Tripping on TRPs

Elections are cathartic moments in the life of a democracy, a time for a new beginning, a new order and a new way of doing things. This is not necessarily meant in any elevated and philosophical sense. It could be expressed in everyday and mundane terms. A new Prime Minister may have a very different manner of receiving briefings from his civil servants. A new government may have very different priorities from its predecessor — not always better or worse priorities, just different. The relationship between citizen and government may be very different, and the patience shown by the citizen may be that much more, at least for the immediate.

The most astute professionals are those who adjust to the new realities and quickly learn to respond to them. The reference here is not to congenital flatterers, fixers and time-servers, those who hang around the periphery of government and become cheerleaders of every new minister. Rather, the reference is to those who work for or in the government or those whose job is to understand and analyse the systems of government. It is pointless attempting to pretend nothing has changed and using an older prism to look at a new situation.

The year 2014 has been a year of just such dramatic transformation in New Delhi. It could be argued that every year of regime change — 1977, 1984, with Rajiv Gandhi succeeding Indira Gandhi, 1998 and 2004 — saw similar shifts. Perhaps it has been more pronounced in 2014 because of the compelling, tempestuous and polarising debate that preceded the election and because Narendra Modi was such a new phenomenon, such an unknown, for the capital.

The purpose here is not to discuss Mr Modi; it is to discuss the phenomenon of news television, which has been struggling since May 16 and the election verdict. To be fair, it has been struggling not just because of Mr Modi’s arm’s-length attitude but due to a certain model of prime-time debates and chat shows having outlived its life, overtaken by not just changing politics but also changing public sensibilities, consumer tastes and technology.

The news television model that had come to India in the late 1990s and early 2000s — and essentially borrowed from an American news television model pioneered in the preceding decade — involved reducing every issue to a neat binary: left versus right, nationalist versus unpatriotic, Democratic versus Republican, Congress versus Bharatiya Janata Party, Hindu versus Muslim, India versus Pakistan (or occasionally some other country). The structure became painfully familiar: an anchor who was either neutral or pretended to be neutral, made a couple of inane opening remarks and threw up lots of questions, very few of which could seriously be answered. Then the gladiators were asked to fight, coming up with either straightforward or convoluted oppositional points and shouting at each other.

This model was ageing even a few years ago, but got a longer lease in the final years of the United Progressive Alliance government. As the Manmohan Singh government enmeshed itself in controversy, it threw up news hooks every other day and several ministers and coalition members flocked to television cameras to make loud statements, fuelling the news cycle. Further, the increasing disappointment with the UPA government made it that much easier to fan emotionalism. That the UPA’s senior leaders were not public communicators also created an opening for proxy debates on television.

Today, at the end of 2014, how many of those postulates are valid? The National Democratic Alliance government is only a few months old. There is no widespread public anger or impatience on display and people will end up giving Mr Modi his chance. This is not to suggest that the Modi government can never become unpopular. Of course it can. For instance, if by the end of 2015 the economy is not seen to be recovering, there will be considerable disquiet. The moot question is: will this mood automatically see a return to the simulated and made-for-television prize-fights — or will there be new platforms?

Already, much of the partisan argument has moved to social media. No doubt new, post-Twitter digital vehicles will emerge in the coming years. On the other hand, Mr Modi, unlike the UPA leadership, will continue to leverage his skills as a public speaker and direct communicator. He will have less need — though admittedly not zero need — to place his views before the people through television spokespersons. What if the politician or Prime Minister who succeeds Mr Modi — from whichever party or political persuasion — follows a similar communication approach? Where does this leave news television? Does it just wait and wait for a golden age that will not return?

Indian media faces multiple crises. Print faces a commercial and financial crisis. Television faces an ideational crisis. In the past six months, television shows have tried hard to preserve the old model and persist with right-left, black-white bipolar debates. Frankly, these are beginning to appear forced. The “pick a subject and get people to fight” model of journalism has its limits.

Take an example. A few days ago a BJP MP sought to introduce a private member’s bill in the Lok Sabha that would create five seats in the House for voters from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The seats would be left vacant since free and fair elections, superintended by the Election Commission, are not possible in that part of Kashmir. The government decided not to back the private members’ bill and the proposal fell through. A news channel had a prime-time show on the topic, with the theme being: “By not supporting the bill, has the Modi government given away Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and betrayed India’s territorial integrity?”

Now imagine for a moment that the government had decided to support the bill. It is very likely the same channel would have had a prime-time show with the theme being: “By supporting a hollow, symbolic bill on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, has the Modi government catered to its hard-line constituency but achieved nothing substantive?” Surely news television needs to find a future beyond such lazy, knee-jerk ideation.

The writer can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com