Power corrupts people in all walks of life. Even the media which has established itself as the powerful and influential fourth estate of this spluttering democracy.
A case in point is the prolonged fratricidal war for editorial authority and dominance being waged in the venerable Chennai-based English daily The Hindu (estb. 1878). On January 5, Malini Parthasarathy, the JNU, Delhi and Columbia University-educated niece of G. Kasturi (former editor (1965-1991) of the daily), who was appointed editor less than a year ago, resigned abruptly on grounds that her sterling contribution to the development of the newspaper which included masterminding the launch of its Mumbai edition, was insufficiently appreciated by the board of directors of the closely-held G. Kasturi & Sons Ltd, which owns this highly-respected newspaper.
According to B.S. Raghavan, a former journalist and columnist of The Hindu, Parthasarathy, although an excellent journalist and interviewer of the high and mighty, is ill-tempered and authoritarian, and is primarily responsible for highly regarded professionals such as Siddharth Vardarajan and P. Sainath exiting the daily. “The manner in which one faction of Kasturi & Co fraternity ganged up against another, and unceremoniously and uncouthly bundled out close kith and kin with no reasons adduced to readers is reminiscent of what used to be happening in Byzantium… With relatives swarming all over the place demanding to be accommodated in niches carved out for them, professionalism suffers,” writes Raghavan in his memoirs Fading Footprints (2013).
More than a decade ago your then struggling correspondent proposed an agreement under which The Hindu would use its mighty muscle to distribute EducationWorld. Although we offered to pay for services rendered, the suggestion was contemptuously dismissed by N. Ram, then the editor of the daily and managing director of Kasturi & Sons. Ergo, even though one regrets the imminent decline of a great — even if somewhat unfortunately titled — newspaper, it’s difficult not to feel a small measure of schadenfreude about the sea of troubles in which the self-obsessed ruling family of The Hindu is floundering.
Ad gurus’ pride deficit
There’s a serious ethnic pride deficit within all sections of Indian society. Sixty-eight years after the very brown Mahatma wrested the country’s independence from the white man, dozens of skin lightening cream manufacturers led by compradors of Hindustan Unilever, whose racist propaganda is incorporated into its top-selling Fair & Lovely, are doing roaring business.
For individuals with ethnic pride and sensitivity such as your editor, watching the news on television has become an ordeal as over made-up Bollywood mercenaries plug an assortment of skin-lightening creams and lotions which are touted as the ultimate expression of professional and personal success. Increasingly, Caucasian or quasi-caucasian actors and models are being employed to plug everything from real estate to snacks. In a frequently aired news television ad of India Bulls — a housing finance company — a male trogdolyte of seemingly Middle East ethnicity is shown appreciating the 21st century business properties funded by the company. In a Parle biscuits ad short, undisguised Caucasians are depicted enjoying the snack en famille. Your well-travelled correspondent can vouch that the use of non-ethnic actors to endorse products and services to natives is globally exceptional and betrays a slavish, colonised mindset. In African countries, black African models plug products and services on the logical premise that viewers of print and television can identify with the actors.
Although there is a good case for imposition of a government ban on skin-lightening creams and lotions ads as is the case in several countries, greater sensitivity and restraint on this issue and of the wider issue of ethnic pride and confidence needs to be exhibited by India’s flourishing advertising fraternity. It’s not too much to ask from the over-paid, over-sexed and very much over here gurus of Indian advertising.
Business as usual
The prompt settlement of a damages case filed in London by Will Pike, a British national who was injured and paralysed during the November 26, 2008 terrorist attack on the pricey Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, owned by Indian Hotels Ltd, a Tata Group company, has come as a resounding slap to India’s obsolete and time-agnostic judiciary, and also for the smug management of the Tata Group which had come out clean and indeed heroic, of the infamous 26/8 carnage in Mumbai. On that fateful day, a deadly armed group of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists reportedly trained in Pakistan rained havoc, randomly murdering 166 citizens and tourists in several locations in south Mumbai, including 32 people in the five-star Taj Mahal hotel.
It is pertinent to note that the Indian Hotels’ objection to the suit for damages being filed in London, rather than Mumbai where the injury following the terrorist attack on the Taj was suffered by Pike, was dismissed on the ground that if the action was filed in India, it would take several decades before final adjudication.
But this latest damning indictment of India’s moribund, Dickensian judicial system doesn’t seem to have moved the collective conscience of their lordships of the Supreme Court to press for urgent reform of the creaking judicial system which has rained misery rather than justice on hapless citizens.
This unholy combination has almost completely killed torts litigation (claiming civil damages for injury) in India. Moreover the prompt settlement of the tort action for negligence by the self-righteous Tata Group/Indian Hotels management indicates that contrary to its hitherto uncontested claims in the media, it had been negligent in discharging its duty to take adequate safety measures. But since then there’s been a curious media blackout of this issue, and it’s business as usual in the impervious courts and the over-hyped Taj hotels.