India has a diverse, varied media landscape that spans across mediums and platforms. But the country is even bigger and more diverse; so it goes without saying, that some stories are invariably missed. Sometimes, these stories are beyond our sight – in villages, small towns and the dark corners of well-lit cities. On Saturday afternoon though, the story was in the heart of the capital, with India Gate in the background.
On Sunday, The Telegraph’s front page carried a stinging, satirical indictment of the extravagant gala celebrating two years of PM Modi’s government in Delhi. The story by Roving Editor Sankarshan Thakur was both a comprehensive report of the event and a bad review of a state-sponsored show.
The article begins with an epigraph which is a play on Nehru’s famous ‘tryst with destiny’ speech.
For 67 long years, we made a tryst with darkness, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the sunset hour on May 26, 2014, India awoke to life and freedomSubtext of the message on Modi Sarkar at two (with apologies to JL Nehru)
Sankarshan Thakur peppers his report of the event with reminiscences and jokes. It’s almost as though we are watching a stand-up comic pointing out hypocrisies in parenthesis, between facts.
To those old and bothered enough to recall, the evening resurrected all the exhilaration of Krishi Darshan - the same chaupal setting, the same scripted parlour chat, the same recourse to contrived quasi-folk twists as entertainment, the same bursts of studio-canned congratulation: “ Pradhan Mantri ke vision se suryast suryoday mein badal gaya hai, raat ho rahi hai lekin hum dekh rahe hain Ek Nayi Subah (The Prime Minister’s vision has turned sunset into sunrise, night is falling but we are watching Ek Nayi Subah)....” It seemed almost a travesty that thunderous applause didn’t follow the pronouncement of such copywriting brilliance. The evening’s architects had missed out on locating a troupe primed to clap on cue in some corner of the titanic pre-fab central studios pitched behind India Gate.Article in The Telegraph
The article also pointedly pointed out the tendency of PM Modi and his supporters to go a bit over the top in events such as these.
“There are so many achievements of my government,” Modi said, “that Doordarshan will have to telecast me live for a whole week.”It was, not unusually for the Prime Minister, an I, Me, Myself address.Even less unusually, Modi’s celebrants through the evening spoke from a classic courtier’s script. It was as if an epiphany had descended and turned audio-visual, the nation was nudged awake, at the twilight hour, from its Rip Van Winkle slumber amidst a myriad insufficiencies. What unprecedented wonders has Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India woken up to witness? Aadhar cards and passport forms can now be filled over the Internet. Never happened before May 26, 2014.Train tickets can be bought on the Internet. Never happened before May 26, 2014. PAN cards can be had. Not so before May 26, 2014. Certificates of births and deaths can be acquired. Not so before May 26, 2014.Article in The Telegraph
The article, the author and the paper have received kudos and condemnation in equal measure.
Most newspapers and news channels simply carried a report or reproduced the event celebrating the Prime Minister. The Telegraph, through humour and memories of a staid past, managed a criticism of the event and by extension, an acknowledgement that history did not begin with our current government.
Of course, people can and are questioning whether an editorialised piece should be on the op-ed pages rather than on the front page, and whether the PM deserved kinder treatment.
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