Triumph Of Mamata’s Will

Till now Pashchim Banga was a monthly magazine brought out by the Information and Cultural Affairs Department of West Bengal. Soon, it will be the name of the state’s own television channel,and Dainik Pashchim Banga will be a daily newspaper, if West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee has her way. Which as we all know, she certainly will.

Harrowed by the recent slew of media reports on her, she has reportedly repeatedly stated at various public forums that,“No matter how many good deeds we do, they are not broadcast in the right way, and instead are broadcast negatively. That is why I think we have to do something good ourselves and that is why we have taken the decision to show the work done in West Bengal…We need our own news channel and paper to inform the people”.

Do you remember the loathsome full page ads which were placed in newspapers by Mayawati describing her achievements? Now imagine reading an entire newspaper where every page is actually an advertisement. And worse, theyare ads written like newspaper copy. Picture a TV channel which will first show government advertisements disguised as news, and then during the breaks show government advertisements. Why would anybody watch so much propaganda? Well according to Mamata Banerjee, she would only be countering the propaganda that already exists in West Bengal.

Didi’s diktat is that you are not to watch the regional news channels – 24 Ghanta or Aakash Bangla– both of which happen to be owned by Avik Dutta of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) along with his newspaper Ganashakti. Miffed by news channels and newspapers reporting on her unfavourably, she has advised people to watch entertainment channels like Star Jalsa, Tara and Channel 10 instead.

For the state TV channel,Didi plans are to use the infrastructure available at Roopkala Kendra which is managed by department of Information and Cultural affairs of West Bengal. The newspaper is to be printed at the moribund printing press of the once popular daily, Basumati. The fable goes that CPI had started showering government ads on Ganashakti, which is why Basumati had perished. Now Banerjee plans give a new lease of life to the press, in the hopes that the press coverage around her and her government will see a similar volte-face.

Now this isn’t entirely new, as many politicians own or have majority ownership stake in media houses.An entire list was compiled by The Hoot which lists Saakshi TVwhich is owned by Jagan Reddy, PTC TV owned by Sukhbir Badal, IBN Lokmat’s chairman also holding a Congress seat inthe Rajya Sabha, Karunanidhi owning Kalaingar TVand so on. These politicians or political parties though, use their own funds to run their media houses.

In the case of Mamata Banerjee, it won’t be her party or she who will bear the expense for her propaganda machinery. It will be the state exchequer doing so.

And her audacious plans seem to have already inspired others to follow suit. Assam’s chief minister Tarun Gogoi announced plans to launch the state’s own TV channel as he too doesn’t like ‘negative coverage’. He wants to counter ‘exaggeration’ and ‘blackout of information’ by other media channels. He was particularly unhappy when during the Prime Minister,Manmohan Singh’s one-day trip to Guwahati on April 20th 2012,the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)had called for a state-wide bandh in protest against Singh’s visit. Gogoi was quoted as saying that, “The channels created an impression as if Assam runs on the writ of ULFA commander-in-chief PareshBaruah. What are the channels trying to prove by sending this kind of message?” He had also added that, “I believe in freedom of speech, but we also have to give our views”

Now if every state’s chief minister decides to follow in Didi’s footsteps and starts diverting huge amounts of taxpayer’s money into propagating their government’s work, we wonder how much money would be left to actually do the work.

Maybe instead of spending crores on managing a TV channel or a newspaper, the propaganda-friendly Chief Ministers should harness the strength of social media. They could open up Twitter and Facebook accounts instead. After all, social media has low set-up costs and the medium allows you to interact directly with the people. And this step can finally provide the much-needed fillip to develop IT infrastructure and mobile connectivity in the country.

But alas, our Chief Ministers don’t have media advisors like Pankaj Pachauri who got the Prime Minister to open an account on Twitter.Even if the tweets put out by @PMO aren’t the most scintillating or interesting, it’s still better than actually setting up an entire newspaper or TV channel simply to blow your own trumpet.