The BJP & Deepa Mehta's 'Water': Strife as Diversion and Design

26 February 2000
The Times of India

Saffron Herrings
Strife as Diversion and Design

By SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

VARANASI: In his seminal essay on the construction of communalism in colonial India, Gyan Pandey argues that colonialist writings made a distinction ``between the history of local society -- wild, chaotic, liable to unexpected explosions -- and the history of the state'', with the colonial state standing out in contrast to ``the primitive...character of the local society''. The discourse and apparatus of colonialist law and order was erected around the myth of the volatile, combustible Indian, so consumed by primordial religious passions that he could be relied upon to explode in rage at the slightest provocation.

At the same time, colonial administrators were keenly aware of the even greater threat the lack of religious animosity might pose. It was far more dangerous to allow Indian crowds to fraternise with one another on
the streets than to attack each other in their homes. Even as they expressed revulsion at the `excitability' of Hindus and Muslims, therefore, the British did all they could to foster divisions along religious lines. Riots were tolerated, if not encouraged, but any peaceful political or even cultural activity that threatened the
colonial order was always suppressed.

Law and Order

The first instance of a `communal' riot in Varanasi was in 1809. Though Hindus and Muslims allegedly slaughtered each other in large numbers, the riot is known to us only through what British administrators chose to record about it. As Pandey has shown, colonial documents from 1809-1810 put the numbers killed at no more than 30 and the site of the disturbance as Lat Bhairav, outside the city. Over the years -- as the
need to find evidence for the `ancient antagonism' between Hindus and Muslims increased -- the riot description became more fanciful. By 1909, the District Gazetteer was confidently asserting that ``several
hundred'' had been killed. The riot location was also conveniently shifted to the Gyanvapi mosque, site of the old Vishwanath temple and a more volatile -- and durable -- zone of contestation than the Lat Bhairav.

One hundred and one years later, when a mentally disturbed man egged on by the BJP and RSS rowed out to the middle of the Ganga and attempted suicide in order to stop the shooting of the film Water, he was merely
playing out a role that had already been scripted for him by British colonialism. But it was a chronicle of an attempted suicide foretold in more ways than one. The district magistrate had been warned in advance
and local photographers accompanied the would-be suicide at every step.

Even though the number of political activists protesting was no more than a handful, the DM sought refuge in the colonialist myth about the explosive, emotional Benarasi, and externed the film crew in the name
of law and order.

At an impromptu meeting in the Kabir Mutt, activists from various civic, political and cultural organisations -- Nari Ekta, Manavadhikar Jan Nigrani Samiti, Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Jansanskriti Manch and others -- linked the attack on Ms Mehta's freedom of expression to the greater aggressiveness of the sangh parivar in other spheres. The anti-Christian campaign in various areas; the UP chief minister's statements on Ayodhya; the UP Religious Places Act; BJP state governments allowing their employees to join the RSS, and Prime
Minister Vajpayee himself granting his benediction by describing the organisation as a `social and cultural' one. The latest example of this trend: the attempt by the HRD ministry and the ICHR to suppress the
publication of history books that expose the role of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha in the freedom struggle.

Strategic Interests

Apart from furthering the strategic interests of the sangh parivar, issues like Water or the constitutional review might also serve a more tactical purpose. Even as the nation at large was debating Ms Mehta's
film, the Vajpayee government sold off Modern Foods -- an asset- and land-rich public sector company worth several hundred crore -- to the multinational Hindustan Lever for a paltry Rs 106 crore. A number of
other privatisations are on the anvil, and while this is not the place to debate the wider question of the `second-wave of reforms', it is vital that valuable public assets not be sold off for a pittance in sweetheart deals. Unfortunately the Opposition, which rightly opposes the Vajpayee government on the RSS issue, has completely failed to nail the BJP on the undervaluation of PSUs. Of course, in its time, the Congress and UF governments did the same. But unless people speak out, Indian Petrochemicals Ltd, Indian Airlines, ITDC and other companies will all be sold for a song. Could it be that the Vajpayee government is deliberately embroiling the nation in divisive issues so as to push through another hidden agenda, that of crony capitalism?

