AS THE GUNS GO TEMPORARILY SILENT ON THE BORDER THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA TRAINS ITS GUNS ELSEWHERE It was a hectic fortnight for a number of veterans including me who double up as, “Defence Analysts” or “Strategic Affairs Analysts” on various TV channels particularly in tandem with “Breaking News” stories from news about birthdays, Tatra trucks, Floods in J&K, Charges on the current COAS, Kashmiri Pandits plight to the recent Indo-Chinese stand-off at Chumar & Demchok, in Ladakh to the most recent conflagration on the LoC and the International Boundary. All this with the Chinese President’s visit to India & our Prime Minister’s visit to the USA thrown in for good measure. I had the good fortune of being on a slew of news channels across the linguistic divide, at times at peril due to my rather relatively poor diction in the usage of heavy words of my mother tongue preferring to switch to Hindustani, smattering of urdu and of course English as the need arose. To be specific I was on Times Now & News X for a major portion of my exposure and at prime time , more on the latter than the former, ZEE News, India News, News 24, IBN 7, & called but declined a show on “Bhaskar TV”. NDTV was given a miss as they stopped calling me after I had the temerity of telling Ms Dutt that one of the programs she featured me on was totally off at a tangent from the professed subject. That was quite a few years ago. The attendance and selection of guests by various TV channels is not an organized activity. It is up-to the guest department to check the following after they have got the topic for the debate:- The views of the guest on the particular topic. The availability of the guest for the nominated time slot. The availability of an OB Van/requesting the guest to come to the studio/availability of a gadget called “World view”, that does not work more often than it does. In case of anchoring being done by the editor-in-chief, the equation with the guest becomes imperative. The composition of the panel with an equal number arrayed “For” or “Against” with the anchor taking on the role of the moderator/interlocutor. Once the panel is in place there begins the coordination of getting all the principal participants together with sound, light & camera arrangements in place. A minor detail is the usage of the “make-up” man/woman before the spotlight turns “ON”. Altogether a reasonably complicated exercise what with taxis locating and transporting the guests or for that matter the OB vans trying to beating traffic and reaching the appointed place and setting up well in time. Now comes the interesting part, the selection of guests. Every debate I have participated in has had a mix of personalities from various segments of society within India and on either side of the divide an. These have included national spokespersons of various political parties, eminent lawyers, journalists, women activists, diplomats and of course veterans. Some of the names that I have, figuratively speaking, crossed swords/complemented in various debates with, include the following: - On our side: Dr Subramanium Swamy, Mr G Parthasarthy, Mr KC Singh, Prof SD Muni, Akbar Owassi, Dr Samvit Patra, Mr Sanjay Jha, Amiben Yagnik, Jai Narayan Vyas, Abdul Gani Lone, Shabhnam Lone, Aryaman Sundaram, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Ashok Pandit & Mr Joseph of BBC are some of the names I remember. Amongst the veterans, I have shared screen space with two former chiefs, Gen’s Shankar Roychowdhury & VP Malik, Lt Gen’s Hoon, Kadyan & Shankar Prasad, Air Marshal Ahluwalia, Maj Gen’s Satbir Singh GD Bakshi, & RK Malhotra, BD Mishra, RSN Singh & Maroof Raza. On the Pakistani side I have verbally dueled with Tariq Peerzada, Raza Ahmed Kasuri, Illyas Babbar, Rehman Hassan, Lt Gen Hamid Gul (DG ISI) , Brig Javed Hussain SSG, Adm Javed Iqbal, Air Marshal Masood Akhtar, Gen Quereshi (Media Advisor to Mushrraf), AVM Abid Rao amongst other lesser known commentators. The third party in these debates watched by most viewers, are the anchors, they range from the boisterous Arnab to the quieter but efficient, Rahul Shiv Shankar, sprightly Meghna Deka & Tina Sharma, the well read Rubiya Liaqat, the totally Nationalist Sumit Awasthi & Manak Gupta, the young but fast learning Ritanshu,& Risheb Gulati & finally the suave Athar Hassan. Many more on the lesser watched shows. At the back end there is a producer for each show who controls the entire proceedings through a sound earplug connected to the anchor. To put it mildly it has been an upward learning curve all the way. The curve has comprised of firstly, the need to study each topic in its entirety before entering a debate, secondly, the need to understand and appreciate a lawyer, politician or ordinary citizen’s point of view on matters military and finally to comprehend and understand the contrarian view of those who are considered our irksome neighbours, opponents, enemies or in plain military terminology, “Redland”. An analysis of all my exposure and experience in front of the camera can be summed up in the following bullet points: - Debates are generated on daily happenings. Once the immediate impact is gone the topic is buried, only to be resurrected if something similar happens again. Debates are seldom conclusive and leave many viewers and panelists in doubt as to what exactly were they debating about. Though channels profess following up on a story, they seldom do, unless it has benefits accruing to themselves. Advertising being their lifeline news program debates are also interrupted due to commercial breaks, sometimes at crucial junctures of a debate. Barring a few anchors most are briefed on line and resort to reading off a teleprompter. Technicians and the control room jockeys are professionally very sound and overcome glitches if any correctly and very quickly. Hospitality is the usual Indian variety at its best when you arrive for a show and its worst at the end of it. In the content part of the debate I have the following comments to make: - Most Indian professionals, veterans included offer sound technical and their specialty specific advice. Politicians are always sniping at each other a la battle weary ballot opponents even on issues of National importance. Pakistani military guests other than Brig Javed Hussain & AVM Abid Rao , who seem a bit rational but all too often slip while playing to the gallery, have a one point agenda, “The K word”, now the letter “N” has been added to their vocabulary. Some go to great lengths to remind us of medieval history in the form of referring to Ghazni & Ghori forgetting that they are in the 21st Century. Off late they bleat about being engaged in Waziristan and FATA as an excuse of being victims of terror, though it is self created. Barring exceptions like Peerzada & Kasuri most other civilian guests seem to be more balanced in their approach but get carried away by the presence of military men sharing screen space with them to start toeing their line. If alone, they sing a more rational and conciliatory tune. I feel we veterans do present the correct picture militarily but at times it is rather frustrating to see the incompetence of our politicians for the same. One has to remind them quite often to cut the rhetoric and come out with action and policy statements rather than the ever present “I” factor. Friends while you digest what I have written, I am off to another show on India News as the LOC has erupted again, notwithstanding the effect of HUDHUD, Sunanda Pushkar’s strange death, the kidnap attempt at NOIDA, the shooting in CP, The Kotla ODI or even the rape of the Maha Dalit Women. Happy Viewing!!!!!!!!.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 08:38:38 +0000
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