Salil Tripathi set off a seriously interesting discussion of Arundhati Roy at Facebook, via a piece by Andrew Buncombe in the Independent. (This is why, say what you will, FB is not altogether silly.) I got his permission to quote him.
The subject is, as Buncombe put it:
It was the writer and activist Arundhati Roy who set foreign journalists in India busily chattering recently. In an interview with Stephen Moss in the Guardian, Ms Roy was discussing the Maoist and Adavasi “resistance” to encroachment on tribal lands. Mr Moss, asked her why, “we in the West don’t hear about these mini-wars?”. Ms Roy replied: “I have been told quite openly by several correspondents of international newspapers, that they have instructions – ‘No negative news from India’ – because it’s an investment destination. So you don’t hear about it…”
Salil said (among other things)
I agree that journalists who probe too much into Kashmir are likely to have visa problems. I also agree that editors in the West like to look at unusual stories out… of India, and not ones they’ve been covering all the time. But I don’t think there’s a grand conspiracy among editors, who meet at a pub every night in Wapping, exchanging notes, about which rah-rah story about India should they run. Likewise, there is no conspiracy among correspondents either, to meet at specific places and plan coordinated stories that decide to underplay poverty and overplay the Gurgaon malls. In fact, most journalists want the unusual – and so you will find stories that show cracks in the India shining story, just as you will find stories about Indian companies making it big abroad. The trouble with Arundhati Roy is precisely that she thinks only her truth is valid, only the story she focuses on is important, and others must write the same story, and reach the same conclusions. That was infuriating at one point; it is tiresome now. Which is why she is less relevant in India than at any time, and continues to be loved by the Guardian and the Nation, two newspapers which have a patronising view of the “Other”, and can see only one form of stories from that place. (Sure, Guardian will write about Outsourcing, but focus on the soullessness of the job, and not about how it has liberated a person from the Indian hinterland, who’d have married within her caste to whoever her parents insisted, and exposed her to an urban lifestyle, and allowed her to assert her identity, creating her own space in the big adventure called India. Roy sees her as a collaborator; I see signs of emancipation there.)
I’ve noticed the same thing (perhaps alerted to it by reading Meera Nanda): the way UK and US journalists treat Roy as an oracle when there are countless other Indians they could talk to but don’t. (They do the same thing with Vandana Shiva.)
Comments
18 responses to “A patronising view of the “Other””
Honestly, I can’t say that it is some sort of cultural bias, or the more general tendency of today’s media towards laziness. After all, on the Sunday morning political shows John McCain has been treated like an oracle and he’s an old white guy, and he’s about a relevant as an Ed Sullivan recording.
I was dubious about this as soon as I saw the original journalist’s name was Buncombe, considering that bunkum (same pronunciation) here in the U.K. is another word for nonsense.
Arundhati Roy? Vandana Shiva? Nope.
What Salty Current quotes is coherent and interesting, so it could not have been Roy’s or Shiva’s prose. :-)
And despite many people’s assertions, Indian economy today is anything but neoliberal, if neoliberal is to mean a regime of low taxes, low regulation, openness to trade, ease of doing business, and flexibility in labour markets. India claims it has all of that – and yet, it ranks 170th or some such, in the IFC/World Bank’s guidance and rankings on doing business.
Thanks.
From Buncombe’s piece:
*eyeroll*
Right: Buncombe’s update cites a journalist saying something familiar and plausible about editorial preference for certain kinds of stories as opposed to others (for commercial reasons). What’s missing is the bit about “because it’s an investment destination.”
And as Salil indicated, the passage from Nirmukta is…a passage from Nirmukta. It’s not the same as a passage from Roy.
Seriously? Since he published the story he’s heard from two separate people that they’ve been told by editors that they don’t want those stories for reasons not at all inconsistent with what she said (and in contrast to the claim that they just want “the unusual”). She could certainly have heard that specific phrase, but what these colleagues have said is consistent with her comment about “no negative news.” He obviously thought he should note it as against his thesis, to his credit.
Huh? It’s a passage from Meera Nanda, whose argument there sounds almost like something that could have come from Roy or Shiva.
Really, what you quoted from seems like a pretty substance-free hit piece.
Arundhati Roy has always been an over promoted controversy seeker. The sad fact is that, many of the issues she takes up are real human problems (including the trouble in the eastern states with Maoists, tribals and the rest of the population). But, her one sided commentry and arrogant rejection of any other “truth” (as one commenter said), I think, make her a liability.
The funny thing is that, being an Indian (though not very nationalistic one), every time I see a program about India on the TV, I wonder where are all the good stories.
Yes, I think populism and sensationalism is a much more plausible than a grand consipracy in any kind of coloring of news stories.
I second Nirmukta as a very robust source for information, especially that interest a sceptic/atheist/rationalist
I third Nirmukta.
Like I said.
Oh yes? Where was that?
I meant: “Like I said [above]: ‘seems like a pretty substance-free hit piece’.”
I don’t get this debate. Forget Roy or any other person. If facts are not or under-reported it’s a problem. Period. And it doesn’t even matter what the motivations may be. If the claim that facts are under-reported in a certain way is corroborated by multiple independent people, I for one would take it seriously. There is plenty of stuff in the news that is “corroborated” by what one person said, and that’s the story.
So sure let’s even grant that Roy has put an added intent in there, there is still a real point here and people with less visibility than her wouldn’t even be able to get the point out.
One could even be systematic about this and check if the claim is true, cross-read positive stories about India versus what had been reported in local outlets. And even compare that to other countries. One would actually get to the core of it.
Reading the comments this really feels more like a battle of ideologies, not a battle for good descriptions of the realities on the ground.
Both people who critique Roy here are clearly interested in painting Roy as irrelevant. My take is that Roy should be irrelevant if there was no point here. That case has not been made at all, and as best I can tell the critics don’t even try to make that case.
So I don’t understand why this is interesting. Surely the left’s focus on the poor is not “a patronising view of the “Other””, but I guess it’s a matter of how one wants to spin things.
Yes of course bad reporting is a problem. That’s a subject that is not entirely unexplored on B&W. But it’s not “Period.” “Period” would mean it makes no difference what else is said, and that’s not the case.
One reason it’s interesting, to me at least, is that there are countless Indian academics and intellectuals who have more interesting things to say on the subject but don’t get the air-time. Roy’s disproportionate access to the media is interesting because it’s just that.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t about bad reporting. The reports of editorial censoring are there. But the main issue is what’s happening in India that Roy is reporting on and that few people outside of India hear about. I would know little to nothing about the story had I not seen her on Democracy Now! and other alternative sources.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/22/arundhati_roy_on_obamas_wars_india
This is partly a story of media being shaped by corporate and government power. Behind that is a local story. Bringing that story to people’s attention isn’t othering or condescending. Some people seem to want to make this about Roy (like some wnat to make it about you or PZ) to distract from the real story. I couldn’t care less about her flaws, whatever they may be. Argue with her about what’s happening and why.
Some of you may be interested in this discussion on Roy that went down on our forums. All those on that thread are Indian atheists/freethinkers who are part of the middle-upper classes, are the beneficiaries of India’s modern neo-liberal policies (and the establishment in general), and are in general proponents of free-speech. In general, but not always, apparently.