The fomenting of strife by the RSS also helps the government in another way: It diverts attention from the failures of the BJP on the economic and social front. The party came to power making tall claims about
providing education, jobs, drinking water, sanitation and housing for the poor but hasn't the slightest intention of fulfilling any of its campaign promises. If anything, its economic policies will make life
harder for ordinary citizens. How convenient, then, to let them attack each other over cultural and religious issues. To let the thirsty fight over Water, not water.

Gyanvapi mosque

In Varanasi, one of the most pressing concerns is the state of the Ganges. At the point where the Varuna and the Ganga merge, the sacred river is black and huge methane bubbles constantly burst onto the surface. The fecal coliform level is more than 3,000 times the permissible level. Pandit Veerbhadra Mishra, mahant of Sankat Mochan and a tireless campaigner for a clean Ganga, says anyone worried about the culture of Varanasi should be most concerned about the quality of the river's water. ``The VHP says `This is pavitra Ganga jal, Brahmadhrav. How can Deepa Mehta call it water' but they are not in the least bit interested in cleaning the river. If pollution continues at this rate, the day is not far when people in Kashi will stop bathing in the Ganga. That will kill our culture. Not the making of some film''.

So irrational are the arguments of the sangh parivar that it is obvious the movement against Ms Mehta's film is a smokescreen for something else. In fact, RSS and BJP activists in the city openly say that their real target is not Water but the same Gyanvapi mosque mentioned in colonial records as the scene of fearsome riots. After the Babri masjid, this is the next `temple' that saffron hotheads would like to `liberate'. If the political economy of crony capitalism demands it, they might very well have their way. Even if ``several hundred'' had not been killed at the masjid in 1809, there is no reason why historical fiction cannot become future fact. The false colonial dichotomy between an unruly people and an orderly state can then once again be dissolved, with the state itself becoming the vehicle for chaos and disorder.

Irrational Exuberance: Sooner or later, the fundamentals will catch up on you

February 20, 2000

Sunday Times of India

Irrational Exuberance

The share bubble will burst

By Siddharth Varadarajan

When someone getting rich for free openly expresses surprise at the manner of his enrichment, the rest of us should sit up and take notice. As the price of his company's stock crossed the Rs 20,000 mark for the first time last week, N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys issued a press release with the following anodyne observation: ``There are no new corporate developments outside of the normal business activities that may impact trading''. In plain English, that means `I don't know why the %$%!@& our share price is rising'. And Infosys is not alone. Wipro has seen its market capitalisation rise by $25 billion in just 20 trading sessions to $40 billion (Rs 1,75,000 crore).

Powered by the bull run in infotech, the Sensex recently crossed the 6,000 level. No analyst has so far been able to offer a credible explanation of what's going on. Three years ago, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, used the phrase `irrational exuberance' to describe the altitudinal excesses of Wall Street. Economists usually use two indicators to determine whether current share prices are overvalued: the price-to-earnings ratio of stocks and the spread between the yield on bonds and shares. If the P/E ratio is too high or if bond yields exceed share yields by a factor of more than three to one, shares are considered overvalued and a downward correction is inevitable. Such a correction has been on the cards for some time now; the only element missing is a proximate trigger.

To be exuberant when the fundamentals of the corporate sector, not to speak of the economy, do not warrant such exuberance, is to be irrational. Sooner or later, the fundamentals will catch up with you. The share bubble will burst. Wall Street may be able to ride out a financial crisis because of the seignorage the US derives from the privileged position of the dollar. Other countries will not be so lucky. In India, those who make serious money from the buying and selling of shares have managed to retail the view that what's good for the Sensex is necessarily good for the economy too. That is why pressure is being put on the government to facilitate the bull run by diverting public savings into the markets. The cut in Provident Fund rates, the tax exemption to mutual funds and the proposal to allow PF monies to be invested in shares are all aimed at enhancing the buoyancy of the stock market, on the assumption that the economy will then grow at a faster rate. But the fact is that the stock market produces nothing and adds nothing to the productive potential of a country. It is no longer the dominant -- or even a significant -- source for corporate fund raising. The stock market is merely an arena where already existing value is redistributed.

