Media should declare its business & political interests: Arvind Kejriwal

By Bodhi Shri

Anna Hazare’s historic fast accompanied with mass protest at Ramlila Maidan last year demanding Jan Lokpal as a sure recipe to stem all-pervading corruption in the country and a recent flash protest at India Gate after the Delhi gang-rape case in a moving bus, are two apt Indian examples to illustrate how social media can be used to build and sustain a five star movement. Only condition is that it should be complemented by main stream media especially the 24x7 TV making the protesting mob spectacle sensational. 

Founder of Aam Admi Party Arvind Kejriwal (4th from the left) regaled students of journalism by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians of India. He urged youth to not hate politics, but join it to change India.

The combined blistering heat of social media and TV was earlier felt by despots of the Middle East during the spring revolution it had created. The outcome was a few despots got dethroned. Arvind Kejriwal, a trusted former associate of Anna Hazare, is now experimenting with building a political outfit ‘Aam Admi Party’ to take on the corrupt Indian political system with the help of social media.  He is a craze among students these days.

It was a day of delight and positive stimulus for the students pursuing their 3-year BJMC course at the BLS Institute of Technology Management (Bahadurgarh, Haryana, when they got Kejriwal as the chief guest for their panel discussion on ‘Media as a Catalyst of Society’ on 21 February.  They found him a great regaler who kept them bursting into laughter by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians. At the outset he established his brand-equity by declaring he was an aam adami (common man) like any one of them or anyone in India.

What oppressed the countrymen most, he asked and gave the consensual answer--the corrupt politics, which is controlled by none other, but ‘your’ elected representatives.  He gave statistics of how many of them were facing heinous criminal charges in the courts of law. The highest law making body the Parliament, whose lower house Lok Sabha has 14 members facing charges of murder and 13 other charges of kidnapping. Seeing all this the youth today says—I hate politics. ‘No, this is wrong decision, you should not think like this. You need to participate in politics to change its character.’

Media should declare political and business interests

Sushil Aggarwal, chairman of BLS Education Society (Right) 

He qualified his praise for media as a roller coaster supporter of people’s cause, but most other times it remained blindfolded to the stark reality. He complimented media for taking Anna’s stir to every home, also the issue of women safety in Delhi. By doing so it proved it was with the people. It proved that it can act as catalyst. Even during the emergency in mid seventies it wasn’t neutral, and sided with people. But in general we find today a competition of sensationalism going on among media. Media covered an event only till it had some sensational value. He raised a pertinent question why certain media present certain things in a certain manner. ‘To maintain credibility, the biggest asset of any media, it should declare its business and political interests like how much share the FDI or the Big Business hold in its equity? People should know this. Why there should not be transparency in that.’   

Kejriwal limited his comments to the mainstream media and ignored fast emerging social media that poses a new challenge to the established one. Other panelists, viz. Vinod Varshney Editor of Lokayat, Dhiranjan Malvey OSD in Prasar Bharti, Vinod Arora, Chief Operational Officer of the ministry of information and broadcasting and Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar, together built up a comprehensive picture of the media, including social media.

Dhiranjan explained the economic compulsions of media how without Rs 500 crore one cannot start and run a TV channel successfully with national footprints. He posed a question how anybody can expect media to act as a catalyst when the first worry of the owners remained to see their investment is not sunk. ‘This is a reality that private channels care more for their bottom-line.’ However, the internet media can afford to be free if it wants, as at least there are no such business compulsions involved in running it. Luckily, social media has also started attracting advertisements in good volumes, sometimes more than the conventional media, he informed.

FDI in media changed its character

Vinod Varshney emphasised that the character of Indian media got changed drastically since the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) was allowed in media. He gave inkling of the times when the debate was raging whether to allow FDI or not in media. Many argued against allowing this as it would ruin the culture and value system of the country and media would become an agent to promote the western values, political and business interests. But a section, desperate as it was, not being able to compete with the monopoly national media, pressed for it. And now see the result--media is getting more and more attuned to western concerns, interests and values. 

It is promoting a consumerist culture which serves the business interests of the companies who produce related goods and services. To hook the rest of India fake sensationalism is offered. The media thus lately is becoming more and more damaging to the desirable values of liberalism, social welfare and concerns of masses.

Big corporate advertisers have over-controlled the media and as such the media does not remain a catalyst for the positive development of the society. This apart, the poor working conditions, including job security, is also taking its toll on the Indian media. The control of the editor on the editorial policy and content is now thing of the past. It is the business boss who decides what is good for the company as every quarter it looks forward to declaring growth in profits if it is a stock exchange listed company.  

