A Review of the Offstumped Debate
by Vijay
In the normal order of things, I relish every opportunity to engage meaningfully with Swapan Dasgupta and Ashok Malik, two gentlemen who do most of the legwork involved in upholding the intellectual credibility of the political Right in India. I was then quite pleased to hear they would be participating in an online debate hosted by the Offstumped Community on the topic of “Challenging the Left-Liberal Bias in the Indian Media”. As somebody who has spent time a few months in a Delhi newspaper office and witnessed this phenomenon firsthand, I was looking forward to this debate with a quiet optimism.
Critique:
My first grouse with the debate was its relatively unegalitarian format – the aam right-wing janta was not allowed its say for about 45 minutes whilst the panellists sparred with each other. This however could be easily forgiven had the discussion been intellectually stimulating.
You can then imagine my disbelief as the discussion degenerated into pontifications on what it means to be an “Internet Hindu“. It is perhaps this idiotic moniker which has been gleefully adopted by many members of the right-wing netizenry that reflects the rot infecting the political Right in India and political discourse more generally. Issues of identity will always remain intrinsic to politics, even more so to the politics of a poor, feudal society like India. However, that is no justification to make loudly-asserted religious identity the raison d’etre of the right-wing project in India. As Ashok Malik pointed out in an email exchange, the desi political animal should concern himself solely with…
…putting together a nationalist, economically sensible. right-wing political platform in India and working to shape the BJP towards this goal.
However, this is not the main reason for my post. My main grouse was how the discussion strayed from the actual topic of concern – that of challenging the comfortable centre-left consensus in the Indian media, particularly breaching the citadel of the English language media. To those who argue that the English news-channels are electorally insignificant, I would say they still have a massive sway over the Indian imagination because prevailing intellectual currents in a postcolonial society like ours are still, largely determined by the angreziwallas and it is that intellectual worldview which is recycled by the likes of Pankaj Pachauri and the perverse Ashutosh for their audience in the Hindi heartland.
It is in this context that I make the case for a centre-right media outlet. In analysing the BJP’s surprise defeat in 2004, Swapan Dasgupta argued that the party’s failure to craft an alternative intellectual establishment was one of the factors that led to its downfall. Setting up a credible, intellectually-vibrant news channel with a strong code of ethics and a distinctly centre-right editorial stance is the first step towards that goal. I am not one for crass comparisons, but Roger Ailes’ FOX news makes for a good case study.
I caught a hint of pessimism in Swapan’s interventions when the idea of setting up this news outlet was briefly discussed. If memory serves, it was something about such an attempt being repeatedly thwarted by vested interests. Perhaps his pessimism comes from a lifetime of contesting the received wisdom of his colleagues in the media. However, I think there is enough sympathy among some large family-run Indian corporate houses and that venerable new entity called “Middle India” to make a centre-right media outlet a viable project. Rajesh Jain and Amit Malviya, co-founders of the Friends of BJP movement had mooted the idea of a centre-right think tank to foster a new discourse on policy affairs in India. Whilst this is a laudable initiative, I think the conservative cause would be better served if the organisation harnessed the pool of readymade corporate talent at its disposal to explore the logistics involved in setting up a media outlet.
In any case, it is time for the Indian right-winger to stop obsessing over the perceived slights inflicted upon him by doyens of the mass-media and re-define the discourse for himself.
Comments
Though the prospect of having Intellectual Czars like Ashok, Swapan & Kanchan on a single forum excited me, I was, in a sense disappointed that a needlessly provocative article on a fringe issue (stereotype of the Internet Hindu, as opposed the Internet Hindu himself) was the starting point. Like you rightly point out, the debate focussed more on the term itself rather than why it has come into being & its implications.
I must also add that Ashok Malik’s piece – the starting point for all this brouhaha, though true for most part, was quite needless – it seemed to have a lot of personal rant (esp. the “professionally frustrated” bit) which led him to stereotype the Internet Hindu based on a few (hopefully inconsequential) fringe elements who, definitely do exist, but are best ignored.
so no discussion on taxation, smaller government, federalism, local self-govt, civil liberties etc? just BJP style identity politics? RSSwallah offstumped is using all u guys to spread their fascist ideology. you guys are so gullible …
I agree with Balaji (I assume this is the same ex-BJP Balaji from south Bangalore
.
Really why were these topics (property rights, ‘socialist’ term in the constitution, taxation, smaller government, local self-govt, local policing, limiting the state’s powers, rule-of-law etc.) not discussed ?
Why shape BJP? BJP is a socialist party (as per the registration). Why should the right support it?
Raghu,
yes, I’m the same Balaji.
and yes annulling the 42nd amendment which turned “sovereign democratic republic” into “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”, shud be a right wing priority.
“socialist” must go.
“secular” shud also go. while govt has to be secular, i think constitution may recognize religion as an important national institution. ofcourse i mean “secular” as the antonym of “religious” and hence referring to laity. not the “sama dharma satbhav” kinda meaning.
as an aside, i think even “democratic” shud go, considering we have only limited democratic rights.
in koramangala, we are having a hard time getting decent candidates to contest, becos some 98% of the electorate is banned from contesting elections! koramangala is a constituency reserved for backward classes (category A) women!
As a member of offstumped.in I would like to thank you for the feedback.
There is a bit of background to why we chose the format we chose for the debate. We are still growing and discovering how to handle these events. This I believe was our fifth debate. Our first debate was a free for all with out a moderator, and we noticed that it was turning into a flood of comments. Pretty similar to what happened in this debate in the post-moderator session, as you may have noticed. And that is why we decided to start our debates with the initial 45 minute moderated segment.
We are still even after this last debate discussing ways to make the next one better. We would welcome more feedback.
Regarding the “Internet Hindu” situation — This whole thing has had momentum of it’s own! Both Swapan Dasgupta in Times of India and Kanchan Gupta in The Pioneer wrote columns about the “internet hindu” phenomenon that appeared on the morning of the debate. I guess it became the thing everyone wanted to talk about.
To repeat what I said during the debate, I hope the “internet hindu” moniker fades way, because it does not convey the depth of the criticism directed against the left-establishment nor it does convey the diversity of the voices that are arraigned against the left.
I guess we’ve gone through multiple discussions revolving around “why isn’t there a BJP news channel” that when it came to this debate the idea just seems to have lost steam. That would make for a good debate “Should the BJP start a news channel?” : )
Meanwhile I guess we make do with what we have offstumped.in and you guys are there centreright.in and nod to Balaji rightnews.in