Mediated democracy in Ayodhya debate

The issue of the Ayodhya case was a very simple incident. Proof had to be given whether the disputed land of Ayodhya where both the temple and the mosque together resides, belongs totally to the Ram Mandir as claimed by the Hindus or to the Babri Masjid as claimed by the Sunni Wakf Board. The dispute regarding land ownership is nothing new in any court of India and this is probably one of the thousand cases that happen regarding land disputes. Yet, it is made to become a special case by a section of people, strongly in liaison with the media, to re-establish the religious divide in the rather ‘secular’ country. All the front page headlines of the national and local newspaper of India contained the celebration of Hindu victory over the Muslims. This paper reviews the percolation of divided religious sentiment related to such content provided to the masses through the exposure of media. The content of mass communication is important to channelize the thought process of the generation and this has been done meticulously through the media channels to segregate the “me” verses “you” segmentation. The objective of this paper is not to be judgemental about the stance taken by media in portraying the news but to understand how the social construction of reality is percolated through the viewing mass and how the message of religious stratification is smoothly accomplished by justifying the obvious victory of the majority over the minority.

Background and theoretical framework

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement aimed to destroy the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, claiming that the sixteenth century structure was erected on the ruins of a temple supposedly built to mark the birthplace of God-king Ram. Ram was claimed to be a national symbol, and the Hindus were declared to be an oppressed community, a majority denied its rightful status by politicians pandering to minority votes, chiefly of the Muslims.This debate of the Ram Janmabhoomi and Babri Masjid has become a matter of a long tradition of argument among the state, religious communities and the public. In fact, owing to its long argumentative tradition, Amartya Sen argues all democratic forms of oppositions have enjoyed legitimacy in India as Sen offers an epistemic landscape of intellectual ideas and cultural settings across times and spaces in India (2005). The political parties, specially the BJP insisted that secularism required stewardship by the ‘majority community’ namely the Hindus. A secular party has to underplay factors arising out of religious or communal considerations in the public sphere, and give equal respect to all religion. At the same time, it is also supposed to separate the religious discourses from the statecraft. Arvind Rajagopal, in “the Indian Public Sphere”, speaks of a split public sphere with unfulfilled missions of secularism in a society where a compromise between Hindu orthodoxy and progressive nationalism launched anti colonial independence movement, one that culminated in the declaration of a secular state.

What the literature says

Seen from Bandura’s perspective of socio-cognitive theory, human nature is a vast potentiality that can be fashioned by direct and observational experience into a variety of forms by biological limits. The cognitive factor of the viewers will determine what meaning will be conferred on them, whether the incident will leave any lasting effect and how the information conveyed will be organised for future use. The use of symbolic capability and personal understanding of the phenomena will determine the way in which the message will be reciprocated to the society. Bandura has pointed out in his causal model of social cognitive theory the schematization of triadic reciprocal causation where the personal behaviour or determinants will affect behavioural and environmental determinants and vice versa. In lieu of this, it is important to understand what would be the interpretation of the viewer because he will in turn be a speaker to the society and influence the public. When George Herbert Mead speaks of “mob consciousness”, he is cautious about the attitude of the audience when under the influence of the speaker which in this case is the viewer. As the viewer relates his interpretation of what he has gathered from the media, he influences his listeners to attain vicarious capability where virtually all behavioural, cognitive and affective learning from direct experience takes place by observing people’s actions and their consequences. Observational learning thus becomes a single model which transmits new ways of thinking and behaving simultaneously to countless people in a widely dispersed locale. These observational processes require attention, then retention, then production and response to a particular issue and finally motivation to communicate their understanding to society. These motivational impacts depend on whether it is the positive or negative reinforcements that have been communicated by the viewer. The viewer’s interpretation is however dependent on social construction of reality by the media.

Representation in media

Televised representation of social realities reflects ideological bents in their portrayal of human nature, social relations and the norms and structures of society. Televised influence is best defined in terms of contents people watch rather than the sheer amount of television viewing. Hence it depends how the viewer communicates the social construction of reality and how the audience accepts it. Neha Rathi of Hardnews (2010), reports,“On the evening of September 30, 2010, as the whole country waited for the Ayodhya Judgement with eyes glued to their televisions and ears cocked in trepidation, the verdict came out with a silent aplomb. The decision of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, trifurcating the disputed land at the site where Babri Masjid once stood, ruffled many feathers. But the judgement did ensure peace, putting to rest the initial paranoia that had the whole nation huddled indoors, with offices declaring the day off.” Television thus, becomes a major source of influence whether in matters of religion or vote where three out of the four Germans make up their mind whom to vote for through television, only a minority talks with friends and family (Donsbach, 2006). In fact, according to Donsbach, media becomes the most important tool to gain political power and sometimes the media becomes an active player in politics themselves. There is in fact a very simple problem of communication as Donsbash commented. He was of the opinion that the closeness of its object to everybody’s reality and experience makes everybody a self-proclaimed ‘expert’. People say “because I watch a lot of television (be it politician, a spokesperson, doctor or just a parent), I have at least as much to say as a researcher in this field”. But the problem lies in the source of information which is media’s construction of reality, and here it becomes difficult to defend research against common wisdom or claims from interested parties.It is indeed a matter of concern for a country like India where India is considered as a secular country and Hindu Muslims ought to be treated like brothers and sisters that symbolically a temple and a mosque cannot co-exist beside each other. It is even more surprising that media, which is supposed to be a component of the civil society and inform the public, is manipulating their sentiments and diluting the meaning of democracy and secularism. The content which was overpowered on the issue of Ayodhya in every print medium posed a major question to the democracy of India. What is the Indian meaning of the word Democracy? The implications of democracy is rather that the individual can be highly developed as lies within the possibilities of his own inheritance and still can enter into the attitudes of the others whom he effects . But unfortunately, democracy has become an order of society in which those personalities which are sharply differentiated will be eliminated, that everything will be ironed down to a situation where everyone will be, as far as possible, like everyone else (Mead, 1934). As media cross fertilises ideas, it has a major role in democratising countries as democracy requires informed citizens to make profound political choices when they elect their representatives. It is pertinent at this point to note that democracy without answerability builds a false impression of popular sanction while increasing the governmental power and that of the moneybags. The social debate is increasingly being constructed and channelized to suit a particular political agenda. Thus media has a multifaceted role as an integral part of the democratic society and Kevin Scott had discussed this requirement in Pressethic: Democratizing the Media where he shows how technology has given access not only to the wherewithal of using media but also to the expertise and knowledge to get the attention of viewer, listener and readers, in whatever order of choice as required. Thus media becomes a tool of choice for disseminating the good work required to nurture democracy. Hence democracy, according to this definition, prevailed in the verdict of the court regarding the Ayodhya issue. The social construction of reality by media, regarding the outcome of the verdict, was that the Hindus won over Muslims. As the viewer interprets this message to his child, the innocent response would be “who are we?” and “are we allowed to talk to them?” This question of “we” verses “them” is crucial to an individual as his consciousness both of himself and the other individual is equally important of his own self development and for the development of the organised society or societal groups to which he belongs. The child suddenly finds himself fragmented in a society where either he is the majority or the minority. The need is for a universal discourse which is the formal ideal of communication. If communication can be carried out through and made perfect, then there would exist a kind of democracy in which each individual would carry just the response in himself that he knows he calls out to demean a certain community.

