For the past 2 days, media in India has been extremely busy focusing on an MP and a Minister of State in Union cabinet called Giriraj Singh. That man comes from Bihar, and he usually says and does what appeals to folks from his constituency and his state. I do not think Giriraj really cares about what the rest of the world thinks. He thinks differently and flaunts it.
It is my personal view that what he said reflects reality in India. It is time we in India accept our hypocrisy when it comes to skin colour. Light colour skin is generally valued higher compared to darker skin tones in India. The brand manager of "Fair & Lovely" in Unilever, India must be wondering what all this fuss is about.
I checked out a few minutes of panel debates in our media on this. As always, we had the usual set of known faces on all panels, and they dutifully mouthed some inane.insincere stuff.
I am amused by the sheer hypocrisy of our media and I wonder who would question them ? For instance, yesterday, in Kenya ( a country, which has an entire population of darker skin tone ), a terror group called Al Shabab gunned down 147 to their death mercilessly in a college, and 80 more are seriously injured. The coverage in Indian media on this horrifying incident was pathetic. The sound bytes, and space in print media allotted for this, was far lesser than the space allotted for Deepika Padukone's stupid " My choice" video.
However, when a mad man laid siege to a cafe in Sydney earlier this year, all our channels covered it 24 x 7 and print media practically brought out a supplement on it. The body count in Sydney was 4 - all white. The body count in Kenya is 147..and counting. Both were cases of terrorist incidents. From an Indian perspective, both happened in far away countries.
Precisely, what are the standards our media uses for determining the value of news ? I also remember the pathetic coverage when Boko Haram kidnapped 300 girls about a year ago
I would like to pose a question to all our "super anchors" in India - what, in their opinion made them view a terrorist incident involving the death of 147 black people in Kenya as "less" news worthy compared to the incident involving 3 dead in Sydney?
If they can answer this clearly, I think I will concede that they have a right to grill Giriraj for the next 365 days.
