[Reader-list] Gareeb Admi ka kaun Dekhta hai? Post 1.0 by Aman Sethi

[Aman Sethi]

Gareeb Admi ka kaun Dekhta hai?


Have you ever read something in the papers, watched it on television, or
simply seen it happen around you, and asked out loud, (in a manner
reminiscent of Arjun questioning Krishna on the eve of battle), "Why is
no-one doing something about this?  Why isn't there a law to prevent this?"
or, more crucially, "Why doesn't the government do something about this?"

As a journalist for Frontline, I often found myself in situations where such
questions seemed thoroughly appropriate; in fact they seemed absolutely
essential.  As I looked around, and read the work of others who had come
before, I realized that I was in very good company.  Practically even other
newspaper, or magazine, had been there, done that, and in some cases,
launched a campaign with a grainy photograph and a catchy kicker.(The Indian
Express is particularly good at campaigns; their latest being the
graphically titled "Building House, Breaking Law" on demolitions in Delhi).
The other thing that struck me was that they all said the same things, often
about rather different people, and came to conclusions that could be best
described as "foregone".  To quote my I-fellow proposal, " they could well
be an extract … … describing the plight of the Indian farmer, factory
worker, construction worker, woman laborer, child or dalit.  The narrative
usually begins with a laundry list of loss, deprivation, anguish and
oppression, followed by the shrewd, rapier-like, query – "After fifty years
of Independence, why is Kallu/ Mohandas/ Mohammed Ashraf / Bannodevi still
hungry?", and is finally closed out with a  plea to politicians, bureaucrats
and civil society to put aside their petty differences, and work towards the
emancipation and empowerment of India's "poor and oppressed."



What made things worse was that my observations in one particular case were
markedly different from what I had expected to find.  Quoting again, "for my
most recent story on construction workers in Delhi, I found it difficult to
reconcile the reality I saw with the journalistic mode I had subconsciously
chosen.  There was no doubt that the workers I met were financially
impoverished migrants, but they were a far cry from the helpless, anguished
"beings" that I expected them to be.  Instead, I met  a group of skeptical,
often humorous, workers; completely alien to the "official" world with its
formal institutions of schools, banks, and hospitals, yet deeply enmeshed in
vibrant, dynamic, trust-based networks of their own."



While it is nobody's case that poverty and oppression do not exist, two
basic questions need to be asked of the existing discourse – Who are such
texts written for? And, what purpose are they supposed to serve?



While I agree that the two questions listed above are rather
"eve-of-battle"-ish themselves, I shall attempt to play with them through
the course of my fellowship, titled "Alternative ways/ means of
representation of the "poor and oppressed" by studying informal networks at
labour mandis in Delhi." While that is the official title, I hope to come up
with a less boring title at some point in the future, preferably in a
foreign language.



At the risk of making a rather obvious point, one of the most basic problems
of the existing journalistic narrative is the fixity of language.  Words/
Phrases like 'poor', "oppressed", "under privileged' and (my personal
favourite) "the economically weaker sections of our societies' conjure up
images that are often counter-productive.  Years of media coverage have
fixed the pictures in our heads, ensuring that all we know about India's
"poor and oppressed" is that they are "poor and oppressed."  Often, there
isn't even an acknowledgment of the fact that some of the "economically
weaker sections of our societies" might be less or more "poor and oppressed"
than others.  And so my fellowship shall not just look at different ways of
writing about people, but also look at different ways of writing people.



The difference between writing about people and writing people is a rather
subtle one.  When you write about people, you describe them as a zoologist
would describe a fruit bat – their appearance, diet, ecological threat to
their habitat (forest clearance or slum clearance as the case may be),
future as a species etc.  Thus, narratives like "She lay helplessly in her
tiny , smoke filled hut, oblivious of the misery and poverty that surrounded
her" would fall into this category.  Such narratives sometimes slip into
"stream of consciousness" mode where the sensitive journalist divines the
inner-most hopes, desires and feelings of his subject.



