Psuedo Secularism of The English Media

In my last post, I said that people are going to pay the price for clash of ego between Congress and Shiv Sena. And so did it happen - we had a bomb blast at the German Bakery in Pune, a place which I frequented regularly during my engineering days in Pune. Most people say that had the police force not been diverted to multiplexes, the blast could have been avoided. But I disagree with this opinion. I will try to explain this with a hypothetical situation. Imagine that there is a single terrorist and 100 possible targets that he plans to blast. Government has 100 police officers. Knowing that this terrorist is planning to blast one out of these 100 targets, the government assigns a police officer to each target. So then are we safe. No, because after a few days, atleast a few police officers will definitely get bored of doing the stupid, monotonous work of patrolling. And the terrorist has ample time to wait and frustrate the police, choose the weakest link among them and plan and execute the blast. A better strategy would be to send 10 of those 100 policeman to find that terrorist and eliminate him. But then, why do not we do this. Because of psedo secularism that is rampant in India. In India, terrorists are not terrorists, but poor innocent muslims who have been pushed to the brink of terrorism by attrocities done to them by hindus. And killing a terrorist will give produce 10 more terrorist. And any Indian who demands a more proactive approach towards terrorism is branded a right wing hinduist by pseudo secularists, as if protecting the lives of hindus in a hindu majority country is a crime.

With in the context of recent event, I would like to analyse the biased behaviour of our so called secularist media in the past few day in regard to the Shiv Sena - Shahrukh issue. Here are few observations regarding the role of media :-

1. Shahrukh made a statement regarding inclusion of Pakistani players in IPL. Shiv Sena opposed this view and demanded an apology for making the statement. I do appreciate the fact that not letting a film be released may not be the right way to oppose, but then Maharashtra is a land of Shivaji & Veer Savarkar and not Mahatma Gandhi. The media made this an issue of right to freedom of speech, supporting Sharukh's right to have and express an opinion. But then is it not a right of people to oppose something that is against national interest. No single news channel or newspaper analysed the appropiateness of statements made by Shahrukh and criticised him for having a view that may be detrimental against national interest.

2. One of the reasons why MNIK got released in Maharashtra was that Sharukh is close to Gandhi family. Two days before the release of film, there was a tacit understanding between Shiv Sena, state government and multiplex owners that multiplex owners will not release the film and the issue was resolved. But the state congress government was pressurised by centre to get the film released. Central goverenment threatened to send central paramilitary forces to Maharashtra if the state government is not able to release the film. Multiplex owners were forced to release the film by threatning them that their licenses will not be renewed. Why did the media not focus on this abuse of political power by the Gandhi family to get the film released.

3. There was a blatant misreporting by media of events unfolding on the ground. Release of film in 10 to 15 multiplexes in Mumbai was declared as a victory of "Shahrukh Sena over Shiv Sena". There are 75 theaters in Mumbai, which means the film did not get released in 60 to 65 theaters in Mumbai (almost 80% of theateres) and none in the rest of Maharashtra. Infact the movie was not released even in some parts of Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh. This at a time when the state government used its full might and the central government was willing to send paramilitary forces. Yet this was reported as a rout of Shiv Sena in Mumbai and liberation of Mumbai from Shiv Sena.

4. The most ridiculous thing about this contraversy is the way in which media projected the movie MNIK as being hit. To be fair, its an average movie, but the movie was given comparatively high ratings. Ratings are subjective and I will not argue on that, but occupancy and boxoffice revenues are objective. Occupany levels were 80% for first three days in big cities and less than 50% in small towns. Global box office revenues were 25 crores on friday, thanks to the contraversy created. For the first 3 days global box office revenues are 40 crores, with 2/3rds of revenues coming from overseas. Fox Searchlight bought the distribution rights for this film for 100 crores (Big Cinema paid 40 crores for 3 idiots). Revenue sharing in on average 50% between distributors and exhibitors. So MNIK will have to generate 200 crores on box office just to break even. On sat and sun revenues were 7.5 crores on average. Even at this run rate it will take the movie another 3 weeks to garner 200 crores. And without the help of Shiv Sena, the film may not stay on box office for another 3 days. Yet for the media, this movie, which technically will be a flop if it does not breakeven, is a hit.

