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28 July 2004
Kumbakonam and the Indian news media
I have been following the media coverage of the Kumbakonam fire tragedy. First of all, the episode itself has caused great grief and soul-searching. The government's knee-jerk reaction has been to suspend the running immediately of all schools with temporary thatched roofs. The chief minister has suspended, in her own words, "the EO, the DEO, the DEEO and the CEO" for "dereliction of duty" but no one has looked at the larger and more urgent question of ensuring minimum fire safety standards in all buildings. For instance, the T. Nagar area in Chennai is crammed with shops such as Pothy's, Jeyachandran's, Kumaran's and Saravana Stores that in spite of their aggressive advertising and genuflecting have no fire escapes or even a second stairway outside their buildings. It is deplorable that such businesses are patronised to save on the odd rupee.The fire tragedy of course was fresh fodder for the increasingly deteriorating Indian Fourth Estate. With the absence of a pay subscription, I have been forced to alternate between NDTV, BBC and Headlines Today for my television requirements. Through the episode, the coverage at NDTV has not been remotely close to being penetrative or searching. Presenter after presenter is fed with the stock questions and each feigns a look of concern and anguish as the question is related. Nisha Pillai at the BBC managed to interview the director of fire services at Kumbakonam who unwittingly made the most shockingly true statement that hitherto school buildings were never regarded as fire-prone structures while NDTV only managed to interview its prepaid coterie of armchair commentators sitting comfortably in its Delhi studio or the local MP, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer or Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Sun TV continues to disappoint with its immoderate coverage. For cheap viewership ratings, the channel descended to banal depths by showing graphic and disturbing images of charred corpses with flesh excoriated from thighs and hands lying one atop the other. A week later, barring a small Sunday evening half-hour program the entire episode was forgotten and Maninder Pal Singh Kohli and the Indian refugee crisis in Iraq assumed centrestage.
