The Urge To Seek Western Media’s Validation Must Stop

For many in India, from stakeholders to policymakers, and from politicians to observers, an unrelenting fixation on how the Western media views the events in the country clouds their judgement and thinking. This can be attributed to the colonial mindset, still begging for the white man’s approval, or something that is simply driven by contempt for one’s current government, or mainly because in their minds, the Western media rests at an imaginary pedestal, where their word is an equivalent of the word of god.

Even in their divisions and disagreements, both political wings in India, in different ways, pursue the validation of the likes of New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and many more. While some of these publications do hold an expertise and extensive experience in covering certain issues pertaining to finance, geopolitics, and local politics, their coverage on India is directed by a few individuals cushioned in the national capital who for reasons best known to them choose to view every issue of the country through the lens of the obsolete Lutyens’ media.

The pursuit of validation takes many forms. One, what they say. It does not matter how many people have been enabled by this government through countless public welfare schemes, how many operational successes the military has had in Kashmir, or how many people have been helped during the Covid-19 pandemic with urgent upgrades in healthcare infrastructure and vaccination drives, or how the foreign investments are driving an increasing number of unicorns and startups in India; one lazy editorial attempt to discredit any of the above is passed off as the gospel truth by many in India.

The second form has more to do with why the Western media says what it says. Beyond the ones who celebrate the gospel truth published in the likes of NYT, driven by their contempt of the state, there are many who choose to squander away their energies questioning the editorial incapacity of the staffers in these newspapers. These well-meaning joes push back on the false agendas that are peddled in the garb of investigative journalism, from Kashmir to Gujarat to Arunachal to Tamil Nadu. While editorial incapacity must be answered with policy rationale and logic through Indian portals, the whole pushback is reduced to sharing of the same article with angered exasperation. Again, well intended, but futile.

Beyond what the Western publications run, the validation pursuit also dives into questioning their voluntary silence on several issues. For instance, quoting the hypocrisy of the portals, people question as to why arsoning during the Black Lives Matter movement becomes justified when a similar event in India is attributed to the communal faultlines widened by the sitting Prime Minister.

Recently, it was about them questioning the economic blockade ushered by the trucking community in Canada when a similar action in Singhu was cheered on by the same journalists in the name of democracy and freedom. Even in their faults, observers in India choose to find some validation that links their coverage of local issues to those in India, as if without their word on Singhu or Bengal violence, we would not be able to affirm the realities on the ground.

Lastly, it is the most desperate urge to get them to comment on every Indian achievement. Why hasn’t the NYT celebrated the vaccination drive in India, or why hasn’t The Economist spoken well of the ruling government for their handling of the farmers’ protest, or what would have they said had Prime Minister Narendra Modi chosen to freeze the crowdfunding campaigns and other bank accounts of the protesters in Singhu, or when will the Washington Post write about RSS workers as they did about the people who are killed due to shootings every year in America, and so on. Brain cells are wasted, crying out loud, while asking why the Western media does not give us an applause for we did well, because until they don’t, it would be a sin for us to congratulate ourselves.

Sigh!

Put together, the market share of American publications is one-fourth of that of India. Yes, they do influence the local policymakers in the Congress, but so does the active Left ecosystem in India. However, for a nation of more than a billion Internet users in the making, the challenge should not be to counter or question or seek validation from the likes of NYT, but instead have either a stake, choose to back, or simply be a part of portals, big or small, national or state, English or some local dialect, that can cater to at least 5 per cent of the market in India going forward, for that 5 per cent alone is going to be bigger than 20 per cent of the American market in the coming years, and India could do with hundreds of such portals.

The obsession with the word ‘narrative’ is not unfounded, but the solution does not lie in impressing the white man, but creating media unicorns in India. The business model relevant is a debate for a separate day, but there is no reason why India can’t have media unicorns that are not local brands alone, indulging in primetime yelling or clickbait imaginary prophecies, but rational policy and political portals that put the ‘India story’ first. Perhaps, a lesson from China is indispensable, as elaborated here.

There is no dearth of editorial talent, willing market, globally diaspora, but perhaps there is indeed a dearth of intent and ambition. Take the fight to the likes of NYT rather than begging for them to be an ally.