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Opinion
Everybody Loves a Trust Vote
by Chitra Padmanabhan
I have a
confession to make. As the recent debate on the trust vote sought by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Indo-US nuclear deal neared its
climax and news channels dizzyingly zoomed in on the display board that
would announce the results, I caught myself wondering how many runs the
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government would score against the
opposition.
Runs? Dash it, this was a trust vote! So why watch it like an IPL match
or a reality show?
I soon got an answer to that question. Trust vote over, Hindi news
channels stepped up the entertainment quotient of the event. A popular
song "Singh is King, Singh is King" played in the background as Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh gave a thumbs up sign which looked curiously
like the hardy native sign of 'thenga', usually signaling to the
opponent, "You lost, take that". Repetition was the order of the day.
Other channels started a 'rate the debate' contest, inviting viewers to
SMS their order of five speeches chosen by the channels: vox populi as a
revenue model. In newsrooms journalists debated if Lalu Prasad's speech
had matched the TRP ratings of an IPL match.
I wasn't so off the mark treating the news coverage of the trust vote
debate as entertainment. Not that the Lok Sabha TV channel which was
broadcasting the proceedings live was indulging in any histrionics; it
was a straightforward telecast of a significant debate to decide whether
the elected representatives of the Lok Sabha reposed trust in the
Congress-led UPA government and the nuclear deal it had signed with the
US government.
Except, a trust vote in the age of 24-hour news channels is different.
Everything must seem to be entertaining, dramatic and sensational. Thus
every moment, every movement, every diversion, every involuntary action
holds out immense promise for being exploited.
For viewers, TV brings the world into the drawing room but makes it
equally distant for them - they watch frames they are not part of, in a
space with many distractions. Thus the channels' formula of packaging
news as entertainment to tackle the viewers' distraction with their own
distractions to ride the TRP wave -- much like a radio channel's ad
which has a man in a manhole singing like a lark. 'Because, those who
listen to the channel are always happy...'
Our news channels have perfected the art of extracting the surface
excitement of an event and delivering it as a pure adrenalin rush. The
core context often stands isolated because it requires delving into. And
that is not suited to the style of creating a flurry of images, which
contribute to the excitement.
Nothing exemplifies this more than the dramatic episode of the three MPs
raining wads of rupee notes totaling one crore (Rs.10 million) on the
central table of the Lok Sabha as proof that they had been bribed to
vote in favor of the government.
High noon in the evening! Though news channels led with somber headlines
about it being the worst day for Indian democracy when the dignity of
the House was compromised, the zest and frequency with which shots of
the cash kept getting repeated made it clear that sheer fascination for
the visual magnitude of all the money had won the day.
That instant when the wads of currency were released from the bag into
full view virtually assumed the status of a revelatory moment. Money
speaks in a forked tongue all right.
An expert commentator on TV jokingly (we hope!) said he wished he had
some of that money. My neighbor got caught up in serious calculations -
"Wouldn't one crore need a gunny sack at least? Those bags looked so
small."
In the evening, as television announcers continued to dolefully announce
a black day for Indian democracy with a feverish gleam in their eyes,
the stock market revived, much like that ICU patient, the UPA
government, as described by the leader of the opposition, L.K. Advani.
The stock market revived due to the fall in oil prices but also, we were
told, due to Manmohan Singh winning the trust vote. Corporate India
perked up enough on screen to hope that reforms would be implemented
fast.
News channels and newspapers (the following day) debated if the chic
western attire of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was present during her
brother Rahul's speech in the Lok Sabha, signaled the arrival of new,
globalised India.
Did someone say something about a black day for Indian democracy? It's
clear that everybody loves a good trust vote.
(Chitra Padmanabhan is a Delhi based journalist. She can be reached at
chitrapadmanabhan@yahoo.co.in)
July 26, 2008
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