

Here, one might be tempted to discuss the nitty-gritty details and raise concerns about the dispute resolution mechanism, the fears around the fate of the APMC Mandis (lest they face financial crunch because of being bypassed), the flaws in the existing MSP regime and how they lead to monoculture (which comes at ecological costs) and subsequently nutritional imbalance, etc. But let’s resist that temptation for now. By and large, the laws are good first steps for the greater good, benefiting especially the small farmers.

Again going back to the initial pondering, if the laws are pro-farmer then why are farmers protesting against these laws? Some people argue that the government should have undertaken pilot tests before moving ahead. However, they forget that since agriculture is more of a state subject, some states have already experimented with these reforms and achieved mixed results. (Maize is a roaring success story in Bihar whereas Maharashtra wasn’t much affected). Some people, on the other hand, say that the crisis is the result of bulldozing the bill in Parliament. While this is partly true, it misses the fact that most political parties ( including the main opposition party and even the communists! ) were in favour of the reforms. Bringing these very reforms have been a part of their election manifestos. Farmer unions had also been pressing for the same. And now, instead of negotiating for a point by point discussion and amendments based on merit, demanding a blatant ‘lock-stock and barrel’ repeal of the laws is indeed confounding. While it is difficult to imagine a healthy democracy without dissent, the nature of these protests cues the presence of vested interests leveraging a vast information deficit prevailing among the masses. And who is responsible for this information deficit? An irresponsible mainstream TV media. The crisis could have been easily averted, had the media covered the relevant stories, facts and discussions on time.

And not only this political crisis, but almost all major crises, riots and violence are results of information deficit or even worse — misinformation propaganda. When finance minister indicated easing of agri-regulations or when ordinances regarding these bills were passed, mainstream news channels were the least interested in airing policy debates or even laying bare facts about the same. All they were indulged in was an idiotic coverage of the death of a celebrity, and some particular Bollywood actors being consumers of drugs. What good it is, peeking into the personal life of a particular actor? Agreed, that narcotics is a serious issue, but did they dwell into how cartels operate? Who are the big wigs there? What are the laws around narcotics? Rehabilitation of the drug addicts? NO. All they were interested in was to blatantly breach into the privacy of an individual and bring about some gossips. How do you say yourself to be a news channel when all your deeds be that of a characteristic tabloid? They are forced to run the news today because the scale of protests has reached alarming levels. Other important issues are still sidelined. Moreover, most of the policy debates are limited to being political debates. The true stakeholders and experts in the subject are rarely given a fair opportunity to speak. Not to forget the sheer toxicity of the debates. A congress spokesperson even died due to stroke after participating in a heated TV debate.

Since a long time, the last thing I expect to be aired on a mainstream TV news channel is relevant news. (Save for Rajya Sabha TV, it’s an island of excellence in an ocean of stupidity and malevolence.) A friend of mine jested “For updates and recent developments I look up to Meme Pages and for watching memes I turn on news channels”. Some pages on social media do provide relevant news. However, the caveat here is that before sharing such information, the veracity of news is seldom determined. Thus social media is a hospitable breeding ground for fake news. Some miscreants deliberately share fake news. Intermediary platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. need to put in place innovative algorithms to put in check the spread of fake news. It gets all the more difficult for WhatsApp to handle fake news, given it provides end to end encryption.

Coming back to mainstream TV news, it is broke and needs to be fixed. One might rightly lament “One gets what one deserves”. TV channels show sensational news because there are people, and a significant number of them, who are its takers. TV channels are very powerful. They determine what narratives to run. They shape the thinking of society. They determine who occupies positions of power. The power equation has a vice versa effect. Historically and globally, it has been rhetoric — People holding positions of power are incentivised to manipulate the media, to either run propaganda in praises of the incumbent or divert the attention of the general public to petty issues. On the other hand, there are also some media houses, who run news with a heavy bias and shower highly scathing criticism not only on the government but apparently also on the Indian culture, as if an anomaly isn’t an anomaly but an essential and integral part of the “Indian way of life”. It is no secret that many NGOs, under the garbs of working for human rights, are involved in illegal activities and receive foreign funding to achieve ulterior motives. So can be the case with the media houses with a set agenda.

To protect the media from the undue large influence of a single funding source, authorities should toy with the idea of setting up regulations for funding of media houses, like in the case of banks. I agree that expecting such suo motu action by authorities is wishful thinking. Quality TV journalism is still possible, even if the ultimate aim is to make profits. All that they need to do is to inculcate a sense of responsibility, and approach journalism creatively. Brainstorming can be done as to how to produce quality content which is, at the same time, engaging to the general public. Storytelling is a powerful tool. Fables and anecdotes can be used to present complex issues with simplicity and in an engaging manner. To bring out the intensity and importance of apparently abstract issues, creative visual illustrations can be used. Media houses might need to run different channels which target different sets of audiences to serve the relevant content in a best-suited manner. This practice is already in place for delivering business-suited news. Agreed that this might mean incurring greater costs, but it does have the potential to generate increased revenues while engaging in meaningful value addition all along.

Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said Democracy to be “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. And every bona fide democracy has an underlying assumption that “the people” are well informed and behave rationally to elect their representatives and then meticulously question their functioning. However, in a realistic scenario, this assumption turns out to be faulty. Corrupt politicians rise to power riding on uninformed and misinformed voters. Thus, media — the fourth pillar of democracy needs to be fixed soon so that it also keeps a vigil of the other three.