Who's Afraid Of Pankaj Mishra?

Surely, an issue of such critical importance should not be the topic of what appears to be a sophomoric debate. It should be the focus of investigative journalism. But what's happened to this branch of journalism that reared its head so dramatically in the '80s? That brigade of journalists have grown up or grown old. Some have retired, some just tired. Some went up the media ladder. Some went sideways into business, corporate affairs or politics. One has become a minister. Like an endangered species, a few investigative journalists of the '80s still survive, battling on bravely in their articles. But they are too few and most of them can't undertake the rigours of on-the-spot reporting because they are now over 40, 50 and even 60. A few among the younger generation are idealistic and committed but are floundering in neglect. Most are not interested in investigative journalism as it lacks the glamour it had in the '80s.

In the '90s, television journalism usurped investigative journalism's glamour. Youngsters were lured to television because of its visibility and instant recognition. Kargil saw a fine crop of investigative print and TV journalists but the story was led and dramatised by television. War is the best television story because of the drama and excellent visuals—booming guns, exploding bombs, billowing smoke, thundering fighter planes, roaring tanks. But television is not interested in a story that calls for painstaking, time-consuming investigation into a massacre because time costs money and television reporting is expensive and because strong supporting visuals are difficult to get. But this is where print journalists could really score but unfortunately they submit to the agenda dictated by TV's compulsions.

It's sad that glamour has become a part of media because media is a necessity in a democracy, an essential service like hospitals, electricity, water and milk. Today it is more fashionable to utter inanities on camera or become an armchair analyst. The '80s was a time when even editors fanned out into the countryside for on-the-spot reporting. But now reporters prefer to comment and analyse. So a twentysomething reporter pontificates: "I think the Hizb is behind the Chitsinghpura massacre because..." In the '80s, no self-respecting reporter would dare say something like that because the editor would snap: "I am not interested in what you think. Tell me what you know."

Today, there seems to be a deluge of opinions and a drought of facts on almost every issue, including Chitsinghpura. Frankly, opinions that are not based on facts are utterly useless. In the absence of facts, it's often prejudice and assumption that masquerade as analysis.

Today, it is also fashionable to have celebrities write. It doesn't matter if they have expertise or experience in the subject they are writing about or not. It gets worse when they express opinions on subjects on which facts are sketchy. At the very least, such exercises are pointless as they don't enhance our understanding of the subject. At the worst, they are misleading and diversionary. A bunch of people whistling in the dark does not constitute a symphony. Pankaj Mishra is an excellent writer and he discovered Arundhati Roy but does that give him the credentials to write the article he did? Arundhati Roy is an international celebrity and a passionate writer but her piece on Narmada was totally one-sided. Celebrity articles are not journalistic because they are often based on selective evidence and personal convictions. And it is dangerous when authors use their writing skills to disguise opinions for facts. Unfortunately, what gives them credibility is their celebrity status. But they earned their fame not by writing journalistic articles but doing whatever they excelled in—writing fiction.

I don't mean that derogatorily. The problem is that there are some who sadly are still intellectually casteist. This is the group of people who would treat articles on politics, Kashmir or war with respect but would dismiss columns on literature, travel, philosophy or art as trivial, irrelevant or unworthy. Their attitude is determined not by merit but by hierarchy. These are the people who would treat a dishonest bureaucrat with more courtesy than their doodhwala who supplies them unadulterated milk—simply because in the social hierarchy, the bureaucrat ranks higher. Likewise, articles on Kashmir, however flawed they may be, are ranked superior to a spoof on India's greed mentality, even though the latter may be more interesting and incisive.

This kind of casteist thinking is confined to a few outmoded people, a pompous minority that struts in the garb of the majority, still clinging to the belief that only political issues matter. The good news is this minority is compensated by an open-minded majority that may not be vocal but reflects the modern India shedding old mindsets and ideologies. My experience is that readers are tired of political punditry and appreciate interesting, funny, sarcastic, offbeat articles on all kinds of subjects. The only expectation is that such articles should be thought-provoking and well-written.

And if it's a news-related article, a fundamental expectation is that it should be informative or analytical. Reams and reams have been written but at the end of the day, what is the point when we are left asking the question we began with: so who is responsible for the Chitsinghpura massacre? n

(The author can be contacted at anitapratap@journalist.com)