Obsession with public figures to deflect attention from public officials + national issues, getting too obvious now, no
The easiest route to fame is to attack the already famous, if not attach yourself to them. Artistes and entertainers combined have way more organic followers than politicians
The best way to measure power is to gauge who you can’t speak against. With governments in a democracy, this lack of imminent criticism/dissent is deemed as worrying. But it has its positive effects too.
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Try saying anything that could be sexist/misogynist, racist or casteist in public/online space, for instance. The instant backlash will give you a sense of how the power levers have shifted, although there’s still a long way to go.
But you can totally go after the traditional, educated upper/middle classes of India—scholars, activists, or even media folk allegedly aligned with the old establishment. That tells you something too. So long as this attack is inevitably framed in only two ways—both as analogies benefit partisan politics eventually.
One is pitting elites, versus ‘real masses’—equating elites with elitism, as if the two are the same (Mahatma Gandhi was elite by the way). Also it’s not as if anyone had a choice over which family they were gonna be born into.
If you observe online, the other tired framing is between Hindus and Muslims in India, supposedly centred on correcting medieval history, as it were. Even if, for a second, you concede an academic point here—fact is no Muslim alive right now had anything to do with Babur/Aurangzeb’s army or tax collectors, so who are we fighting against, again?
I guess trolls are fighting—defined, in my books, as peeps online who obsessively demand public accountability from public figures—as against public servants/officials, who are actually accountable to them! Past couple of years you would’ve noticed, from one facetious issue to another, the same trolls seem to hate ‘Bollywood’ now; is it?
And where does this hate come from? Conventional wisdom suggests you hate someone because: a) you hate yourself; b) wish to be in their position (envy/jealousy); or c) consider them a threat.
As for the framing of this hate again, given #Urduwood, #Hinduphobe type tags on my timeline, I’m guessing the one-dimensional trolls believe the Bombay film industry to be a place, where Indian Muslims have done disproportionately well, as against in many other walks of life.
The elitist argument is blended with ‘nepotism’—usually made, I notice, by ‘pro-merit’ people, who themselves passed objective type exams. Because their families could afford them an education and an ascent towards a job, that they thereafter ‘network’ incessantly to find another!
Bollywood’s also easy meat. Because? Soft power! Meaning, soft, therefore no real power as such. The easiest route to fame is anyway to attack the already famous, if not attach yourself to them. Artistes and entertainers combined have way more organic followers than politicians anywhere. They can potentially influence public opinion. That can’t be ignored either.
How do hardcore, desi politicians address this? Through the same principles, attributed to Chanakya, that they otherwise play politics with: ‘Saam’, reconciliation—access, group selfies, state functions/awards, etc. ‘Daam’, price—petty, official perks/appointments, funding of propaganda pictures, other unknown benefits. ‘Bhed’, divide—professionals/industry split between loud supporters, and silenced dissenters, through troll armies, threats of boycotts, and the like. ‘Dand’, punishment—directed at those who speak up; through raids, cases, floozy FIRs, etc.
And so you ask why Public Figure S, R, K not speak about national issues N, R, C, K, F, P…. In the same way that armchair, online activists dislodge governments every day?
Fact is—the individual variables don’t match. Selfishness = self-preservation. What’s bothersome is when all the variables collide towards an entire profession that must protect itself, against a collective onslaught, through censorship, coercion, mass defamation, and other means. Staying quiet isn’t cowardice then—simply suicidal callousness.
Where does mainstream news media figure in all of this? The arc of competitive, mass, private news is long, but it has always bent towards eyeballs—knowing what public is interested in, even if it isn’t always in public interest. This is called tabloidation, which is such a passé, noughties’ term.
What’s replaced it in the case of live, national TV, with a single inventory—only one story on screen, as against online/print—is the ‘trollisation’ of news. Inspired by hawks on social media, who pass judgments, without a hearing; nail suspects, without a trial; shame massive groups as a conspiring monolith.
Seeking accountability is still basis of most news. So why is this trolling? Because you can tell, they can’t even speak to real power—let alone speak truth to it—fearing ‘dand’/retaliation. Forced then to pick stories, only so the more important/contentious ones remain concealed for that prime-time, for sure.
But they must hold someone accountable still—politicians not in power, activists, intellectuals, private individuals… Bollywood is only the latest egg in the basket of imagined ‘gangs’ and ‘lobbies’! Gotta find new ones. Feel sorry for this lot.
And I’m not even talking about the recent case of 23 Narcotics Control Board officials—entrusted with defanging a $650 billion international/Af-Pak drug trade—who followed a party cruise liner, six of them on board, with Rs 80,000 tickets each.
And returned with a few college-type kids, and a drug haul that is, by all estimates, much less than the price of their cruise ticket. A 23-year-old dragged along was superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son, so let’s start on Bollywood again. Hah.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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