Consumerist culture is being propagated to the loss of inclusive human culture which alone can cater to the general development and welfare of the society. He slammed journalist fraternity for not caring to go deeper into issues and develop sound understanding of them. Alibi that people want sensational stuff so only that should be offered, has become the rule. He urged the students to develop rational thinking and scientific outlook so that they can bust myths and not swayed by propaganda of various interest groups.

He termed social media more dynamic and more democratic, however many say that large part of it is propagandist. This media is being used mainly by various interest groups.

Vinod Arora gave a detailed history of how media developed and grew. Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar told from his personal experience how difficult it was to get revealing stories published if they go against the business interests of the owners. Students of journalism may remain idealist till they are in the class room, but the missionary zeal gets evaporated soon once they join a media organisation as they have to invest all their energy to protect their jobs.

India Needs Millions Like Him

Jagdish Charan Varshney who believed in Karma

By Vinod Varshney

No need to always look for great men and women from history to seek inspiration. There are always a few living examples around us whose lives, behaviour and ideals are worth emulating. We only need to keep our eyes open and mind receptive. When I look back to the days when I was a teenager I find there were indeed a few people whose life secretly inspired me at a crucial formative age by their remarkable strength of character, tenacity of purpose, courage of conviction and scholarship.

One such mundane soul was Jagdish Charan Varshney, who used to live at a distance of some 300 meters from our home. My father had a tendency of telling about people who had some remarkable achievements in any field as an example for us to follow. His range used to be very wide---from national heroes to the people at the next door. 

He mentioned several times how Jagdish Charan Varshney belonged to a very small village Khera bereft of any educational facilities, yet by his sheer hard work and perseverance he became a lecturer in Shree Varshney College, Aligarh. It will not be out of place to tell that my father Late Jai Narain Varshney was the first member of the community in Aligarh district to earn an M Sc degree and one of the four founders of Shri Varshney College and a freedom fighter who remained behind the bars during British period for his activities in the national freedom movement. He temperamentally had great affection for young folks who were pursuing higher education. 

Jagdish Charan hailed from a family of modest means in an extremely backward rural area in district Etah. He must definitely have been inspired by some people in the society that triggered a fascination in him for education. This is evident the way he continued to improve his educational qualification even while earning by giving personal tuition to students to meet expenditure of his own education. 

To give a sense of that period I must tell when the country acquired independence, Jagdish Charan was a lad of 13 years and educational facilities even up to high school were not available in most villages of the country, including his own village Khera near Vasundhara of Etah district. Average literacy rate in the country was just 12 percent, it must have been much less in UP. Barahseni Mahasabha, like many other community organisations, began efforts to start its own educational institutes by collecting donations to meet growing educational needs of the youth in the society. 

Leaders of the Varshney community during that period had campaigned vigorously to motivate youths to acquire higher education.  If Varshney community today has a better percentage of  people with higher education than other communities of the area, the credit must  go to the foresight and efforts of social leaders  of that time.  Jagdish Charan can be seen as one of just few hundred young men in the Varshney community who during those days went out of their villages to seek education.  Even to seek High School level education he had to go to Hathras, a city known to be more prosperous than Aligarh during that time. It may be difficult for the present youths to comprehend the arduous journey the  older generations had to undertake even to see the gate of a college, much less a university. Today even remote villages sport English medium schools.  

So even as he took up a teaching job in a small school to earn some money,  he chose to do his B Com as a private student from Agra University. Realising the need to improve his employability, simultaneously he pursued LT course (Licentiate in Teaching)-- equivalent to B Ed today. Later, while he was still a teacher at the Inter College at Bakewar (Etawah), he acquired M Com degree also from Agra University (now called Bhimrao Ambedkar University).  He got first division in M Com, a laudable achievement, considering the conditions in which he slogged then. 

But he was rewarded handsomely for all his pains. At the age of 27 he landed a lectureship in Shri Varshney College to teach graduate students. During his long tenure in the department of commerce in the college he earned universal respect from students and colleagues alike for his penchant to put across difficult concepts  of commerce in easily absorbable form and to make learning of prosaic subjects like accounting a great deal interesting. 

Jagdish Charan was blessed with five daughters and two sons, and for each one of them he wanted to ensure good education. But, for an honest person like him there was no other way to generate resources than by devoting his leisure time to give tuitions to weak but aspiring students. So when he was offered a chance to become the head & professor of the commerce department of the college, he refused it on the ground that he wanted to continue with tuitions as a necessity without which he would be unable to meet his familial obligations. 

