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COMMENTARY

Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 19, 2011 vol xlvI no 47 19

Visibility as a Trap in theAnna Hazare Campaign

Arvind Rajagopal

The rapid escalation of the

Anna Hazare campaign, aided

by embracing the media as

allies, compromised its political

character in numerous ways.

Political participation as a

critique of the status quo has to

exist both inside and outside the

media spectacle. Visibility can

be experienced as fullling, but

when the image becomes the

destination of politics, it is a trap.

Beginning in December 2010, a wave

of public protests travelled across

the world, opening with the Arab

Spring in the Maghreb and west Asia.

Not long thereafter, the autumn of 2011

saw the Occupy Wall Street movement in

New York spread rapidly across the US. In

a gesture rich with historical irony, it

claimed the revolutionary Arab Spring as

its inspiration.1 The rst set of movements

sought regime change and lost thousands

of lives in the process, possibly in vain.2

The second targeted public rage at the

nance industry believed to be responsible

for the economic recession, and despite

highly sceptical news coverage spread to

100 cities within days.3

Book-ended by these movements, the

Anna Hazare campaign in the summer of

2011 provides an interesting contrast. It

combined extraordinary public fervour

followed by corrosive wrangling amongst

leaders, sweeping moral and political cri-tique supplanted by implicit trust in politi-

cal representation, and protest against

corruption that saw so little opposition, it

seemed everyone was on the same side.

Afuent and educated classes could con-

gratulate themselves that however cor-

rupt, poor or unequal India might be, po-

litical expression is free. Free to do what?

That might be the question.

Role of Media

Even if ruling party leaders were caught

offguard by the strength of Anna Hazares

popularity, it would be a mistake to equate

their confusion with the response of the

political system as a whole. The Hazare

campaign may point to a bid by media cor-

porations to act as political antennae,

shock absorbers and conict managers for

Indian society, while staging criticism of

the state. It is worth noting that the kind

of criticism directed at the State is sweep-

ing and impatient, and more confusingthan clarifying. All politicians are under

suspicion of being corrupt, while select

civil society gures are held up as redeem-

ing. But the same level of attention is not

paid to procedures whereby grievances

can be adjudicated; to assume that a new

law or a new leader can solve the problems

is surely too optimistic. The media them-

selves have emerged as most important in

fructifying this campaign, and most exemptfrom criticism. In this respect, the publicity

given to Anna Hazare shows the adroitness

of corporate India and their allies in govern-

ment in responding to popular protest. This

is only one sign that India is not yet a society

where Big Brother is Watching You. But

the spectacle of crowds of people from a

wide range of backgrounds wearing I am

Anna topis and T-shirts offers another

way of reading: if we recall Anna means

Big Brother, we may wonder if in this case

Big Brother is You, Watching.

In the second case too, I would say, not

yet. Unlike George Orwells 1984 or fascist

mass rallies in Nazi Germany, the centre

of the spectacle in this case was a 74-year-

old villager on an indenite fast against

corruption. Echoing a widespread belief that

prevailing institutions are self-serving and

unmindful of peoples welfare, Hazare

was a reminder of the ethics that politics

and government seemed to have turned

their backs on.In an earlier era Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi demanded a committed judiciary,

and a committed bureaucracy, suggesting

that national development required a sur-

plus of effort from its workers. Essential ly,

civil servants had to be ready to sacrice

for the nation, and avoid self-seeking

behaviour. On that occasion, the demand

smacked of autocracy, since it implied

Gandhi would decide what was needed for

the nation, and not Parliament or govern-

ment servants. Today it is the media that

is in a position not only to make such a

demand, but also to stage a convincing

response to it. At a time when disclosures

about the corruptions of power were larger,

better documented, and more extensive in

the loot they revealed than anything before

in recent history, the emergence of a protest

movement was not surprising. That it turned

into a popular afrmation of national values,

and a demonstration of an immense readi-

ness to mobilise, thus restoring a degreeof condence in a sinking stock as it were,

was due to the news medias astute

Arvind Rajagopal (ar67@nyu.edu) teaches

media studies at New York University.