Even initial public offerings are less about the infusion of fresh funds than about founding investors cashing in. Higher share prices may fuel what Keynes called `animal spirits' but at least in India and the US, the rising market index has not led to higher levels of capital formation. In India, there is an additional problem: trading on Indian markets is very thin and not particularly well regulated. This means a small number of large players are able to manipulate the market, generating volatility almost at will. This is precisely what is happening right now. The danger is that small investors will be drawn in to the market by the infotech hype and then left high and dry as the manipulators dump their overvalued stock and pull out. This is essentially what happened the last time the bubble burst. So if you are thinking of ripping open your mattress and putting in your life's savings on some sexy sounding IT stock, don't say I didn't warn you.

(Siddharth Varadarajan is Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India)

The Spectator on my argument with the CPJ over Nato's bombing of RTS, Belgrade

5 February 2000
The Spectator

When its OK to kill a hack

By Charles Glass

It’s official. Thirty-three journalists died violently in war zones last year. The figure — nine up on the year before — has just been released by the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists. Sierra Leone was the most dangerous destination in 1999: ten reporters were killed there last year. Next on the list was Serbia, where six reporters lost their lives; then came Colombia, with four deaths. The CPJ concludes, ‘We see a clear policy, particularly in Sierra Leone, Colombia and East Timor, of armed factions seeking to banish journalists in order to hide the truth.'

Two can play at hiding the truth. Siddharth Varadarajan, senior assistant editor of the Times of India, noticed that the CPJ had not included in its list the 16 journalists and support staff killed by Nato’s bombing of the RTS (Radio-Television Serbia) studios in Belgrade in April last year. Varadarajan emailed the CPJ to get an explanation for this ‘glaring’ omission. Judy Blank, communications director of the committee, replied that the 16 had been deliberately left off the list. She said that the CPJ condemned the attack on the RTS studios as a threat to all journalists covering the Yugoslavia conflict, but shared Nato’s view that RTS was a medium not of information but of propaganda. Therefore, its staff did not qualify as journalists under the committee’s ‘extremely broad definition’.

On 8 April 1999 Air Commodore David Wilby explained Nato’s position to Western correspondents: ‘Serb radio is an instrument of propaganda and repression. It has filled the airwaves with hate and lies over the years, and especially now. It is therefore a legitimate target in this campaign.’ (If lying were a capital crime, few journalists, politicians or military spokesmen anywhere would survive.) Nato’s Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark, shared Wilby’s view, calling RTS ‘an instrument of propaganda and repression of the Milosevic government’. It is unlikely that either Wilby or Clark understands a word of Serbo-Croat or has watched any RTS programmes, but let us concede that there must have been an element of anti-Nato propaganda in RTS broadcasts. It would have been odd indeed if the journalists at the station had not been hostile to a military alliance that was threatening to bomb their country unless their leader signed an accord to permit the alliance’s troops to occupy it. There is only so much ‘balance’ one can expect from anyone. How many Nato journalists were pro-Milosevic?

Nato bombed the television station on 21 April, killing the 16 Yugoslavs. Yet not one of the Western correspondents, producers and technicians who had been using the RTS satellite-transmission facilities was so much as scratched. The Pentagon and other ministries of defence had warned the Western television companies to tell their people in Belgrade to stay away. No one told the Yugoslavs, who Nato and the CPJ insist were not worthy of the title journalist’. (The Pentagon began giving advance notice of its bombings in 1985, when it told us American hacks in Tripoli to prepare ourselves for a raid that night. It was not concern for our safety so much as a desire that we should all be awake to go live with eyewitness accounts of a nighttime son et lumiere show that left 40 or more Libyan civilians dead. It was, the reviewers agreed, great television.)

Nato’s novel doctrine that a propaganda medium is a legitimate military target takes war into new realms. What about art galleries that display propaganda posters? Or cinemas playing propaganda films? Or music halls playing patriotic music? Streetcorner orators singing the praises of the dictator? Writers in libraries penning anti-Nato diatribes to be circulated samizdat-fashion from hand to hand? Legitimate targets all?