He retired from the post of Reader in 1994, but students continued to throng his residence for guidance and personal coaching.  Looking around Aligarh today, one can easily find hundreds of CAs who have benefited from his unusual gift of commitment to teaching. He wrote two books---‘Cost Accounting for B.Com’ and ‘Advanced Accounting for B.Com’.  

He was a man of firm political views and as disenchanted with the present ‘loot and grab’ political system as any sensible person of the country. Clarity of opinion and its sharp articulation was his quality. But he had no inclination or time to get involved in any political work. 

This posed a challenge before him to continue his highly work-packed life. But his disciplined life style--going for a long walk in the morning, doing exercises including Yoga and taking meals at the appointed time helped him continue his vigourous routine till the last day when he was only eight days short of 80 years.

On the extremely chilly Christmas morning of 2012 he succumbed  to hypothermia when he went out for a brisk walk as usual and  to procure milk  for the family-- an unfailing routine— from a buffalo-owner in Pala village on the outskirts of Aligarh city.  His students came as usual at 8.30 am for tuition only to be told that he was no more.

His story needs to be told as it is because of people like him that the society in spite of all around degradation still retains some strength of character. He showed by his own life that even with modest beginnings through perseverance one can do reasonably well and acquire all material comforts which a decent middle class life style may aspire. In these days of corruption seeped deep in the social fabric of the country, ideals of discipline, study, hard work and honesty needs to told repeatedly and followed by everybody. 

If each and every individual follows these norms of conduct then the society would definitely improve. If I could also do reasonably well and became national chief of news bureau of Hindustan and later editor of a monthly magazine Lokayat in spite of having a lowly beginning, much credit goes to people like Jagdish Charan Varshney whose lives were the nearest examples to follow in hard times.

Lessons from 1962 humiliation

By Vinod Varshney

While the nation has, for the first time, honoured its heroes who sacrificed their lives for their motherland in the  war with China 50 years ago, the Government  of India is still fighting shy of  publishing the Brooks-Bhagat report on the humiliating defeat. The countrymen have a right to know what exactly went wrong, who should be held accountable for the shame and what lessons, if any, the government, the defence brass and strategic experts have learnt.  

 It was certainly a stab in the back by China. Blinded by idealistic myopia, then prime minister Nehru never suspected that the ‘friendly’ China would have expansionist designs and unleash a full-scale war on India.  So, while we ignored the warning reports Beijing was fine-tuning its strategic agenda.  It found the Cubanmissile crisis of 1962, when the Soviet and US nuclear armadas were facing eyeball to eyeball in the Caribbean, an opportune moment to assault an unprepared and unprotected India. China calculated that the US would not care to rush help to India while itself was in a critical  face off with the Soviet Union.

China was absolutely right. When an emotionally shaken Nehru pleaded with President John F Kennedy for urgent dispatch of bombers and other urgent military stores, he tactfully dragged his feet. Thus the second lesson we learnt was, we should not put all our eggs in one basket. This bitter truth made Indira Gandhi to conclude a defence pact with the USSR which came handy subsequently during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. China and the USA did issue dire warnings to India--nothing more. 

The Himalayan debacle also taught India that irrespective of one’s desire for good neighbourly relations, as India and China had maintained for thousands of years, one cannot take anybody for granted forever. One has to continuously re-assess the political designs and philosophy of one’s neighbours correctly. And one should exercise vigil and match military preparedness to the changing threat perception. 

This axiom deserves reiteration today as the gap between military might of China and India since 1962 has widened. Our poor economic growth due to various political and systemic constraints could be blamed for this sorry state. However, while we struggle to go beyond a measly 6 percent growth rate China consistently maintains a rate of 10 percent -- for the last three decades! Today its economy is three times bigger!! 

Naturally this fabulous economic strength is reflected on its superior military might. For instance, China has put up an invincible array of offensive installations on the entire 4056- km Line of Actual Control-- five air bases, long-haul rail networks, 58,000 km of road-networks, ballistic missile and advanced fighter bases. Recently it did a high-end air and ground exercise on the border. Can India ignore all this despite its desire for peaceful co-existence with China, especially after its occupation of Aksai Chin and aggressive claims on Arunachal Pradesh?

One thing is sure: a future war would not be the ‘primitive’ type we witnessed in 1962; it would see deployment of nuclear arms and missiles and be immensely destructive. It would not be limited to land, air and sea either, but would extend to space and even cyber space! What will be the denouement of such a war? There will not be a single victor, but too many losers.  So…… 

China’s current leadership, the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao duo, understands the scenario: it wants no war. Let us hope its emerging leadership too will not be adventurist. All the same we cannot afford to be complacent or be caught off guard once again.