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From ZeiTGeiST
ASIA: March
2011 Edition |
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Khandu The Driver |
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 Khanduism
26
The corruption bak-bak
After the Radia tapes, the media is no
longer qualified to
throw stones at the corrupt people in
the establishment
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KHANDU was
standing near the car reading the front
page of his newspaper when I came out
after attending a meeting. I opened the
door and sat in the car waiting for Khandu
to enter from the front door and start the
car. Khandu seemed to be in no hurry. He
neatly folded the newspaper, opened the
car door, bent down on the driver's seat,
kept the newspaper on the adjacent seat,
then entered himself, folded his hands in
prayer with eyes closed, and inserted the
key in the lock. He must have read some
important news, I thought, that made him
appear so serious.
“What is the big news of the day?”
“Nothing. It is just the usual bak-bak
about corruption, corruption and more
corruption. The Prime Minister has said
that he is going to do everything possible
to root out corruption from the country.”
That was a very good thing, I thought.
Corruption was assuming dangerous
proportions and it was only a firm
commitment at the level of the Prime
Minister himself that could reverse the
trend.
“Why do you call it bak-bak? Corruption is
such a disease and it is good the Prime
Minister is going to take an interest in
rooting it out.”
“Corruption is, of course, important. But
I was referring to the media cacophony
about it as bak-bak. It is so depressing
to be told, day in and day out, that we
are a country steeped in corruption.”
“If the truth hurts, so be it.” I blurted
out, as if in a reflex action, being part
of the media, myself, in howsoever small a
way.
That proved to be my mistake of the day.
It provoked Khandu no end.
“The truth? Whose truth? Which government
has been honest so far? Which businessman
has been clean? And the media? Why has the
media maintained such utter silence over
the Radia tapes revealing its complicity
in the telecom deals? The truth, if we
want to know, is that anybody and
everybody who gets an opportunity to be
corrupt, does become corrupt.”
 I
was a little stunned by the ferocity of
his reaction. I thought about it seriously
for a while and then decided to put up a
defense, howsoever feeble it might appear
to Khandu.
“I don't think everybody is corrupt. There
are any numbers of NGOs …..”
“NGOs? ha! ha! …….”
“OK I will leave out the NGOs, if you are
so averse to them. There are any number of
civil servants, politicians, professionals
and media men who stay honest and resist
temptations despite having the
opportunities. There are several others
who are waging a relentless fight against
corruption. Their hands need to be
strengthened. And if the media stops
exposing these scandals, things will never
change.”
“Things will change and change more
drastically without this media bak-bak.
They have changed in Egypt and in Tunisia
the countries which never had any
independent media. The media, in fact,
impedes revolutionary change by preventing
the public anger from getting bottled up
and exploding at the right moment.”
I got a little scared. Was Khandu a
Naxalite? A Marxist? The language he was
speaking today was revolutionary. Had the
media succeeded in generating that level
of revulsion against the system in
otherwise sober and docile people like
Khandu the prototype petty bourgeois? May
be the media did need to slow down a bit
to prevent things from crossing the
threshold.
Perhaps, Khandu was reading my thoughts in
the rear-view mirror. He said:
“Whatever you say, after the Radia tapes
and the media's conspiracy of silence over
it, I do not think the media is qualified
to throw any stones at the corrupt people
in the establishment.”
That was more comforting for me. I had
misread his folding of the newspaper and
throwing it contemptuously away on the
adjacent seat as a revolutionary rejection
of the bourgeoisie state and its
instrumentalities, including the so-called
free media. It was nothing of the sort and
Khandu was only angry that the media had
not played out all the salacious details
about the involvement of its own top
honchos as exposed in the Radia tapes.
A true petty bourgeois, indeed! Long live
capitalist freedoms! ·
Gaurav Lakhanpal is an architect
specializing in theme architecture and can
be contacted on |
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