Writing people themselves is a far trickier exercise.  It is usually a
sub-conscious exercise where by repeatedly using the same metaphors to
describe someone you create an icon, that can clicked to get a spontaneous,
yet utterly predicable, response.  Over the years, the media and the state
have successfully written people so vividly, that as a journalist, one no
longer feels the need to talk to anyone at all.  You already know what they
are going to say, and the real thing is invariably a poor step-cousin in
comparison to the idealised creation, unable to describe their "condition"
as you would like them to.  One perfectly written person is the "old man
from the village".  No description is required.  One can already imagine the
wrinkles on his face, the salt and pepper subtle, and the shawl (usually
greenish-brown) draped over his shoulders.  If intelligently deployed, he is
devastating as old farmer remembering the partition, the Naxal movement, the
time Indira Gandhi came to their village, the drought of 1965 or the flood
of 1976.  The chances are that he will say something like, "Mahaul badal
gaye hai, ab gareeb aadmi ka kaun dekhta hai?"



I would like to call this process "abjectification".  The process by which a
person is reduced to an "abject" – devoid of individuality or expression
beyond an articulation of the condition of "abjectness".  I find that, apart
from opening up interesting avenues for wordplay, the word/term
"abject/abjective" conveys a sense of what I am trying to express without
the accompanying pictures and sounds that are associated with so many of the
other words that we encounter.  To use it in a sentence, "An examination of
existing media trends suggests that to be successful as a journalist today,
abjectivity is a must."



While the point that such discourses essentialise their subjects is an
obvious one, what is interesting is the fact that the subjects often take on
the role that the media assigns them.  While photographing people for a
story on slums in Delhi, I noticed that slum residents had a certain
trademark expressions, that could only be described as "abjective."  Thus,
skeptical, animated faces would transform into masks of sorrow at the
earliest sighting of a camera of any shape, size or description.  Many would
attain heightened states of "abjectment" at the first indication that I was,
in fact, a journalist.  However, to conclude that this is a sign of how the
media has beaten an entire population into thinking, and seeing themselves,
in a particular way would be to draw the wrong lesson.  In fact, it would be
just the kind of lesson that the "meediyaa" would draw.



(The meediyaa, as I see it, represents the throng of television, and print,
journalists who routinely descend on slums, and night-shelters in search of
deprivation, and introduce themselves by saying, "namaste, hum meediyaa se
aaye hai".  They are then taken to meet the pradhan, who says "Kaun se
meediyaa se hai? Humari photo ekbar meediyaa mein aaie thi.")



The point that I am trying to make is that, well aware of the meediyaa's
proclivities, the residents simply use it as a bargaining tool.  While
quiet, hidden processes continue in the background, the media is used as a
platform to issue ultimatums, raise the ante, or signal intention by
government departments and slum residents alike.



To bring things back on track, through my fellowship (quoting once again) "I
would like to focus on the concept of the labour mandi in Delhi, study its
informal networks and institutions in detail and arrive at a possible
template for representation of its inhabitants as other than abject,
helpless and desperate.



Through detailed research, it should be possible to obtain a deeper
understanding of the functioning of the labor mandi. This should facilitate
a multi-layered narrative that does not rob the subjects of their agency or
humanity.  While the present narrative urges the state to intervene, it also
creates a distance between the subject of the story and the reader; placing
the subject in a different universe, far removed from the reader.  I would
like to explore a narrative form that reduces this distance between the
subject of my story and the reader."



Over the next six months I shall try and generate text that shall break free
from the existing discourse that I so irreverently described.  I shall also
try and understand why it exists.  In the meantime, I shall also put up a
blog with interesting articles that I come across.

In conclusion I would like to highlight the fact that, irrespective of how
misguided they may be (or seem), meediyaa discourses prepare the foundation
for state intervention and policy.  Thus,  alternative discourses that
highlight the tactility and efficacy of informal networks should prove
useful in enhancing the bargaining power of Kallu, Mohandas, Mohammed
Ashraf, and Banno Devi, should they require it.

Aman
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