It's hard to imagine Indian media or comedians taking on our PM the way their American counterparts so cheerily challenge President Trump
One of the most talked about parodies has been Alec Baldwin playing US President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live
One of the most talked about parodies has been Alec Baldwin playing US President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live
An editorial on the New York Times home web-page on Sunday morning was headlined, "Trump's Muslim Ban is Cowardly and Dangerous". Another read "A Lie by Any Other Name", with its blurb saying, "Our president is a pathological liar". It is inconceivable that an Indian newspaper would carry an opinion, even by a non-staffer, with such strong headlines.
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President Donald Trump himself declared war on the US media during his inauguration, calling it "dishonest". His supporters use stronger words for the 'mainstream' media. However, unlike the Indian media — which, as during the Emergency, has crawled when asked to bend — the American media has pushed back. It has plainly told the US President that it does not answer to him, but to its readers and the public at large; he cannot dictate its agenda. The US media has basically told its President to eff-off.
No Indian media would dare speak similarly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has aggressively taken on the media. His government has starved the media of information on policy and implementation. In the US, the media is not daunted by Trump's attempts to physically dislodge it from the White House since career bureaucrats have indicated that information will come out, one way or another.
In India, on the other hand, bureaucrats are peculiar invertebrates who selfishly and pompously display a sense of entitlement and will leak not in the public interest but only when told to do so by the political master of the day. This is evident in the fact of few Indian whistle-blowers. Hence the media cannot rely on alternative sources of information on governance. This column, however, is not about the weaknesses of the Indian media, which would require a multi-volume publication with illustrations.
Ever since Trump won the US presidency and especially since he assumed office, I have watched videos on YouTube of American late-night comedians — all of whom cheerily mock Trump in ways that are unthinkable in India. They are witty, and wildly hilarious. One particularly visible parody has been actor Alec Baldwin's on Saturday Night Live. On the same show, guest-host Aziz Ansari (whose parents migrated to South Carolina from southern Tamil Nadu, and whose Netflix series
Master of None is must-watch TV) pointedly said he "wistfully" remembered former President George W Bush in comparison to Trump. "Sixteen years ago, I was certain this dude was a dildo," Ansari said about Bush. That made me wonder: what would ever make non-fans think of Modi nostalgically? Yogi Adityanath as PM one day, perhaps.
Late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel took an oath on the same day as Trump, promising not to let up in wisecracks and acid humour against his own president. Another host, Conan O'Brien has been running all sorts of skits, including made-up telephone conversations between former President Barack Obama and Trump, and trust me, these calls are zany and no-holds-barred. Another host, Stephen Colbert, who built a career on political satire, gleefully and ceaselessly jokes as if he struck a bottomless goldmine.
Sadly, you will never see an Indian comedian take on the country's political leadership. It isn't that our stand-up artists don't have the intellectual bandwidth. They're likely worried about getting beaten up by a group of neanderthals who think they're protecting Indian culture but who wouldn't even have heard the jokes they would be protesting —much like the geniuses who attacked filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali on Friday, because they 'thought' he was blaspheming Rani Padmavati. (And even if he was, so what? Just don't go and watch it if the thought offends you. Beating up people is barbaric.)
More importantly, Indians are thin-skinned and have a shallower sense of humour. Living in Mumbai, you might have encountered live comedy where the audience looks bored by the political humour or even narrative build-up humour; but once the comedian steps into sex romp territory, the investment bankers and their wives are rolling in the aisles. Even TV comedian Kapil Sharma default comedy is cross-dressing rather than any thought-provoking humour.
The point is that Indians are proud of ourselves, our culture and our emergence on the world stage, etc, but the fact is that we have neither the American backbone to stand up to another person, no matter how high or low they may be. For that reason, we lack the razor-sharp wit the Americans have refined. Perhaps it is because of their culture of extreme individualism.
Our cultural stormtroopers want us to follow a fixed way of thinking, and to follow not an individualist's ethos, but one where society and family are sacred. Fine. Be happy then that our media is readily the lapdog of democracy rather than its watchdog. India is turning into a land of cultural zombies. That's not how empires emerge.
Aditya Sinha is the author of the crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, available now. He tweets @autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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