Ravi M Khanna
When I was young and going to school in New Delhi, I was baffled by the world of politics discussed by older people at barber shops, outside sweet shops and the like. From their heated discussions, it seemed as if they were the ones deciding the foreign policies of the then Soviet Union and the United States.
It was during the Cold War, and they would keep on arguing about what the Americans were doing in Europe or what the Soviets were doing in Eastern Europe. When someone questioned the authenticity of their arguments, they would back it up by saying that they had heard it in the news on the BBC or VOA or Radio Moscow. Whenever someone thought he was losing an argument, he would start getting louder and louder.
And the so called “intellectual masturbation” would continue for hours as they enjoyed the sun sitting outside shops with nothing to do but to talk.
It so happened that when I grew up and went to the United States for further studies, I ended up in the VOA newsroom and always chuckled about the possibility of someone at the barber shop in India quoting VOA News to push his argument. Now I am back in New Delhi and have found out that that institution has vanished. I am sure that older people can get enough “dope” from some of the TV talk shows that are no better than the intellectual masturbations at the barber shops.
I am, by no means, trying to discard all TV talk shows because some of them are good quality and meaningful discussions. But some of the talk shows are really just “irritating shouts” at each other without anyone making any sense.
First of all, the participants do not believe in the talk show rule No. 1 – the right to be heard, and that others have the same right. Ironically, one of the talk shows has been named “The Right to be Heard” show.
Some of the hosts have no inkling about India’s foreign policy or about international affairs in general but still they pick up those topics for their shows and gather the same guests again and again so that they can fill one hour with just “shouting heads”.
Some real examples from last week:
1. The most popular talk show host of the country has Pakistan’s former foreign minister as one of the guests and yells at him: “Sir, do you know, your country is falling apart.”
2. A guest tells the host: “I think you love your voice and therefore you always go on speaking and don’t let anyone else talk”.
3. A host is talking about a Muslim cleric who had been leading huge antigovernment and anti-corruption rallies in Pakistan. And without any hitch he shouts: “Who is this cleric who is on the verge of taking over Pakistan?”
4. Another host on HT has no idea what he is talking about and after being fed up of his meaningless blabbering about the India/Pakistan situation, one of the guests challenges him on his knowledge of the subject.
5. After blaming Pakistan for everything except the weather, the host on HT asks one of the Pakistan guests, “Why don’t you admit that Pakistan is lying?” And then repeats the same line at least six times.
6. The host, Rahul Kanwal, repeats the accusation that Pakistani military has beheaded one of the two Indian soldiers killed at the LOC in Kashmir. The Pakistani journalist guest brings out on camera an Indian newspaper from 2001 in which well known Indian reporter Barkha Dutt had reported that Indian soldiers had beheaded a Pakistani soldier, also in one of the sectors of the LOC. But the host, blinking his eyes 10 times faster than he normally does, casts a doubt about the credibility of one of the members of his fraternity and shouts, “That doesn’t mean that whatever she reports has to be true”.
“The Pakistanis,” he says, “did not present any proof of the beheading to the Indians. But the Indians have given proof to the Pakistanis and lodged a protest.”
To an informed viewer, it will seem that some of the Indian TV talk shows are nothing but meaningless shouting matches.
And as per the hosts, I think, they should stick to domestic issues. The headline News and IBN-CNN did some very good talk shows post the gang-rape episode in New Delhi. But when it comes to South Asian or international affairs, it becomes apparent very soon that their knowledge was shallow to begin with and on top of that they didn’t do their homework on the issues.
It is amusing when sometimes one of the stalwart guests like former Cabinet minister Mani Shankar Aiyer has to correct a host of Rahul Shivshankar’s stature, and bring him back on the right track.
All in all, sometimes it seems as if the news anchors did not get enough opportunities to insert their opinions and editorialize the news, so the TV channels also gave them the Talk Shows where they can say anything, be emotional, shout at each other, accuse anyone they want of any crime without any verification and make sure that “anything goes” on their shows, which I call the “Shallow Shout Shows”.
(Author is former South Asia Bureau Chief of the VoA. For feedback [email protected])
Distributed by Contify.com
