A former Governor of Goa (and other States) has made a rather serious set of comments and allegations. Satya Pal Malik, whose name ironically enough translates to 'Ruler of Truth' or 'Truthful Ruler', had blunt things to say about the state of affairs of politics in today's India... and Goa. But, this story got a quiet burial even before it was adequately noticed. Sections of the media chose not to highlight it, leading many to miss noticing it.
TheWire.in (known for its Oppositional role) and the NDTV (despite now being Adani owned, perhaps because it needs its credibility), highlighted the issue to some extent. The Indian Express stayed firm to its reputation of being somewhat blunt and often outspoken. The Hindu (Chennai) and The Telegraph (Kolkata) gave it space. But in many other national publications, it was as if the development pretty much didn't happen.
This was specially true of the late evening shouting TV channels. They are super efficient, but mainly when it comes to highlighting stories that are super critical of the Opposition.
Akash Banerjee, who runs the social and political satire platform, The Deshbhakt, has a lengthy discussion on the "biggest revelation in the Satya Pal Malik interview" https://bit.ly/43GlKG2 In it, he looks at many aspects of what the former Governor said, possibilities of the allegations being true, or their relevance even if not.
In the interview given to Karan Thapar (incidentally the son of the former Chief of Army Staff General Pran Nath Thapar), the former BJP governor questions New Delhi's handling of Kashmir. In particular what led to the Pulwama massacre.
From Goa's perspective, the most relevant section of Malik's bluntspeak is about how he got pushed out of the governorship of Goa. He has also been critical of "corruption" in Goa in the past. Malik makes the claim that an airforce plane evacuated him from Goa post haste, after his critical comments came up here. These are serious comments about the state of affairs of Indian politics today. For Goa too, this has a lot of implications.
As if by some super-coincidence, a few hours after Satya Pal Malik's comments, another sensational story broke out nationwide. This came in from Uttar Pradesh. It was about the former Indian member of Parliament Atiq Ahmed and his brother. It was the kind of story that grabs the media's (especially television's) attention and fits into the 'breaking news' slots.
The Uttar Pradesh story was also dramatic to the extreme. The shooting of the two politicians who were under trial was done in the front of both the police and the press. It went out on television, live. Online sites carried footage of the killing in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad or Ilahabad, the home also to a small community of Goan expats).
Entire Uttar Pradesh was placed on a 'high alert'. It had its impact all around. BBC's online news outlet asked the question: "Why do Indians vote for 'criminal' politicians?" It also had another special report discussing: "Why India's 'fake encounters' are shockingly common".
The emergence of the Uttar Pradesh story might have been entirely by coincidence. But a news-grabbing event of this nature (the point-blank killing) takes away the attention from everything else. Including, fortunately or unfortunately, Satya Pal Malik. Which, in itself, raised critical issues.
For a BJP-appointed Governor to call Prime Minister Modi a "very ill-informed" person, who had "no serious" issue with corruption, is quite something. Likewise, Malik's suggestion that transporting the troops at Pulwama by road was a blunder, and that appointments of the President of India are whetted by the Prime Minister's Office, is really saying something.
Yet, after awhile, the Satya Pal Malik triggered "news" started going in all kinds of directions. The NDTV saw it as a "new flashpoint" in the BJP vs Opposition tussle. The Congress was, naturally, quick to find advantage in this controversy. But the former ruling party has also made its own mistakes in the handling of Kashmir.
India Today, which has been increasingly open about taking a pro-government stance, called Malik the "disgraced governor of J&K". It reproduced PTI (the Press Trust of India) to point out that after his 'Pulwama remarks', the BJP was citing "old comments to slam him".
Likewise, the Indian Express came up with a story titled 'Satya Pal Malik: In and out of Raj Bhavan, never far from controversy'. OpIndia.com, the right wing news website devoted to criticising the "liberal media" and supporting the BJP, chose to highlight Malik conceding that he (Malik) had "made up" Amit Shah's statement critical of Prime Minister Modi.
In a way, it is ironic that the North Indian BJP-versus-Samajwadi politics are being played out, in a way, in both these two prominent cases.
Malik has his roots in the Bharatiya Kranti Dal-Bharatiya Lok Dal politics of Charan Singh, and later the Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party politics. He was appointed national vice president of the BJP in 2012. (He has since been Governor of Bihar, J&K, Goa and Meghalaya.) Atique Ahmad meanwhile has his roots in Independent and Samajwadi Party politics, among others.
Does "news management" work and really shift the agenda of the nation? Questions like this will keep being asked, especially as the media goes about playing an increasingly important role in setting the focus and debate over what concerns the country.
In more innocent times, we took what appeared in print to be the truth. Today, the sides and biases taken in the media are more obvious to the eye. What happens is important; but what is projected as having happened, or the way it is played up, can be even more crucial in our times.
