When Hindi became telegenic

: by him when he received a call from a very powerful chief minister, complaining against an adverse personal report in the bulletin the day before. SP calmly replied that he was planning to use the story again that evening. And sure he did. When all of north India was celebrating Lord Ganesha’s milk drinking feat, SP got a scientist to explain surface tension in the evening bulletin. He dragged me into television, after reading my articles in the Economic and Political Weekly, for he thought Hindi media needed election experts.

Yet his professionalism was not apolitical. A man of deep political convictions and a political animal to the core, SP held his own against the communal wave that threatened to drown the Hindi media. Unabashedly pro-Mandal, he translated his conviction by recruiting and training a large number of non-upper caste Hindu journalists.

The day I heard about the sudden announcement of Pratibha Patil’s candidature, I surfed all the Hindi channels for more news about her. Her candidature was not important news for any of the prime-time bulletins. One leading channel had a special programme on how Rampur ka nawab was caught distributing sewing machines. There was a promo for a special programme on wife swapping. My mother shared my frustration: “ab to khabar ki channel par bhi khabar nahin dikhate”. I thought of SP once again and wondered if Hindi television would still show all this if he was still around?

The writer is a political scientist at CSDS, New Delhi...

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