A multilingual democracy such as ours is a wonderful thing, of course. But it can be a bit restrictive at times. Say, when you want to take a peek at regional news TV. Marathi and Malayalam news channels sometimes look super-energised. But they are sadly out of your correspondent’s reach. (Memo to anti-English types: English is why this multilingual magnificence works).

What follows in today’s column is based on regional news TV in the only regional language I know, the language you get the feeling Mamata Banarjee wants to speak even when she’s speaking another language. I took the precaution of checking with friends who speak other regional languages whether the few, tentative generalisations I make based on this small sample can apply to other regional news TV channels. Their concurrence notwithstanding this caveat is necessary: your correspondent, admittedly a writing in English /national media/Delhi-based type, is not for a moment suggesting all regional TV news is the same. There are unique attributes for every segment, but there may be some interesting similarities. Let’s put it this way, NDTV and CNN-IBN think each is totally different from the other. They are, but, more interestingly, they are not.

Mamata, in Bengali news TV, is big right now. This sounds like stating the obvious. But comparing news in STAR Ananda or 24 Ghanta (24 Hours, in translation) or Aakash Bangla what you get from national broadcasters, a somewhat less obvious point suggests itself: regional newsmakers seem to loom very large in regional TV news. National newsmakers don’t make it so big in national news TV. National broadcasters have a larger menu, of course. But the fact that the quotidian volatility of Indian politics really plays out at the state-level may have something to do with this. When Mamata visits a close-to-Kolkata semi-urban area, news TV crew in tow, the grammar of politics and therefore the grammar of political news on TV is rawer than that obtained in national politicians’ usual peregrinations.

... contd.