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management. The Hazare campaigns suc-

cess suggested that even if the government

was dysfunctional, popular democracy was

alive and well, and that the India growth

story had a real future. Normally this is

the kind of message we expect from politi-

cal leaders. It is a symptom of our times

that instead, this message was choreo-graphed by the corporate news media.

Welding a Split Public Together

What took shape with the Hazare cam-

paign was perhaps the largest orchestrated

media campaign since Ram Janma-

bhoomi. Unlike that campaign, this one

destroyed nothing, and sought to intro-

duce legislation that Parliament had

resisted for decades. One of the key factors

that distinguished the staging of the

Hazare campaign from the Babri Masjid

demolition in December 1992 was the

massive expansion of the media in the in-

terim, most notably, the growth of satel-

lite TV news channels.4 Some comparison

with popular agitations of the past will

provide a perspective on this subject.

The Indian media have historically res-

ponded in one of two ways to popular agi-

tations and campaigns. Either they were

seen as a threat to order to be contained by

the law, or they were regarded as a positiveexpression, to be treated with respect. In

the past, the English language media usu-

ally embraced the rst position, and the

Indian language media the second.

Anna Hazares was perhaps the rst

mass campaign after 1947 where English

and vernacular media came together so

visibly. Thus, instead of applying a wholly

positive or negative response to the agita-

tion, this time the media applied it to the

observer. Thus coverage of the movement

was mainly in terms of a with-us-or-

against-us approach. It should be noted

though thatthe Hindi channels adopted a

more positive attitude on the whole than

the English language media, which provided

space for criticism even if their overall

thrust was promotional. Questions about

the middle class limitations of the move-

ment were more often raised in English

language news shows on TV, for example,

while Hindi media signalled a more con-

sistently positive appraisal of the agitation.Indian language media have a tradition

of embracing popular agitation dating

back to the freedom struggle. By contrast,

the English media adopted the perspec-

tive of colonial rulers, and distrusted the

public expressions of ordinary people. And

in post-Independence times the English-

language media, in its struggle to adhere

to secular values, often found itself repli-

cating colonial distrust of popular senti-ment. Consider for example, its tendency

to reduce news of popular demonstra-

tions, whether of worker unrest or of reli-

giously motivated campaigns, to questions

of law and order, at the expense of under-

standing why such movements occur and

what they aim to achieve.

The medias collective endorsement of

mass agitation in this case was something

new, therefore. What kind of media was at

work here, that mirrored the collective

imaginary, requires clarication however.

Unusually in this case, news reporters

downplayed criticism of a grassroots cam-

paign. This was deliberate, not accidental.

The Times Group, Indias largest media

conglomerate, aggressively dened Anna

Hazare as a man of the people. The cease-

less reiteration of this theme across their

numerous news organs left other news

media scrambling to follow suit, and show

they were on the right side.5

Compared to Ram Janmabhoomi, whichwas an agitation promoted from within the

Hindi press, and resisted for good reasons

by much of the English language press, the

English language media dened the con-

tours of the coverage this time, with the

Times Group taking the lead, according to

media industry observers. It is symptomatic

of the pattern of media growth in the era of

liberalisation that, while the Indian language

is now many times larger than the English

language segment, the latter displays an

agenda-setting power that may actually be

greater than it was hardly two decades

ago. Although the television market now

features about 800 channels,6 the majority

of which are Indian language, the force of

Times Now TV, which has no Indian lan-

guage counterpart, has been impressive

indeed. This is a sign that the expansion of

the visual media has led, not to a toppling of

English language hegemony, but to a new

mode of legitimising its agenda-setting role.

The Anna Hazare campaign was re-markable in that, across the language

media, the spectacle of popular mobilisation

became a thing of unqualied virtue, dis-

creetly signalled in the nomenclature civil

society. Civil society, unlike the state,

was assumed to be free of corruption, as if

one could distinguish between them so

neatly. The condition of it being so regarded

however was that it made no demands in

the name of any specic groups based oncaste, gender, religion, region, etc.

