A video went viral of Sakshi Mishra,  daughter of BJP MLA- Rajesh Mishra, in which she can be seen, asking for protection from her father and his henchmen who are allegedly opposing her marriage to a Dalit man.

After that, it was the hot topic of discussion on social media and on print and electronic media.

Yesterday I received notification for a video on Youtube of a program ‘Big Fight’ on NDTV, an 52.22 minutes show, hosted by Nidhi Razdan, the title- ‘IS INDIA MORE CASTIEST THAN EVER BEFORE?’

Talking about electronic media, now its been a long time now that almost all news channels, Hindi / English, have stopped doing journalism. They spend most of their time serving as a PR agency for a particular political party, like a lapdog. And keeps trying to project one leader as a ‘MASIHA’ (the saviour)

I think NDTV (English) & NDTV India (Hindi) can be considered ‘sane’ news channels comparing to the others because it follows the basic rule of journalism- to question the power.

Yesterday morning I saw the program and I found some serious problems with it, which I am going to discuss below.

My objections-

1. It’s title

First of all, what is ‘less casteist’ and ‘more casteist’? As one of the panellists, Rahul Sonpimple objected on it. The caste system is present in Indian society from thousands of years. It has gone under metamorphosis over the period of time and changed its form. Today it is not the same as it was 100 years back. It has completely changed. But has it gone away? Okay, has it even fainted? NO. Instead, its adverse impacts on society got severe with time.

I can give details of ‘n’ number of incidents where heinous atrocities were committed on so-called lower caste communities in an any given period of time in our society. It took ‘High Profile’ case for the channel to acknowledge it and call for ‘more casteist’ society.

It has always been an issue for the Dalits and Adivasis to get space and time on the national TV.  It needs ‘high profile’ case like Sakshi Mishra case or a Bollywood film, like a recent Anubhav Sinha’s  (one of the panellist) directorial film-  Article 15, to realize and acknowledge that caste system still exists in ‘New India’.

2. The panellists or should I say ‘experts’-

NDTV invited Chandrashekhar Azad (Bheem Army chief), Bharatendra Singh (BJP Member), Anubhav Sinha (Director, mentioned above), Rahul Sonpimple (student activist, leader), Geeta Bhatt (supporter of RSS) & Yogendra Yadav (activist and academic).

The problem is the channel is still in the election mode, where they invite spokespersons of every political party to debate on some issues to know their stand on it. Here, it is not the case. It is something more important we are talking about. The whole panel should be consist of the representatives of those castes who are victims of this evil, inhuman system and those who have done a decent amount of work on the field regarding the subject.

I don’t understand why channel felt need to invite Anubhav Sinha? Is he the expert in this? What is his contribution? A film, that too is full of flaws. A young writer, director Jyoti Nisha said “Guys I watched Article 15 and I wanna puke! Anubhav Sinha has reduced everything about the anti-caste movement to his absent understanding of this movement. Warning: Do not watch this film to learn anything about caste. It’s absolutely misleading and preposterous. Shame!!” on her twitter handle  @jyotinisha. Was the right choice to speak on this subject?

A BJP Member and a RSS supporter to talk on the caste. Wow! Are you serious? Since when the BJP and RSS realised the caste system is an issue for the society?

The representation of Dalits in Newsrooms and in the area of journalism is a whole different story. The article which was published in Al Jazeera on 2nd June 2017– ‘Indian media wants Dalit news but not Dalit reporters’ by Sudipto Mondal, in which he says “After searching the country for more than 10 years, I have been able to find eight Dalit journalists in the English media. Only two of them have risked “coming out”  he goes on saying “This is not the only newspaper that’s hired generations of mostly men from the same Brahmin family. There are many examples of Brahmin reporters posted in the same district or city where their ascendants were also reporters for the same publication”.

Three out of six panellists were given enough time and attention to spit venom against so-called lower caste communities and to ruin the discussion.

3. Arguments in favour of the caste system on national TV.

Natural justice says we should listen to both the sides until one gets proved to be guilty. The caste system is the biggest reason for the creation of socio-economic inequalities in the Indian Society. It is the biggest hurdle which is preventing people to have conscious to develop scientific temper. Why does channel still feel the need of caste system supporter / ‘expert’? Does this channel have any doubts about the inequalities this caste system have created for so-called lower caste communities? Why do they feel need to listen to the ‘point of view’ of the RSS in this discussion?

4. The humiliation of so-called lower caste communities on national TV.

I have not even entered into deep analysis of the content of this discussion, actually, I don’t want to, for being a Dalit, it is full of humiliation. To see the panellists defending caste system on national TV, so depressing. Only three of the panellists were showing sensitivity to the subject, namely – Chandrashekhar Azad, Rahul Sonpimple and Yogendra Yadav.

The arguments like, “we have made a Dalit President of this country” and “which Prime Minister washed the feet of sanitation workers in the past?” were given by BJP member in this discussion. Geeta Bhatt was telling the significance and advantages of the caste system, trying to bring ‘Dalits Vs Muslims’ on the table. You can hear stupidity all over in it ‘we have given the 50% reservation to these people’,‘it was on the basis of merit, ‘look at our manifesto’ etc, etc …

I mean, what can we expect from the member of the biggest casteist political party of the country and supporter of RSS, an extremist organisation which is mainly running by and for so-called upper caste communities.

Being a  Dalit watching this program was a humiliating experience for me, the host Nidhi Razdan, never tried to take the discussion about ‘what is the solution’ not asked any panellists how to end this discrimination, how to annihilate caste?’

Some Suggestions-

If you sincerely want to address the issue and discuss it with full seriousness, like Dr. Ambedkar, you have to be biased here. You have to take a stand, to bring the socio-economic equality in the society there is no alternative but to annihilate caste. For that, the following points should be taken into consideration.

1. Representation- Representation of the leaders of those castes who are victims of this evil system.
2. Experts- Invite real experts of the subject, who works for the betterment of these downtrodden communities. And not the spokespersons of the political parties.
3. No supporter of the caste system on the panel- No matter who the person is if he supports the caste system he is the part of the problem, not the solution. That includes Mr. M.K. Gandhi, he was the supporter of the caste system, was the part of the problem, remember.
4. The solution- if the discussion goes is without addressing the solution, which is to annihilate caste, your discussion will not be of any use. It will be just another attempt to get some TRPs.

Author – Prashant Bhaware

22-07-2019

A few screenshots from the past discussions on various TV channels, almost all favouring Brahmin “experts”