Thursday 13 December 2007

Tale of Modi

It is assumed Narendra Modi will win. Every opinion poll, every opinion without a poll, says so. Television news coverage of his election campaign sees the imperiousness of a king who doesn’t feel the need to reach steady the crown, because he believes it is where it rightfully belongs. The television camera frames him, seated with his arms folded across his chest, legs firmly planted apart, head held high; when he stands and orates (he doesn’t just speak), in his rhetorical Q&A style, he’s a pedagogue, wagging his finger in the face of those who dare to disagree.

This is one of those occasions when the camera has colluded with the subject to project an air of complacent impregnability. Which is perhaps why Modi didn’t scruple, last week, about Sohrabuddin in full hearing of the TV microphones. We saw that duet between him and the audience — it was frightening

We met the same Modi — after his indefensible comments — on Times Now in his vehicle-chariot, dismissively insouciant when asked what he thought about his remarks. Why ask him what he thought of his own remarks? Obviously, he will think well of them. But news channels were bending surya namaskar to give him the opportunity to justify himself and he did so by lying back in his seat and waving away any hint of malice towards all or anyone. He didn’t just shut them up, he shut them down.

The myth of Modi’s invulnerability is perpetuated by the media. He always appears above the question, the accusation, even the people. On TV, seldom did we see him among the people — he waved from a distance or a height, to his admirers, on the ground.

It’s not just him. In the TV debates, his loyalists are more arrogant than him. Thus, on CNN-IBN’s very good The Great Gujarat Debate with Rajdeep Sardesai, Pandya had only one catechism: Modi, Modi, Modi.

If TV cameras are to be believed, Sonia Gandhi conducts herself at the same level as the public. She’s walking the campaign, pumping the flesh, she’s also letting her fingers do the talking, but only in handshakes. She’s shown at the dais, a wave, a speech. When she sits, she seems posed or poised to jump up and move on. So to Rahul Gandhi, Sunday, in his now compulsory car-about stand-up act. He dimples, he’s amiable. Nothing (so far) imperious about him.

What we’ve seen so far is a self-styled ‘King’, a Lady In Waiting and Prince Charming. No one else received more than a few sound bytes. Until last week, TV excerpts had Mrs Gandhi talking development as much as Mr Modi. But throughout the campaign, English news channels talked Godhra, communal divide, 2002 riots. The documentaries on NDTV 24x7 by Shikha Trivedi are good examples of how news channels don’t want anyone to forget what happened, what’s happening now. So you have an unbridgeable distance between channels’ unceasing chatter on Godhra and the politicians’ silence on the subject. Then, last week, the politicians returned to the scenes of those crimes with Congress president’s labelling the Gujarat Chief Minister ‘maut ka saudagar’, followed by Modi’s infamous Sohrabuddin challenge.

We have watched the transition and imagery. And seen that this campaign bears certain remarkable similarities with coverage of the 2004 general election campaign: then we saw an India Shining for BJP as Gujarat is Shining for Modi now; then, L.K. Advani travelled on a mechanised vehicular rath and Vajpayee appeared on high — neither came down to the people’s level, this time it’s Modi’s turn to stay above it all; then Vajpayee was the undisputed king, so is Modi; and once again, Sonia is mounting a development challenge at the grassroots level. Still, everyone thinks Modi will win.

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