[Assam] Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India?

[baruah at bard.edu]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: girish karnawat <girishkarnawat at gmail.com>
Date: 2 Dec 2008 15:44
Subject: Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India?

Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India?

Gnani Sankaran- Tamil writer, Chennai.

  Watching at least four English news channels, surfing from one  
another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a  
terror of another kind, the terror of assaulting one's mind and  
sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these  
channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie  
called - Hotel Taj the icon of India

  Whose India, Whose Icon?

  It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not  
bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from  
terrorists - the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station.  
CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station  
hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal  
and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming  
themselves  into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with  
the Marathis and Kolis

  But the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise  
the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No  
Barkha Dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to  
show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards.  
And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to  
find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were  
again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the  
dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.

   In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of  
workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by  
train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even  
after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to  
cover in detail what transpired there.

The channels conveniently failed to acknowledge that the  Aam Aadmis  
of India surviving in Mumbai were not affected by  Taj, Oberoi and  
Trident closing down for a couple of weeks  or months. What mattered  
to them was the stoppage of BEST buses and suburban trains even for  
one hour. But the channels were not covering that aspect of the terror  
attack.  Such information at best merited a scroll line, while the  
cameras have to be dedicated for real time thriller unfolding at Taj  
or Nariman Bhavan.

  The so called justification for the hype the channels built around  
heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that  
Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe  
congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not  
India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The  
Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST  
and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power  
over these mass of labouring classes. Leopold  club and Taj were the  
haunts of rich spoilt kids who would   drive their vehicles over  
sleeping Aam Aadmis on the  pavement, the Mafiosi of Mumbai forever  
financing the  glitterati of Bollywood (and also the terrorists) ,   
Political brokers and industrialists

  It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people that  
the terrorists chose to strike.
  The terrorists have understood after several efforts that the Aam  
Aadmi will never break down even if you bomb her markets and trains.  
He/she was resilient because that is the only way he/she can even  
survive.

   Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news  
channels and their patrons this time.  What resilience, enough is  
enough, said Pranoy Roy's channel on the left side of the channel  
spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Arnab Goswami representing  
the right wing of the broadcast media whose time is now. Can Rajdeep  
be far behind in this game of one-upmanship over TRPs ? They all  
attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the  
government in tackling terror

  The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in  
trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis. The resilience  
of the ordinary worker suited the rich business class of Mumbai since  
work or manufacture or film shooting did not stop. When it came to  
them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused  
to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now  
to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and  
restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and  
the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by  
their own ideologies

The terrorists have learnt that the ordinary Indian is unperturbed by  
terror. For one whose daily existence itself is a terror of government  
sponsored inflation and market sponsored exclusion, pain is something  
he has learnt to live with. The rich of Mumbai and India Inc are  
facing the pain for the first time and learning about it just as the  
middle classes of India learnt about violation of human rights only  
during emergency, a cool 28 years after independence.

  And human rights were another favourite issue for the channels to  
whip at times of terrorism.
Arnab Goswami in an animated voice wondered where were those champions  
of human rights now, not to be seen applauding the brave and selfless  
police officers who gave up their life in fighting terrorism. Well,  
the counter question would be where were you when such officers were  
violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24  
hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this  
country?

  This definitely was not the time to manufacture consent for the  
extra legal and third degree methods of interrogation of police and  
army but Arnabs don't miss a single opportunity to serve their class  
masters, this time the jingoistic patriotism came in handy to  
whitewash the entire uniformed services.

  The sacrifice of the commandos or the police officers who went down  
dying at the hands of ruthless terrorists is no doubt heart rending  
but in vain in a situation which needed not just bran but also brain.  
Israel has a point when it says the operations were misplanned  
resulting in the death of its nationals here.

Kakares and Salaskars would not be dead if they did not commit the  
mistake of travelling by the same vehicle. It is a basic lesson in  
management that the top brass should never travel together in crisis.  
The terrorists, if only they had watched the channels, would have  
laughed their hearts out when the Chief of the Marine commandos, an  
elite force, masking his face so unprofessionally in a see-through  
cloth, told the media that the commandos had no idea about the  
structure of the Hotel Taj which they were trying to liberate. But the  
terrorists knew the place thoroughly, he acknowledged.

  Is it so difficult to obtain a ground plan of Hotel Taj and discuss  
operation strategy thoroughly for at least one hour before entering?  
This is something even an event manager would first ask for, if he had  
to fix 25 audio systems and 50 CCtvs for a cultural event in a hotel.  
Would not Ratan Tata have provided a plan of his ancestral hotel to  
the commandos within one hour considering the mighty apparatus at his  
and government's disposal?  Are satellite pictures only available for  
terrorists and not the government agencies?  In an operation known to  
consume time, one more hour for preparation would have only improved  
the efficiency of execution.

  Sacrifices become doubly tragic in unprofessional circumstances. But  
the Aam Aadmis always believe that terror-shooters do better planning  
than terrorists. And the gullible media in a jingoistic mood would not  
raise any question about any of these issues.  They after all have  
their favourite whipping boy ? the politician the eternal entertainer  
for the non-voting rich classes of India.

  Arnabs and Rajdeeps would wax eloquent on Manmohan Singh and Advani  
visiting Mumbai separately and not together showing solidarity even at  
this hour of national crisis.  What a farce? Why can't these channels  
pool together all their camera crew and reporters at this time of  
national calamity and share the sound and visual bites which could  
mean a wider and deeper coverage of events with such a huge
  human resource to command?   Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha  
keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was  
exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is  
this the time to promote the channel? If that is valid, the politician  
promoting his own political constituency is equally valid. And the  
duty of the politician is to do politics, his politics. It is for the  
people to evaluate that politics

  And terrorism is not above politics. It is politics by other means.  
To come to grips with it and to eventually eliminate it, the practice  
of politics by proper means needs constant fine tuning and  
improvement. Decrying all politics and politicians, only helps  
terrorists and dictators who are the two sides of the same coin. And  
the rich and powerful always prefer terrorists and dictators to do  
business with.

Those caught in this crossfire are always the Aam Aadmis whose deaths  
are not even mourned - the taxi driver who lost the entire family at  
CST firing, the numerous waiters and stewards who lost their lives  
working in Taj for a monthly salary that would be one time bill for  
their masters.

Postscript: In a fit of anger and depression, I sent a message to all  
the channels, 30 hours through the coverage.  After all they have been  
constantly asking the viewers to message them for anything and  
everything. My message read: I send this with lots of pain. All  
channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims  
of CST massacre, the real mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India. Your  
obsession with five star elite is disgusting. Learn from the print  
media please.  No channel bothered. Only srinivasan Jain replied: you  
are right. We are trying to redress balance today. Well, nothing  
happened till the time of writing this 66 hours after the terror attack.



-- 
Girish Dariyav Karnawat

-- 
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Bangalore
Karnataka
INDIA


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