In her email reply to Siddharth Varadarajan, Judy Blank justified the CPJ’s definition of the RTS personnel as non-journalists in this way: ‘We defend all journalists regardless of the views they express. But our independent analysis of what was broadcast on RTS, particularly prior to the Nato bombing campaign, leads us to the conclusion that by any definition it would not be considered journalism.’ Varadarajan said he found her rationale ‘unconvincing and highly disconcerting’. He thought it dangerous for the CPJ to decide ‘what is or is not journalism. Many Yugoslavs believe that what CNN dished out during the war was pure propaganda. But that would not have justified any of them beating up or killing a CNN journalist.’ (Quite right. I’ve become a part-time CNN journalist myself, and I hate it when Serbs beat me up.) Moscow, too, has strong feelings about when a journalist is not a journalist. As Varadarajan pointed out, ‘The Russians don’t believe Chechen journalists are journalists but terrorist bandits.'

Interestingly, the CPJ report recognised that the three Chinese who died in the Nato bombardment of their embassy on 8 May were journalists. If the CPJ thinks RTS is a propaganda institution, its officials should read the Guangming Daily. Or let Nato read it. Judy Blank’s last email to Varadarajan promised a full report on the RTS bombing, and added, ‘For me to try to go into these issues now, before the report is complete, would, I fear, be to give them short shrift. Please understand that CPJ wrestled long and hard with the situation.'

When the committee was established in 1981, its goal was to ‘monitor abuses against the press and promote press freedom around the world’. One of its first achievements was to assist in the release of three British journalists, Ian Mather, Tony Prime and Simon Winchester, from detention in Argentina during the Falklands war in 1982. The Committee has area specialists, much like Amnesty International, who watch for suppression of the press around the world, except in the United States. Press freedom is apparently so secure in the CPJ homeland that America, uniquely, does not need a committee to protect journalists. One of the proud boasts in CPJ literature is that it ‘accepts no government funding’. Governments are the enemies of a free press. Governments arrest and torture journalists. Governments close newspapers. Governments censor television news reports. Corporations, from which the CPJ does solicit funds, apparently do not. On its board are employees of the major American media companies, some of them owned by larger conglomerates with interests well outside the news business.

CPJ accepts funds from the networks, including Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News which in December 1997 fired two television journalists, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. Akre and Wilson are suing Fox’s Tampa station, Channel 13 WTVT, for dismissing them when they sought to inform the Federal Communications Commission what the station was doing about a report they had prepared on synthetic hormones in Florida’s milk supply. According to the two journalists, Fox 13 did not want to be seen killing the story. ‘Instead,’ they explained in a legal complaint, ‘we were repeatedly ordered to go forward and broadcast demonstrably inaccurate and dishone~st versions of the story. We were given those instructions after some very high-level corporate lobbying by Monsanto [the powerful drug company that makes the hormone] and also, we believe, by members of Florida’s dairy and grocery industries.'

The December issue of the Communicator, the magazine of the Radio and Television News Directors’ Association (RTNDA) in the USA, reports that corporate propaganda increasingly masquerades as news. WDSI Television in Chattanooga, Tennessee, announced it would run positive news pieces about any company that paid it $15,000. Ivanhoe Broadcast News prepares medical news ‘reports’ that are broadcast as television news to publicise its clients private hospitals that choose stories and provide employees as pundits. One local newsreader, Carol Martin of WMAQ in Chicago, was suspended from her job when she refused to do voice-overs for pieces favourable to advertisers. When the RTNDA polled 1,007 American television viewers in 1998, 84 per cent believed that advertisers influenced news content. A former Cincinnati news director, Stuart Zanger, told the Communicator, inside the TV stations is a desperation I’ve never seen before.’ He said that shareholders seeking a 35 per cent return on their investment were ‘holding you to the same standards as an Exxon or Microsoft. They don’t care that one of your principles is to uphold democracy.'

Upholding democracy sounds like a propaganda aim — unlike making money, which is what journalism must be for.