SANGHI WHO NEVER WENT TO A SHAKHA by Roushan Rahul

Author:Roushan, Rahul [Roushan, Rahul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa Publications
Published: 2021-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

6

Internet, Anna, ‘paid media’

Signs of things to come

During the bulk of the first term of the UPA government (2004–09), which was led by Manmohan Singh and ‘super-led’ by Sonia Gandhi, the narrative was shaped entirely by the mainstream media. Even though social media had taken birth by then and Orkut had become hugely popular in India, these platforms were not ‘countering’ the mainstream media narrative.

As I mentioned earlier, the first blogs or the first websites were hardly being run by Hindutva proponents. On many occasions, these blogs or websites were actually supplementing the mainstream narrative. Many of the leading or active bloggers were classical liberals, while some others were radical Left who hated Hindutva. Thus, despite various cities in India being mauled by Islamic terrorists, the dominant narrative, even in the virtual world, could not be about the mindset of Islamism, which had given birth to a wounded and partitioned India in 1947.

However, two separate incidents took place in 2008—the murder of a young girl named Aarushi Talwar in Noida and the Mumbai terror attacks. Though both were different cases, they had affected the relationship between social media/blogosphere and the mainstream media/journalists. One can argue that they laid the foundations of weakening the hold that the mainstream media enjoyed thitherto.

The Aarushi case happened in May 2008, when a 13-year-old girl was found murdered at her Noida residence. Apart from Aarushi, Hemraj, the 45-year-old domestic help of the house, was also murdered in the same building. Hemraj was initially thought to be the suspect, as he used to live in the same building and had been missing after Aarushi was found murdered. His body was discovered almost a day later in the course of primary police investigation. The discovery of his dead body was broken ‘live’ on TV news.

It was not as if India had not seen shocking murders earlier, but since the incident happened in Noida, where head offices of many TV news channels were situated, this double murder was converted into a non-stop TV coverage, with ludicrous sensationalization by the TV news channels.

The TV reporters were moving around the crime scene unchecked, with most of them shouting like overexcited cricket commentators. The media was interviewing anyone and everyone in the neighbourhood to talk about the personal lives of the parents and the girl. In fact, many more ridiculous things were done in the name of news coverage. One reporter had put red colour on his palm and demonstrated how the blood on the hands of the murderer could leave stains on walls and other places. Genius.

Then one fine day, TV journalists discovered the Orkut profile of Aarushi. Detailed analysis of the kinds of communities she had joined, what ‘scraps’ she used to receive or send, her ‘testimonials’, her friends and her photos—all of them were beamed on national TV. The entire incident was turned into a televised tamasha.

This was possibly the first time the mainstream media was criticized by many for their role and conduct. Earlier, the criticism of

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