People [Live]

The protests were in two parts - the one that was caricatured and captured, the other that simmered through the night.

Amplified by the media, the protest by Anna Hazare was being hailed as a revolution. But in the dead of the night when the cameras weren't rolling, the others came to claim the space that was up for grabs putting up posters, setting up the stage for their protests that would be one with the hunger strike.



Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, April 7, 2011

“Come join the wind, make it a storm, and the storm will then become a tornado,” Gurmeet Singh, a Manmohan Singh lookalike said on camera.
The ANI reporter was quick to ask him if he thought the Prime Minister would relent to Anna Hazare's demands since the turbaned man resembled the country's leader.
“Janta is the king. They have to listen,” Gurmeet Singh said.
Behind him, the crowd enamored by his resemblance to the prime minister shouted on camera “Manhoman duplicate zindabad, Anna Hazare zindabad.”
The reporter was done. Now, the cameraman wanted his time.
“Chalo naare lagao,” he told the spectators, who obliged.
“There's not a single television channel I have not given interview to,” Singh said, as he walked away to look for more airtime. “My face is God's gift.”
But the reporter who caught him on the sidelines of the agitation, a carnival of sorts, was probably thinking he had got an exclusive. In that moment, within the confines of the space that has been labeled as the protest street of India, everything was an exclusive. The footage, manufactured, was designed to amplify the agitation, to make it seem as India's revolution.
Towards evening, CNN IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted “off to Jantar Mantar. Is it India's Tahrir Square in a manner of speaking? Hope to anchor india at 9 from there.”
His wife Sagarika Ghose tweeted she was delighted to see her son at Jantar Mantar.
This was redemption. There was the Mahatama, and he was starving for all of us. He was no less than the Messiah carrying the cross. People would drink his blood, and be salvaged. It was a united front. The pillars of democracy had increased to incorporate media, which was being hailed as the movement's biggest supporter, and the people at large, S Chandra, a former bureaucrat who was walking around the street to voice his support on television, said to a Dilli Aajtak reporter, who was holding the mic as if it was a powerful weapon that alone will fight the corruption.
“Masses are with the media. In physics wen have coefficient of friction. Here, it is coefficient of corruption,” he shouted into the mic. The reporter looked bored. There were too many of these self-styled fighters.
“IPL not be gathering momentum. We make news. This will eclipse World Cup,” he said, not wanting to cut short his “live”.
On Thursday, the protest street near the Jantar Mantar monument was rediscovering its own potential. A horde of television crews had descended on the street capturing the mood at what they referred to as “revolution ground.”
They weren't going to let the moment of their redemption slip away from them. The hunger strike, the revival of dharna was breaking news. It was also going to be “shaking news” because they would ensure the government succumbs. This was their agenda.
“We decided we have to take this up. Else, people will say that the media has been bought over, it is corrupted,” Akhilesh Singh, a reporter with Sudarshan News, said. “What is immoral here?what's wrong is supporting the movement?”
You don't only report what you see, you also get involved with the news. In their minds, they had declared it a movement and they were all scrambling to be a part of it, emulating others of their fraternity.
This is the moment to redeem the media. And they were doing it by participating in the dharna, voicing their support and joining the agitation.
Ravish Kumar, anchor and reporter at NDTV, was standing on a raised platform, taking in the ariel view of the dharna, the protestors. He was surrounded by protestors, and by other reporters, who thought of his as a hero, asking him about his participation.
He said he was supporting the agitation.
“I am not fasting but I am supporting this. I wasn't there is 1947 but I am 2011. I even went on the dais yesterday and spoke about it,” Kumar said. “There can be bigger institution than the people at large. This has revived the dharna concept. If you get an opportunity to be honest, objectivity gets better.”
He was the man who was one with the movement, reporting, and living it, too.
RIP objectivity, a spectator said. He had come there to witness what someone on twitter had compared to a revolution saying “You have to be there to see it.”
He was standing there, witnessing the tamasha in front of him, the television crews perched on wooden benches, capturing the movement.
Like how the Katrina floods in the USA in 2008 altered TV journalists' objectivity, and CNN's Anderson Cooper, whose breakdown on television over the disaster that the floods brought in their wake, became a high point of every TV reporter worth their salt.
They were enacting their ritualistic performances, and they had been trained in the “myths of liveness”. They had “personalized” their reporting by mixing their empathy,frustration and anger. As they worked within their limited “grounded and objective” news alongside the enthusiastic supporters and the fasting individuals, these were on an uncharacteristic display on camera.
