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Hours after he had announced plans to fight the Lok Sabha elections, a TV anchor asked Arvind Kejriwal to explain his views on Kashmir. Kejriwal at the time promised the journalist that he will share his thoughts on national policy matters at another forum. His party was still to firm up its views on various issues he explained.
Months later, Kejriwal as well as other political contenders from the BJP, the Congress and other regional parties may well have firmed up their positions on a myriad policy issues that concern you and I, Kashmir included. But neither him nor his opponents have been sought by the scandal mongering Indian TV media to defend their party's stance on anything of relevance to the voter. This is an election where more than ever, the 'real' issues - pertaining to the economy, to foreign policy, security, civic liberties, sanitation, education or to unemployment have been relegated to the back pages of manifestos.
What has been given prominence instead is a concerted attempt to reinforce personality cults and the unrelenting trading of barbs, denigrating personal attacks and vulgar muck throwing by leaders across party lines, all of which has sunk our political discourse to levels never seen before.
By highlighting every insult and counter insult traded in far flung corners of the country, the 24X7 TV media stands accused of dignifying such commentary, of being flippant with its reporting and increasingly brazen in its solitary pursuit for high TRP. Blame it on technology if you will, but the attention seeking Giriraj Singh's hate speech in back-of-beyond Deoghar would hardly have become a national debating point had it not been for the all pervasive OB van fishing for a fresh scandal. Had he said it 20 years ago, it wouldn't even have been reported perhaps.
TV prime time today has regrettably become a podium for squabbling on non-issues - loud, meaningless analogies for instance, used by politicians during campaigning (toffees, Dalit honeymoons, 56 inch chests, butchers, damaads) that need no discussion, or arguing the semantics of 'waves' and 'tsunamis'. Or playing on loop shady sting operations carried out by political adversaries with questionable motives.
It is no longer (was it ever?) about asking political parties to flesh out their positions on important national debates, or about engaging divergent ideological voices on pertinent policy matters. It is not certainly about deciphering for instance the difference in thinking between the two principal political factions on issues like the nuclear liability law, or sections 370 & 377, or Kashmir, or the food security bill, or for that matter a string of other issues - poverty, malnutrition, FDI, taxes, unemployment, fiscal accountability, the uniform civil code, police reforms.
A US style presidential debate is virtually unfeasible in India, but that shouldn't stop TV editors, who've mastered the art of pitching political adversaries against one another, from inviting party representatives to engage in meaningful discourse on policy issues. Wouldn't we much rather have them shouting over one another on things that matter than on statements/affronts that are obviously wrong and made in the heat of campaigning?
The fact that TV editors have refrained from focusing at all on real issues reflects in poor news viewership numbers which have been dwindling month after month, and currently languish at only a few percentage points. These numbers are testimony to a viewer fatigue that has perhaps crept in for the high decibel bickering that goes on about topics of little or no importance.
It is only so much longer the audiences' intelligence can be insulted before they tune out entirely.
