Three concepts are used very frequently in our media: Hindutva, corruption and press freedom. So I thought it would be useful to unpack the many different meanings that are included in these words.
“Hindutva” deserves unpacking partly because in contemporary India it appears to be gradually acquiring as much potency as “socialism” did in the immediate post-Independence period. The Shaping of Modern Gujarat — Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond, a 2005 book by Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth, is a good place to start. The authors describe how between 1985 and 1990 the Gujarati middle class, full of anxiety and apprehension in the face of the fast-changing political economy of a rapidly urbanising Gujarat, first sought security within its caste organisations — and, when that no longer gave it the power it wanted, turned to Hindutva. They also describe the astonishing phenomenon of the adoption of Hindutva by Dalits and tribals in Gujarat. The newly emerging middle class among Dalits and tribals consists of government servants, teachers and small contractors. They are adopting Hindutva because they see in it a way to throw off the stigma associated with their traditional identity and an opportunity to join the larger Hindu brotherhood.
A second word-concept that deserves unpacking is “corruption”, a word that surely ranks among the most frequently used nouns in Indian media nowadays, outranking even “cricket” and “Bollywood”. The concept of corruption has remarkable resilience: barely did its use in conjunction with “spectrum” start to subside when it started appearing in conjunction with “coal” and, of course, with its perennial sibling “arms deals”. A good place to understand the many complex thoughts encapsulated in the word “corruption” is Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter’s 2007 paper , “The Social Construction of Corruption” (available online at http://www.economyandsociety.org/events/Granovetter_paper.pdf). He points out that groups with conflicting interests will present standards for what behaviour they regard as appropriate and label behaviour that benefits competing groups as illegitimate or “corrupt”. In making this distinction, meanings and norms matter a lot and many behaviourally identical actions may be interpreted very differently depending on circumstances. Terms such as “gifts”, “favours” and “loans” are generally morally neutral, but in some circumstances these exchanges can be construed as “bribes” or “pay-offs”.
Gifts and favours are typically regulated by a norm of reciprocity, and return gifts or favours should be in a similar mode as the original. Thus, most people would consider it inappropriate to reciprocate with a cash payment an invitation to dinner at someone’s home. The norm also specifies that return gifts and favours should be roughly in proportion to the original offering. But if it is excessive, either when originally given or in reciprocation, recipients may suspect that the giver expects something more in return than is appropriate. Judgements of what is “excessive” and “appropriate” are finely tuned to local culture and circumstances. Professor Granovetter cites the example of New York salesmen who often take customers to lunch, and that this was considered appropriate in an ongoing relationship — but offering lunch to prospective buyers was considered a “bribe”.
The banner call for protecting “freedom of the press” is something to which we Indians respond immediately, and there is little doubt that the Indian media is among the freest in the world. But are there subtle links between what a newspaper or a TV channel chooses to cover and its advertisers?
The first major examination of this link, and hence a major contribution to the unpacking of the concept of press freedom, is the 1988 book by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The book describes the many filters that distort news reporting in American mass media. The first filter arises from the fact that the dominant mass media outlets have to pursue large size because of the expensive capital and technology needed to reach a mass audience. These media outlets are run for profit and, thus, have to cater to the ever-increasing demand for financial returns from their owners or controlling investors.
The second filter comes from the reality that major media outlets get most of their revenue from advertising, which makes them vulnerable to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. The third filter arises because much of what is “news” originates from government bureaucracies, and maintaining a cordial and ongoing relationship with powerful bureaucrats is key to smoothing access to them. The fourth filter is the apprehension about attracting “flak”– complaints, lawsuits, legislative actions – by reporting certain facts or opinions that may result in the loss of advertising revenue, or require the incurring high costs for legal defence or for the defence of the media outlet’s public image. The final filter in American news reporting, the authors say, has historically been anti-communism, which functioned as a social control mechanism. However, since the end of the Cold War, it has been replaced by the “war on terror”.
Ajit Balakrishnan is the author of the book, The Wave Rider ajitb@rediffmail.com
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