Through the day, the street had become a marketplace of sorts, too, with LVA (Layered Voice Analysis) representatives permeating the crowd and handing over their pamphlets to the people who had gathered.
They claimed they had patented the technology that could decode voice to “reveal human intensions, to detect deceit and frauds and thus help Fight Frauds, Corruption and Crime.”
They were experts at “Unlocking the Secrets of the Voice. Revealing the DNA of thoughts.”
On the sidelines, the vendors were happily selling food. A man had even come with a bag carrying cheap sandals and was sitting at the protest street waiting for buyers.
Shyam Nath has been here for the last two days. He was selling snacks. A few children were crouching and hunting for leftovers.
“I usually come when the rally comes. I saw on television and thought my sales would go up,” he said. “I know they are fasting but others are not.”
Yet another reporter was trying to analyze media's role. He said if the media hadn't taken a stand, and broadcast the “anshan” live, people wouldn't have come to show their support.
At least 200 young men had traveled from Aligarh Muslim University after they watched the street turn into Tahrir Square, the space in Egypt where the revolution gained its momentum. They dressed in their trademark balck sherwanis and topis and moved around the street, trying to take in the movement which was being televised live by the hundreds of media personnel.
Umar Ahmad, the vice president of the student union at AMU, said they wanted to take the fight against corruption to Aligarh.
“So what if mostly we have the media here. This is media ki awaz. They are humans and they have emotions,” he said.
The spectators and the participants were mostly the media. Their OB vans were parked near the epicenter. They had change of guard, too. Other reporters were dispatched from the newsroom to take over from the one who had held the position since morning.
For the public, well-heeled of the society who came along to show their children the lost part of their history – the culture of dharna.
A young boy sat on the dais and said it was about his future and so he was on dharna.
A group of giggling school children from Bluebells School were recording the statement of a supporter, who was out of his breath as he tried to draw parallels between the non-violent struggle of the mahatama and the one that consumed his imagintion.
“We read about it on facebook. We discussed with teachers. We want to see the movement. We are going to make a presentation and take it to the school and support the cause,” Mridul, a Class 10 student, said.
“I like the missed call concept,” Purva Aggarwal, another student said.
A few supporters were snaking their way in and handing over pamphlets that urged the people to call on 02261550789 to know updates about the agitation.
The police on duty looked bored.
“It is indeed like a circus,” a police personnel said.
The pamphlet asked a prbing question.
“What can you do against corruption?”
It asked the people to come in huge numbers to Jantar Mantar.
“Go on hunger strike and pray for a corruption-free India,” it further stated.
It gave a background of Anna Hazare's last hunger strike.
Six corrupt ministers had to resign
400 corrupt officials had to quit their jobs.
The Maharashtra government had to implement the Right to Information Act.
In 2006, the central government had to roll back the proposal to amend the RTI Act.
In this colorful and vocal space, other protests movements that had been relegated to the periphery had decided to inch closer and show support to Hazare's agitation that was hitting the headlines.
They needed visibility too and what was a better way than to associate with the popular protest.
So banners were put up.
Bharat Swabhiman Yuva Sangathan, the Indian Ex Servicemen Movement, Art of Living.
In between, a saint climbed up on the stage and made the participants do breathing exercises.
A man kept filling up bottles of water to distribute to the people.
In that commotion, as the television media looked for more exclusives, Paryavaran Sanrakhshan Parishad entered the street beating dhols.
By that time, the television crews had exhausted their limited range of people. A few well-heeled women from the fortified enclaves of Vasant had come too. They wore stilettos and spoke in accented English. They denounced corruption on air, too.
A print reporter waited for Sangeeta who voiced her concerns in fluent English as a Northeast television reporter asked her if corruption affected her day-to-day life.
“Yes, it does,” she said.
She was later raising the same concerns for the other reporter. She looked happy. She had managed her airtime.
Manish Tiwari, a Delhi University student, was perched precariously on a bench and carried a huge placard.
“Suno … bharat ki galiyon se yeh awazen aati hai. Jinhe bhains charana tha, who sarkaren chalate hai.”
“After so many days, I have got a forum,” he said. “Media is playing a big role. If they hadn't supported us, the movement would have not reached the villages.
Yet another HMTV reporter had found an angle.
He was going to do a story on the movement on the Internet.
He was busy interviewing people about the agitation on social networking sites.
A 24-hour news channel needs constant fodder. They had to provide it from the street for they had chosen this as the umbrella news, as echoed by all.
They were reporting and when they were not, they were protesting. But it was all “Live”
And the high priest of TV journalism was just going to anchor his show from what he felt was like “Tahrir Sqaure.”
They were involved. This was taking reporting to new heights. This was public service journalism.