Thursday, April 17, 2008

OF DRAMA QUEENS AND SOCIAL STEREOTYPES


There are several things that bring out the concept of “longstanding pain” in our lives—queues, government or a wickedly deep tooth cavity. But all these pale in comparison to the object of my irritation today—television soaps operas! Come seven in the evening everyday and my family crowds around the television set, almost salivating in eager anticipation of their daily fix of family drama. Now I’m sure apologetics for this growing form of visual entertainment would argue that it isn’t exactly harmful and would accuse me of making a big noise about nothing. Well, a closer look at the effects of ‘serials’ on any society, especially ours, would reveal that these hour long dramas are not as benign as they may seem.

Essentially, a large section of the public watches these soaps with escapist intentions. They seem to provide a temporary distraction from their otherwise banal and monotonous lives. The ‘riveting’ plots, the big twists and the chunky jewellery complimented by impassable layers of make-up for even the most ordinary, indoor scenes all form a part of this ‘charm’ that keeps audiences across our country glued to their TV sets every weeknight. But here’s the scary bit—what happens when people begin to imitate this preposterousness in their everyday lives? That can happen on many different levels. First, it can result in the creation of extra drama when there isn’t any at all. A lot of soap opera fans eventually develop an honest belief that their lives are ‘empty’ without a good dose of tears, tantrums and scheming. These soaps have only made our society much more emotionally fragile and people have lost the ability to be stoic about the smallest of things. This does not match the requirements of the life around us, which demands a high emotional quotient as a pre-requisite for success.

Next, the audience demographic has seen a major paradigm shift and with the greater accessibility of television sets even in low income homes, the viewer ship has increased. But the settings of most soaps operas have remained the same—big, affluent families that live in mansions with a surprisingly large number rooms for when the characters need to storm out in a fit of rage. Ideas of economic and social meagreness are reinforced within the denied sections of society and they begin to set unrealistic dreams for themselves. Worse still, they might even resort to unhealthy and detrimental ways to achieve their desires. By and large, most soaps only serve to perpetuate stereotypes and this will never give us as a society the impetus to rise above. Intellectually, the amount of stimulation is about as limited as the acting abilities of these soapstars.

It is quarter to seven now and my mother seems edgy. Any attempts by me to make even the slightest contact with the television remote control will definitely result in a week-long banishment from the dinner table. Promptly, the rest of my family takes its place at the foot of the revered Samsung, waiting in deferential silence for the advertisements to end and the first notes of that hallowed theme song to ring out. Oh well, at least we’re spending time together as a family—even if it does involve sitting in front of a screen in a zombie-like fashion for an entire hour.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Dark Side of India’s Growth Story


At the next election, an issue that will undoubtedly figure prominently will be the plague of rising inflation. After flaunting the prodigious growth of the Indian industry as one of their biggest successes, the UPA must now resolve the darkest blemish on their track record. Last year, they thought it was an inevitable, concomitant phenomenon that would dovetail with the celebrated growth rate of 9% of our GDP. The reserve bank hiked the cash-reserve ratio in a monetary attempt to reduce the liquidity in the system. The Finance Minister reiterated the hackneyed ‘aam aadmi’ rhetoric and labelled it as a supply-side problem that would be sorted by the next crop season.

A year later and things have gone from bad to worse. The inflation rates have hit an all-time high of 7%, the storm after the ‘calm’ of a P.A Chidambaram budget. I suppose it is unfair to place the blame entirely on the government because this rise in rises has global influences. For starters, Mother Nature hasn’t been too generous with her dispensation of weather conditions conducive to growing food crops. Two successive droughts in Australia, the world’s second largest producer of wheat has triggered off a global sense of panic. The consequence, according to economists, is the ‘national hoarding of food grains’. Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan and Argentina, all big producers of wheat and other food grains, have begun to curb exports. Back home meanwhile, we read stories of wheat crops being damaged in Punjab on a rather large scale due to unfavourable weather. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Sharad Pawar has recently stated that the government is even willing to import wheat to increase the supply and bring prices down. They have already enforced a ban on the export of food grains and there is a feeling among that these moves might ruin farming community.

This is where our government falls short in its duty to the country—stop-gap measures employed to temporarily assuage public panic. The government and its followers believed that the 60,000 crore loan waiver would be the panacea to farmer woes. Hardly a month on and the farmers are discovering the measure to be nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction. Most farmers can hardly avail of the waiver because its land ceiling of 2 hectares is too low for our widely practiced system of joint holdings. Furthermore, the government finds itself in a Catch 22 situation—should it work on reducing the consumer price rise by banning exports? This would be at the expense of the protection of agrarian interests. A lowering of paddy prices by Rs.100 per quintal could have extremely harsh ramifications for the farmers as the losses incurred will be passed onto them.

The government should not forget that this steady rise in inflation rates is also concurrent with an increase in middle class salaries. In the long term, it may not hit them as hard as it will the farmers. Rather than resorting to another myopic reaction, the government should look at dealing with this issue with the long term interest of the farmers in mind. Otherwise, there might even be a greater shift to the cultivation of commercial crops by farmers due to the limited rewards from raising food crops. Unless this government and its successor in 2009 channel their energies at honestly dealing with the agricultural issues of our country instead of handing out the seasonal election sop, the country will dangerously compromise her self-interests.