NAWAZ SHARIF: WALK SOFTLY AND DON'T CARRY THE BIG STICK

The victory of the Marcos clan in the Philippines and Nawaz Sharif's party in Pakistan reveal a phenomenon familiar to Indians and a puzzle to all anti-corruption crusaders. Widespread corruption marked the rule of Marcos (husband of Imelda of 'the 1001 shoes fame') and Sharif who first became Pakistan's prime minister (1990-93) with the army's help and in his second term (1997-99) was ousted by an army coup. Yet this stain has had no impact on their recent victories. There could be many reasons for this phenomenon. Either the voters cared a damn about these charges because the tolerance of corruption is the norm in most societies, or the alternative to Marcos and Nawaz were less appealing. All in all the outlook for the victory of a mass upsurge against corruption does not look too promising, unless and until the electorate's demand for political rights is matched by its sense of civic responsibility.

Imran Khan must have understood this by now. His party campaigned under the anti-corruption banner and instead of the tsunami of votes he predicted he has had to be satisfied with a distant second position which is still a great improvement from the last election. The victor Nawaz Sharif too has his share of problems. Though his party, the PML-N, has become the largest single party in the National Assembly it is still short of a simple majority and will need partners to form a government. That should not be a problems now because the allure of office tends to overcome ideological differences when euphoria is in the air. How long this bonhomie will last is another question.

There is much to be euphoric about. First, the fact that the military allowed the government to complete its full term (though without much to show for it) is a historical milestone. Secondly, this election recorded the highest voting percentage ever with a memorable showing by the young, first time voters. Thirdly, barring the fundamentalist parties every party in the fray campaigned to get the vote out. Finally, the military stayed put in the barracks.

Sharif should ensure that it stays there. Last time when he had a two-thirds majority he thought that was enough to tame the military. That was a grave miscalculation and he ended up in exile. With just a thin working majority now he surely will have to walk on egg shells. This means that even on Indo-Pak relations he should avoid the grand gesture and work for incremental changes because, without the military's support Sharif will be unable to achieve much on that score or tackle the problem of internal terrorism and its external ramifications.


To complicate matters the seats that his party has won are mainly from the Punjab province, while the remaining provinces are in the hands of other parties. In a normal polity this should not pose a serious problem. But Pakistan can hardly be called that. It is a state comprising different nationalities supposedly held together by a common religion. This is a nice thought but in the real world nationalism and common economic interests provide the glue. A smart businessman like Sharif should not have a problem understanding that.

THE ONLY LIGHT IS THE BACK-LIT TV SCREEN

A picture is worth a thousand words is not just the first lesson that a print journalist learns. It also reflects a historical truth: script and words came after the picture. Language, both spoken and written, pre-supposes the capability for abstract reasoning and memorising often arbitrary rules.  Not so with pictures. An infant who is incapable of writing 'mother' or 'father' can draw matchstick figures to represent her parents. While we can only engage aurally with a strange language, a piece of art that is abstract or has no perceivable visual meaning can still release powerful memories and enlighten the mind. 

It is the universal appeal of the image that gives the edge to television journalism over the print media. Though speed of delivery did play a significant role in the growth of TV, the print media is trying to bridge this handicap by entering the worldwide web and supplementing text with videos. 

The video is a moving image. This much everyone knows. In India the primary form of the moving image is cinema. While we are celebrating a century of Indian cinema this year let us remember that this industry would not have thrived so long without its remarkable ability to entertain people of all classes. Cinema is the ultimate democratic art form; with only a price differential in tickets it is the great equaliser. 

Indian television journalism lacks the technical sophistication of the hundred-year-old industry. But it makes up for this by borrowing the dramatic language and declamatory style of cinema. This is one crucial area in which print and TV journalism differ. In the former, especially as practised in the great newspapers and magazines of the world, adjectives are used in a report only if they are required for clarity's sake and not to editorialise. When clarity is tossed out and editorialising takes centre stage then reason is replaced by sound and more sound. Is this a case of an empty drum making the most 
noise?

Commercial television  began as a platform for entertainment and lifestyle, modelling its serials and song and dance on mainstream Indian cinema, and indigenising Western TV shows. This works because of the Indian genius for creative copying;  much like producing dandiya  raas costumes for Barbie dolls during the Navaratri. 

Television journalism, born later because of the monopolistic broadcasting rules of the government, had quite a few role models to copy. However  it chose to borrow from them neither their style nor substance and re-fashion them to create a vibrant model of news broadcasting. Instead what we have is a well-lit little theatre of Indian middle class theatricality --  loud, passionate, arrogant, and ultimately meaningless; actually very Indian male even though many TV matriarchs can out perform them. Unlike the average  Indian cinema where the heroes and villains have to shout in order to be noticed, in our television journalism even the heroines shout. 

