FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
Selma Carvalho
In America one can watch television for hours on end. Their format of turning real life events into entertainment has spawned a whole sphere of reality TV, a peek into a world which we are otherwise not part of, the depraved world of the criminal or the glamorous world of the rich and beautiful, all the better if they somehow coincide. Transforming news into entertainment where the focus is not on issues of government policy or holding people accountable, where the intent is only to get the best ratings, and pander to the lowest common denominator, is what eventually led to America electing a reality TV star as the president, no matter how unsuited for the job he is.
With the advent of Star TV in the 1990s, Indians at last encountered a format different to what, until then, the understated Doordarshan had offered. Since then Indian television has relentlessly pursued the American model where ratings or TRPs which measure market share of the audience is the defining parameter for what gets aired. This summer, the aggressive American format of reporting and the boredom that Covid-19 lockdown engendered, created a perfect storm of Indian media sensationalism.
The suicide of a promising but overshadowed actor, Sushant Singh Rajput led to an outpouring of grief as it sometimes happens when an unexpected event leads to a national catharsis. There was much soul-searching about how Bollywood’s nepotism and inherent narcissism made the industry tone-deaf to individual suffering. Somehow, within days, driven by Twitter rage, it was decided that Bollywood had to atone for its sins. But how could an entire industry be brought to justice? Febrile emotions were ripe for conspiracy theories to germinate, and they did—SSR did not die by suicide but was in fact murdered.
Not surprisingly a woman, SSR’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, was offered up as the sacrificial lamb to satiate the public. What could be more convenient to whet the public appetite than a young girl—the original virgin sacrifice. Nothing was deemed unscrupulous in the public shaming of Rhea. India’s media houses swung into action; no evidence was required, just the limitless imagination of TV anchors to spin tales, to concoct motives which ranged from having killed him for his money to having poisoned him with drugs. In this great circus tent, other willing agencies were co-opted—the police, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI pursued the case with all the zeal required for convicting mafia dons and serial murderers. Nothing was to be off limits. Her private text messages could be leaked to media houses to be aired publicly (no one was ever held accountable for these leaks) her finances trawled through, her home searched for drugs, her entire life turned to chaos. Despite the lack of evidence connecting her to SSR’s suicide, eventually she was charged on a laughable drug-related offence. The net then widened to include other Bollywood stars because a story losing steam had to be revived, and one way or another Bollywood, the golden industry, self-reliant, self-absorbed, and an individualist organism which doesn’t bow to the whims of the collective, still had to be taught a lesson.
The worst dictators and authoritarian governments in history have always swum splendidly in the sump of propaganda machinery they create and commandeer. In democracies, it’s difficult to co-opt the free media but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to infiltrate it. In America, Fox New is the channel of Conservative party propaganda. In India, equally, TV channels have sprung up which can distort news and distract the nation from the issues at hand to serve party interests. It’s appalling that while the nation is facing a pandemic, a devastated economy, and attacks on its geographical frontiers, even the nation’s top newspapers spent their time focusing on the SSR-Rhea case.
Bear in mind, the public that watches hours of coverage on a ridiculous case of trumped up allegations is the same uninformed public which shows up at the voting booth to elect the country’s leaders. How easy it is for political parties to link to some jingoistic rhetoric and turn that into votes at the polling station. The SSR-Rhea case was underpinned by tensions between Mumbai’s tenuous Shiv Sena coalition government and the always aspiring BJP waiting in the wings, its propaganda machinery in over-drive. There’s ample evidence that fake social media accounts were used by political parties to push conspiracy theories and heighten public emotions.
But if we disregard the role politics had to play in this debacle what does it say about the Indian collective consciousness which doesn’t feel remorse for their unabashed glee in hunting down a vulnerable girl, making her private life public, imprisoning her, destroying her life, and even when presented with evidence to the contrary, that Sushant Singh Rajput did indeed die by suicide, still insist that she should be made to pay. What does this bloodthirst say about Indians?
It’s true, whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad. We are undergoing a strange sort of madness in our times. The madness of believing everything we read on social media or worse still the madness of believing everything that confirms our own bias. It’s so easy to spread madness through WhatsApp forwards and Facebook posts, a madness that will destroy us all.
(The writer is the author of Goan Pioneers of East Africa)