During the anti-colonial struggle, the

nationalist press could see popular mobili-

sation as a pure virtue, but that struggle was

a momentous project of regime change. An

increasingly corporate and globalised media

could celebrate mass agitation only in a more

contained way, as a sign of the people

and as a statement that the people want

what we want. The medias construct of

civil society does not look so innocent in

this light; it is in fact a fantasy arising from

the elite and projected onto the masses.

As Aruna Roy has noted, the huge Lokpal

mobilisation had a relatively small out-

come. No corrupt politicians were pin-

pointed, much less punished, although

that was the stimulus for the movement.

No relief was offered for the unaffordably

high cost of living, although that was a

major motive for the agitation. Instead we

were given the promise of a new bureauc-

racy to examine bureaucratic corruption.What exactly will emerge amidst the gov-

ernments attempts to undermine and

create rifts within the Anna Hazare team,

is hard to say. But this is indeed a small

victory for a mobilisation so impressive

that Anna Hazare had to avow that he had

no plans to overthrow the government.

Mass Media?

For the media, the popular mobilisation was

a sign of their own success and not only of

Anna Hazares. From the reports following

the campaigns conclusion, in fact, it is clear

that the two were closely linked from the

outset. It proved that the media could help

move people onto the streets for a cause.

This is not to deny the idealism involved in

this phenomenon. Nor is the point to oppose

real events against media artice. At least

from the time of the October Revolution, it

has become clear that the entry of the

masses on to the stage of history is both a

real and a mediated event. Susan Buck-Morss has pointed out, in this connection,

that the 20th century was an era where

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 19, 2011 vol xlvI no 47 21

real politics and mediated visions of col-

lective futures became inextricably inter-

twined, notably in the battle between

capitalism and communism. India was no

exception. Gandhis Salt March was a pub-

lic procession that grew and grew, joining

a staple of everyday life with the idea of

making a new nation: Gandhi saw thatpolitical participation had to be imagined

as well as enacted. Collective imagination

requires the work of media, human as well

as technological. Grass-roots work and pub-

lic rallies, the press and the cinema, and

today, electronic media are all involved in

staging the people as a collective force

and as a (possible) counter-public.

But consider what it means for people to

be together in a public space. Hannah

Arendt has observed that political action

requires the visibility of those who act, to

themselves and to others. Such action is

political only by virtue of a struggle to

bring into perception what is otherwise

excluded from view. To the extent that

one saw events organised around ordi-

nary people expressing critical views on

public affairs, the Hazare campaign was

political. But to the extent that every

effort was made to render participation

easier, more public and visible, this was

an orchestrated spectacle. That is, we canneither dismiss it completely, nor endorse

it without qualication as political in the

best sense of the word.

Meanwhile there is reason to be scepti-

cal about the agitations outcomes. The

fundamental business of television is to

get people to watch it, and of the press to

get people to read it. Sixty per cent of In-

dias households now have television.

Watching TV and being on TV acquired a

greater overlap during this campaign than

ever before. It pointed to a kind of media

awareness that had not been so promi-

nent before. Images of their actions were

reected back to people, who then acted

in a more camera-friendly way. Media

images were part of their own political

repertoire, which meant that media became

to some extent the destination of political

action too.

Today we have not onlyTV, but also cell

phones and email, Facebook, Twitter, and

so on. Mass events like the drive for theLokpal Bill accumulate huge amounts of

attention, which is quantied for revenue

generation. They are also means for dis-

charging popular energy, leaving only

memories behind. That is the risk we have

to be vigilant about. To the extent that me-

dia mobilise constituencies, they are uid

and volatile. Static builds up in media cir-

cuits and is released. People congregate

and then disperse.

Middle Class Character

One might look to evidence of such perfor-

mative politics in the August Kranti of

1942, a model for the recent movement,

albeit with marked difference. Gandhi was

not only the leader of the earlier campaign,

he was a model for volunteers behaviour.

Abstinence, frugality, and moral character

were inculcated; to this extent people

sought to emulate Gandhi in their own

lives. Civil disobedience carried risks, of

penalisation by employers, and of impris-

onment. Political dissidence took courage,

and involved a public stance against the

government. While courage and dedication

were not absent in the Lokpal campaign, its

technologically mediated form made Anna

Hazares austerity and frugality a specta-

cle for contemplation and empathy. It

appeared that it was enough to say, I am

Anna. Herein lay its middle class character.

