Creation of hype can be learnt from Indian media [rule of exception applies]. Let’s take the example of Salman Rushdie’s aborted flight to Jaipur, then cancellation of release of Taslima Nasrin’s book in Kolkata. What is the importance of these two figures? We remember Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Darwin, etc. for their specific services or dignified contributions or innovations in their respective fields. But we cannot understand the attitude of Indian media regarding Rushdie and Taslima. I was just thinking about an answer to this question. In between my learned tea boy interrupted my thought process and gently began to show the headline of a newspaper: ‘After Rushdie, Taslima targeted: Kolkata Book Fair cancels release of her book’. I was just reading the headline when the tea boy again interrupted me: “Saheb! Kya aapko maaloom hai ye akhbar ayesi khabron ko itni ahmiyat kyun dete hain’ [Saheb! Do you know why these newspapers give so much importance to such news?]
Without waiting for my reply he continued, “kyunki in logon ne Islam ke khilaf likha hai, sub log yahi kahte hain”[because they wrote against Islam, all say the same thing].
I felt I had got the answer.
The media want to project some issues as per their own parameters. However, the impact of such news items carries a long lasting effect on the mind of a layman. Flashing news is not a problem but trying to create hype out of nothing is detrimental to the harmonious growth of a society.
The answer that I wanted to find came from the experience of a layman.
I felt he is the true analyser of the news.
Tajammul Husain
Via E-mail