Hamid Ansari, Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, made a failed
attempt yesterday at getting the opposition parties to let the house function. He
suggested that those members who disrupted the House would be debarred from
entering the House. If this was done, the entire BJP (and several other
parties) would keep getting debarred all the time. Why would they agree to such
a move? Why would they want their members debarred? Besides, a house that
doesn’t function is good for the opposition because it stops the Government
from achieving its agenda. A Government that fails in its agenda can be
expected to fail at the hustings as well. It works to the opposition’s
advantage if the Houses don’t function. Hamid Ansari can still succeed in his
efforts – if he just realized one more truth about our Parliamentarians.
The truth is that there is another reason why opposition MPs
disrupt the Houses so often. It is the presence of the TV cameras mounted inside
the houses which serve absolutely no purpose, except allowing opposition MPs to
grandstand. And we know just how much our politicians love TV cameras! Take
them out, and there is no motivation left for them to disrupt the House. No
longer will they be able to impress anyone (their “following”???) with their
“ideological blockage” of Parliament. Equally, no longer will they be worried
that their chief opponent will be able to do so too. This will ensure that
Parliament functions.
I think I read this wonderful post on Facebook or twitter (am
unable to trace it) or in the papers yesterday. “In the earlier days, OB vans and TV cameras would rush to the site of a
protest event. Now, protesters rush to where the OB vans and cameras are”!
This pretty much sums up the reality of the situation. Since our politicians
are a mere reflection of society, they are driven by the same urge that drives
the protesters (or at least the leaders of those protests) outside.
What good are those cameras doing anyways? I doubt if anyone
– anyone at all – watches those two channels. I don’t have TRP data readily
available, but I can bet my last buck that no one watches them. Except of
course for political activists, political enthusiasts, political
rabble-rousers, the Parliamentarians themselves and of course, the political
journalists. It’s the political journalists that I am most worried about. They
“amplify” what happens inside the Houses (and I like I said, no one has watched
those proceedings yet), and bring those images to millions of people. The fact
is that both the LS TV and RS TV are catering largely to the outside media.
They are like pipelines from inside the Houses to the outside world.
If this is supposed to be an exercise in furtherance of our
democracy, and to satisfy the needs and rights of society to know what happens
inside our “temples of democracy”, then like I said, it’s already failed. No
one is watching these channels. The Government has merely become a vendor of TV
footage, lapped up by private channels for free. And what do these private
channels do with the footage? Trained and focused on “increasing TRPs”, they cleverly
edit the footage, and use only those sensationalized portions that can be
played and re-played a thousand times to attrack viewers who have at least a
modicum of interest in political affairs. It’s true. Most Indian news TV
channels have learnt from Ekta Kapoor – repeating the same footage ad nauseum
with sound effects to boot! None of these TV journalists has any interest in
the truth, or in showing the (usually less sensational) entire footage. Losing
the context is the whole purpose of editing. Taking a sound byte out of context
is what adds the juice. Editing is the core value addition they bring to the
footage they get. That’s the creativity in the news business!
Want evidence that our Houses would work better without
cameras? Well, just compare how the Houses work (full of disruptions) with the
Standing Committees (shorn of the glamour provided by TV cameras). In most
cases, Standing Committees meet regularly and work without disruptions. Members
of all parties add value, un-afraid of taking positions that they believe in
rather than those they are forced to take in public. For example, the BJP was
forced to support Anna’s demands for a Lokpal Bill which would include within
it, the provisions for Lok Ayuktas as well. That was for public consumption.
But inside the Standing Committees, the BJP demanded that the Lok Ayuktas be
left out of the Lokpal Act. Now imagine if the Standing Committees also had
been covered by TV cameras; would the BJP have allowed any such discussion to
happen at all? Remember also, that a logjam helps the opposition. What would be
the motivation for the BJP to try and find a resolution to the contentious
points?
Want evidence that the LS and RS TV channels cater largely
to only a few “activist” variety? Ask who were the most prolific demanders of
TV broadcasts of their meetings and discussions with the Government? Yes, Team
Anna. For Team Anna, TV cameras were the fuel on which their movement ran. See
the disarray the movement finds itself in (in fact, I don’t even know if it
exists any longer. Where is Anna?) now that media has moved away onto other
more juicy things? Team Anna anyways took a hardline stand on all issues.
Imagine, if the TV cameras had been there, what would have happened? They would
probably have converted the proceedings into the daily 9pm farce (they call it debates
don’t they?!) that have become the biggest identity of the Indian TV news
industry!
The real truth is that House disruptions are entirely
on account of grandstanding. Take that opportunity away and the opposition
leaders will settle down. It’s not about throttling their voice….but their
voice should be heard more inside than outside. All MPs want to become
celebrities. Take that opportunity away and they will be forced to “serve”
rather than grandstand!
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