People's Democracy

The Dark World Of Media  

Nalini Taneja 

THE blatant partisanship of the media in favour of the anti-reservation campaign prompted some media persons to conduct a survey on the caste composition of the media itself. The results of the survey merely lend figures to what is a very well-known fact—that upper castes dominate top decision makers in media. The much publicised survey was conducted by Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, and a media person associated with election surveys, along with Anil Chamaria, a free lance journalist, and Jitendra Kumar from the Media Study Group. The survey, as reported in the press, says that “India’s ‘national media’ lacks social diversity and does not reflect the country’s social profile.” The data which prompted this conclusion are given in the accompanying box.  

While the caste composition of the media is evident in the data itself, what the report remains totally silent on (going by what has appeared of it in the press) are the causes for this overwhelming domination of decision making positions by “upper caste men”. There is no reference at all to the ownership pattern of the media, which is the basis for this domination and without which it is impossible to comprehend the exclusion of lower castes, muslims, adivasis, and to a large extent women, from decision making positions in the media. The character of the media as it has historically evolved in this country, the changes that have occurred since independence, particularly in the last two decades in the wake of ‘globalisation’, and the role of the media as the arm of ruling class interests is impossible to comprehend except on the basis of its ownership pattern.  

While the exclusion of large sections of society from a mighty institution of opinion making is in itself a cause for great concern and favours authoritarian and proliferation of anti-democratic ideologies, it is useful to note that many, if not all of these upper caste men could have played very different roles were it not for the ownership pattern of the media. The ownership pattern severely limits this possibility. Working professionals of all types find their roles extremely circumscribed by the systemic limitations of their professional world.  

In short a survey that merely describes but does not analyse, does only half the job. In equality and social justice deserve to be analysed as well. 

It fuels speculations such as: are continuity and tradition more entrenched in media than, for example politics, or that since media has to do with ideas and journalism, does the backwardness of certain communities in terms of education and literacy have greater effect on the media, and so on? It appears that changes which have taken place elsewhere have somehow not penetrated the media. In some sense it is seen as a blessing—that media like the bureaucracy and judiciary is immune to “vote bank” politics. 
In actual fact this so called immunity has meant lack of accountability to larger sections of society. The media has been accountable to the industrial houses that own them, the sponsors and advertisers and share holders who sustain them, and ‘readers’ or ‘public’ have become merely recipients of ideas and opinions reflecting interests of those who control media. The media has been successfully engineering public opinion in this country. It is able to direct what becomes a ‘national’ issue, and what remains a trivial matter. It has been doing this not just through allocation of space and time, but in giving certain meaning to certain concepts. In this case merit, but also through repeated nuanced use to what we mean by development and growth, and we are today faced with a situation when it can easily be argued that what bears hard on the majority of the people of this country can still be in our “national interest”. This equation of national interest with ruling class interests is a feat of the media—the fourth pillar of democracy and watch dog for the people!  

The new entrants into media ownership, linked with semi-criminality and shady financial deals, whose entry into media itself is a form of building political and social clout, has played the role of ensuring that trivia rules the roost on media while life and death issues remain blacked out. Well known journalist Sainath has been writing repeatedly on these issues. Lakme sponsored beauty contests have got more coverage than suicide of peasants driven by debt and desperation.  

This ‘fourth pillar of democracy’ has held tight in the face of popular upheavals and social churnings. It has remained immune to ‘Mandal’. It has successfully ridden the tide of Hindutva by accommodating Hindutva personnel and by and large transforming the meaning of secularism and Indian culture to reflect the Hindutva world view. Some news papers and television channels of course become active on occasions to show the role of the Hindutva forces in attacking minorities, but a closer study may well reveal that these are occasions when some important anti-people measures are being implemented, which are better implemented than debated while people look wide eyed at the audacity and ‘antics’ of the Bajrang Dal goons. Its attack on the Left parties grows as vociferous as its support for privatisation. It claps when Manmohan Singh increases the price of fuel and treats the Left’s advocacy of food security and PDS with contempt.  

In such a context it is important to note that anti-reservation campaign is not merely a matter of caste—it is equally a matter of class. The equation between caste and class still has great validity even after years of independence and reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, by OBC politics, and by Mandal and some social mobility. A study shows that even in Tamilnadu, where reservations for backward classes have been in force for decades, the social composition of the medical system in the state is still overwhelmingly dominated by upper castes. The issue of caste must be linked with and seen in the context of minority rights and class as well.  

This important survey of media personnel has shrunk shy of doing precisely this in locating caste bypassing the issues of ownership, links with industry and business, class character of the media personnel and much else. Anti-casteism is part of, but does not encompass democratic politics. The democratisation of the media is more than a matter of enlarging its caste composition. The media persons who conducted the survey are also social scientists and well known social activists. Therefore, one expected more from their survey.