5. Lastly it has been projected by media that Shiv Sena has lost its clout in Mumbai after getting fewer seats in assembly polls. In the recent assembly elections in Mumbai, the voting % were as follows - Congress - 28 MNS - 24 Shiv Sena - 19 BJP - 12 NCP - 6. Votes of Shiv Sena + MNS is 43% which is 15% more than that of Congress. On a combined basis Shiv Sena + MNS has increased its vote share, while Congress, BJP and NCP has lost vote share. Shiv Sena & MNS is getting stronger, rather than weaker as projected by the media. And thanks to Mr Rahul Gandhi(hope he will be able to compensate for Congress' loss of votes in Maharashtra with gains in UP and Bihar), Congress is increasingly being perceived as a North Indian Party in Maharashtra, and this perception will make Shiv Sena even stronger in Maharashtra.

My name is not Khan or Thakaray. And I dont care about either of them.

This weekend was kind of exciting, as Mumbai (or Bombay if it pleases some people, but still even BBC & CNN refer to this city as 'Moombhai') saw a clash of titans, a clash that was much hyped up but turned out to be meek, although I still wonder what was it all about. On the two sides of the battleline were two ageing stars of Mumbai, one a seasoned politician and another a seasoned actor, both hungry for publicity as competition for their rivals in their respective fields is threatening to make them irrelevent. Uddhav fighiting for survival against his cousin Raj and Shahrukh fighting for his status as the King of Bollywood against Amir.

Firstly, lets talk about the movie. I have not watched the movie and do not intend to watch it either. Not because I am a maharashtrian and it is my duty to be with the Sena, but because I am diabitic to excessive sweetness of Johars and Chopras and Badjatyas. I like realistic movies made by directors such as Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashap, Nagesh Kukunoor, Madhur Bhandarker and Ram Gopal Verma. In fact I rarely watch bollywood movies, perfering to watch DVDs of classical Hollywood, European and Japanese movies. So moving on to MNIK, we have another star of yesteryears, Karan Johar, trying to be different because he too is under pressure from the new kids on the block, and ends up with mixing Forrest Grump and Crash with his very own Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to come up with 'My name is Khan'. Its been more that 18 years since 9/11 and America has moved on from terrorism to economic crisis. Today americans are debating on who are the real enemies of America, terrorist in remote mountains of Afghanistan or the Bankers on Wall Street. Yet we have a bollywood that is obessed with 9/11, even though we have our 26/11 to resolve. The reason for this obsession in some section of bollywood is that they still believe that they can make more money from overseas market than domestic market. These people should take a lesson from Amir Khan, who has made movies for Indian audiance and came up with three consecutive top grossers for the year, each beating its own record. Wake up Karan, even the britishers are selling indian poverty to americans to win oscars. And you are obsessed with NRIs.

Now lets move on to politics. Just as Karan Johar is obssesed with NRIs, so is Balasaheb Thakarey obsessed with the marathi manoos in Mumbai. There are around 1 crore maharashtrians in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane, and around 1 crore non maharashtrians. In the past maharashtrians in Mumbai used to defacto vote for Shiv Sena and non maharashtrians for Congress. Most of non maharashtrians were happy to go to vacation in lonavala/mahabaleshwar/goa on election day, so maharashtrian votes mattered and Shiv Sena ruled Mumbai for almost three decades, although they could never rule the whole of Maharashtra because maharshtrians outside maharashtra dont care anything about what happens in Mumbai and Shiv Sena never cared about what happens to maharashtrians outside Mumbai. Suddenly, the grand old party of India came up with a lesson from history that Britishers used for 200 years to rule India - 'divide and rule'. Congress exploited the internal greviances in the Thakarey family and created MNS. In Mumbai, Maharashtrian votes got divided and non maharashtrian votes consolidated towards congress due to threats of MNS. So inspite of votes of Shiv Sena & MNS being greater than Congress/NCP, the latter swept both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Mumbai. Ironically in this battle for Mumbai between Shiv Sena and MNS, both wasted their valuable resources in Mumbai and did not find any time for rest of Maharashtra. So inspite of anti incumbency being strong in whole Maharashta, it turned out to be a cake walk for Congress/NCP in assembly elections. Now Rahul Gandhi's tour of Mumbai has brought in another twist in this tale. Congress is getting too strong in Maharashtra, and the growth of Congress will be at the expense of NCP. So just as Congress used MNS to clip the wings of Shiv Sena, NCP is now reviving Shiv Sena to clip the wings of Congress. And we have a show down on streets of Mumbai on an irrelevent issue.

Now that the battle lines are drawn, who is the winner. Both Shahrukh and Uddhav. And who are the losers. We the people. Shahrukh got free publicity for a mediocre movie, and Uddhav free publicity for a mediocre ideology. And there will be lot of people out there wasting either our money or our votes.