The virtues that seemed essential in theearlier moment became more of an option

in the recent event. Indeed, the revela-

tions that have followed the Ramlila

maidan agitation about extensive plan-

ning and coordination with PRpersonnel

from the media industry, disclosures by

Arvind Kejriwal about his casting Hazare

as a suitable role model for the agitation

he had planned, and accusations about

some of the members of the Anna Hazare

group, have left many wondering what ex-

actly it was that they had been so en-

thused about. By contrast, the Right to In-

formation Act emerged from a grass-roots

rural movement, and the legislation was

achieved with far less fanfare than has at-

tended the barest preliminaries of the

Lokpal Bill proposals. There is a lesson

here on the co-opting power of the mass

media, on its ination of the value of the

people as spectacle, and its deation of

popular power outside the image. As it

happens, the French Situationist GuyDebord theorised such an outcome in his

Society of the Spectacle (1967).

When popular struggles were spreading

across Arab countries, long viewed as lack-

ing in democratic traditions, Indias appar-

ently pacic response to its escalating

corruption scandals did not look so distin-

guished. However, the rapid escalation of

the protests, aided by embracing the

media as allies, compromised their politicalcharacter in numerous ways. Political parti-

cipation as a critique of the status quohas

to exist both inside and outside the media

spectacle.7 Visibility can be experienced as

fullling, but when the image becomes the

destination of politics, it is a trap. It remains

to be seen whether the Lokpal Bill will not

be added to Indias distinguished list of

progressive legislation that is defeated by

ineffective implementation.

Notes

1 Occupy Wall Street, Adbusters Blog, 13 July 2011,http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html.

2 An interim estimate in the summer of 2011 was2594. See The Price of Protest, So Far, The

Economist, 14 July 2011. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/arab-spring-death-tollhttp://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/arab-spring-death-toll

3 At the time of writing, October-November 2011, itis obviously too soon to tell what outcomes if any

will follow the movement. Given that the agendafor the presidential elections of 2012 remains tobe clearly dened, however, the Occupy WallStreet movement, together with the Tea Party

movement maybe taken to have dened theboundaries of public sentiment on the role of gov-ernment vis--vis the economy.

4 As well, the role of social media was crucial , al-though reports about its uses are mainly anecdo-tal at present. See however the following newsreport: Team Annas Use of Social Media CaughtUs Unawares, Says [Union Law Minister Salman]Khurshid,Indian Express , 19 October 2011, p 6.

5 Times Now TV was by far the most watched satel-lite news channel in English in the week following

Annas inauguration of his fast on 16 August, with37.8% viewership or 12 million viewers, followedby NDTV 247 (22.2%) and CNN-IBN (20.7%). Thegenre share of Hindi news channels increased from5.9% in the period 6-13 August to 11.02% in theperiod 13-20 August, according to TAM Media Re-search. The genre share of English news channels

increased during this time from to 0.54% from 0.31%.See Anna Hazare Drives Up News Viewership, by

Abhilasha Ojha and Anushree Chandran, Livemint.com, 25 August 2011. http://www.livemint.com/2011/08/25235016/Anna-Hazare-drives-up-news-vie.html. Accessed 19 October 2011.

6 I&B Minister Ambika Soni interviewed by PrabhuChawla on IBN-7, Teekhi Baat, 17 September 2011.http://prabhuchawla.blogspot.com/2011/ 09/teekhi-baatibn7prabhu-chawla-with.html. Accessed4 November 2011. The exact number of channelscited even by the I&B minister varies from weekto week, so 800 cannot be taken as denitive atthe time of writing.

7 As we know, there are in fact numerous strugglesthat attract little advocacy from the major media,from human rights demands in the north-east and

in Kashmir, and Maoist insurgency in tribal lands,from victims of industrial disasters in Bhopal andelsewhere, to anti-nuclear agitations in Jaitapurand Koodankulam, and many others.