The only light is the back-lit TV screen.

THE MEDIA AND THE MIDDLE CLASS

NEW DELHI: The affidavit filed by CBI Director Ranjit Sinha on May 6 in the Supreme Court says,

four " significant changes" were made in three paragraphs of three draft status reports of two Preliminary Enquiries (PE) by the Law Minister, and officials of the Prime Minister's Office and the Coal Ministry.

Two of the changes pertained to 'tentative findings'. According to the affidavit, "since both these changes pertained to tentative findings of the CBI, which would be arrived at with further clarity on more enquiries, the same were acceptable." The third change pertained to the " deletion of a sentence about the scope of enquiry with respect to [the] legality of allocation while the amendments in law were in process, was done by the Minister of Law." &(Clearly, the Law Minister understood that'amendments in process', or changes in law that may or may not happen, cannot impinge on an economic action in the present which is well within the four corners of the current law however ill-conceived it may be.) The fourth and final change was "about the non-existence of approved guidelines for allocation of coal blocks [that] was incorporated at the instance of officials of the PMO and the Ministry of Coal, as the same was factually correct."

In sum, the "significant" changes "were acceptable" and " factually correct", according to the CBI' s Director. But somewhere in the short distance between Tilak Marg where the Supreme Court is, and Bahadurshah Zafar Marg where most of the dailies in Delhi are located only the word "significant" came into the headlines. And that is symptomatic of the grave changes that are taking place in a large section of the media in this country.

The media in any country does not exist in a vacuum. It is sustained by its readership. In India this

would technically mean the literate population, that is, at current levels 74 per cent or roughly three- fourth of the population. But all those who can sign their name (generally taken to signal literacy) do not necessarily read any printed matter, a fact which will be attested to by the circulation departments of most media houses and the phenomenal proliferation of TV channels (and that is a story by itself !). In other words there is a huge disconnect between literacy levels and readership in India. Inevitably this means that the media's clients are mostly from the middle class.

Barring a few notable exceptions most media houses try to bridge this divide by catering to the

lowest common denominator within its readership constituency. Thus the sense of impending doom shared across languages and cultures by the middle class, its open or hidden bigotry, and the belief that a strong leader can whip everybody into shape and deliver us from evil underlines much of what the media propagates. When a Anna Hazare holds up an all powerful Lokpal or a handful of judges

think that the CBI should report to them, they are articulating the infantile sentiments of this class.

The tragedy is that the media is playing footsie with these flighty desires.

PLAYING THE FIELD

NEW DELHI: When the Supreme Court of India tells the leading investigating agency in the country that it should report to it directly on an alleged corruption case, the public and most of the media hail the order as a blow for justice. Without denying for a moment that corruption has to be rooted out let us look at the issue from a different angle.

The agency in question is the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which was born in 1941 as the Special Police Establishment (SPE) to check war profiteering. At that time it came under the War Department. After the end of the Second World War the SPE was retained to investigate and prevent corruption within the Central Government. For this purpose In 1946 the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act was enacted and the superintendency of the SPE was vested with the Home Department. On April 1,1963 the SPE was renamed the Central Bureau of Investigation. Over the years the investigatory mandate of the CBI covered every public sector undertaking in the country.            
However in keeping with the federal character of the Constitution the CBI cannot investigate cases in the states without the sanction of the concerned state governments. The prevailing rules of administration  place the CBI under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Traditionally this ministry is attached to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The CBI also reports to the Ministry of Law on a case-by-case basis because the ultimate resolution of the cases have to be sought in the court room, and this ministry is the clearing house for all legal matters that concern the government. Offences which would come under the Prevention of Corruption  Act, 1988, are, however, investigated by the CBI under the superintendency of the Central Vigilance Commission.    

When the Supreme Court decided to override this established practice it won many brownie points  from a large section of the populace, some of the media, and of course, the Opposition. They see the  court's overreach as a justifiable course of action in the glorious war against corruption! This is plain shortsightedness that overlooks the fact that corruption will not be eradicated by weakening the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between the different branches of government in a parliamentary system-- namely, the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary. What is actually required are urgent steps to strengthen them so that they have the wherewithal to check the growth of corruption. 

Underlying the Court's action is the sentiment that the other two branches of the government are incompetent or unwilling to fight corruption, and that it alone is qualified to direct the war. But what exactly are the qualification? Unlike the Legislature who are elected by the people and the Executive headed by ministers who report to it, the Supreme Court is a body that is, for want of a better word, self-perpetuating. There can be more than one view whether this state method of constituting the Supreme Court is healthy. But there can be no doubt that a small body (comprising mostly men!) cannot be both a referee and a player. Then the game would be a truly messy one.