State intervention

With the Ram Temple issue, which led to the BJP increasing its parliamentary seats total from two to eighty-eight in the 1989 general elections, big business and professional middle classes began to look upon the party as a possible replacement and successor to the moribund ruling party. Although BJP was successful for the time being, the repeated use of religion in electoral campaigns, however inevitably depreciated the symbolic capital accrued from Hindu themes and the appeal of the social construction of reality by media could not last indefinitely. The ideal of human society, as Bardura (2001) expressed, cannot exist as long as it is impossible for individuals to enter into the attitudes of those whom they are affecting in the performance of their own peculiar functions. In this respect, a statement such as “I am tired of Ram – I want a new name” made by a fifteen year old school girl in conversation, reflected one end of a predictable array of responses to the extended us of the birthplace campaign. Her statement suggested that the social construction of reality might lie in the success or failure of political campaign strategists and media managers rather than in the life world of faith and ritual. Without something like the nurturing given to commercial brands, with “re-launches” being used to extend their “life cycle”, the public stitched together through media is liable to decompose into its several parts.

The verdict of the Civil society

It is quite interesting that the camera of the media focused repeatedly on the Hindutva lawyers and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad when they came out of the court pumping them up with ‘V signs’ and suggesting the victory of Hindutva. However, the politics lie in the division of one-third land for each of the three contesting parties and no clear verdict was given in favour of any group. The verdict seem to satisfy everybody just like any other ordinary verdict but the media makes it extra ordinary when they add the versions of two major political parties of India: Congress welcoming the efforts of the court to a negotiated settlement of the dispute, only to utter that the court should have condoned the demolition of Babri masjid and BJP counter arguing that Congress is trying to provoke the Muslims by pointing out that those involved in the demolition should be punished, when the demolition is necessary as the creation of a mosque in the place of a temple is illegal. It is a strange power play between the issues of religious sentiments, public space, political parties and media. Religious sentiment should have been emanated from individuals of the public space and media should have been an informing agent to the state. Instead, religious sentiments seem to have emanated out of political parties and media is informing the public that such religious division of Hindu and Muslims should be maintained with Muslims being treated as a minority and a loser. This trifle incident of land dispute becomes the headlines of national dailies and news channels, leaving the public wonder whether India is really a secular state? If BJP should not be brought to power because of it being perceived as a core Hindu party, should Congress be brought to power, where they are only spectators to religious stratification and implicitly backing the Muslims?

Conclusion

The media should be a more responsible content provider to the mass, understanding what they stand for, playing a more crucial role in the democracy of urban life and maintaining secularism and integrity of a country in a most unbiased manner.This small incident of Ayodhya in one corner of the world has led to turmoil in Hindu minority countries like Bangladesh. A sense of diaspora became existent. Jinnah, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan had said " A man is a Punjabi or a Bengali before he is a Hindu or a Muslim. They share common history, language, culture and economy." Hence it is a clan that unites and not the religion. due to situations created out of religious divide, there comes a situation when the individual feels whether the place of birth is more important or whether his mere existence is more important. An existential crisis leads to birth place exclusions due to religion.

References

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References

1. ^ Rajagopal Arvind, Politics after Television: Religious nationalism and the reshaping of the Indian public, Cambridge, Cambridge University press (introduction), 2001
2. ^ Donsbach Wolfgang, The identity of communication research, International Communication Association, Journal of Communication 56, 2006, pg 437-448
3. ^ Mead George Herbert, The social foundations and functions of thought and communication in Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviourist (C.W. Morris, ed), University of Chicago Press, 1934, pg 253-260 and 325-328)
4. ^ Times of India, October 20, 2010
5. ^ Bandura Albert, Social cognitive theory of Mass communication in Media effects: Advances in theory and research (2nd ed), Hillsdale, NJ, 2001 pg 121-153.
6. ^ Swamy Subramanian, No one but Ram Lalla, Hardnews, November 2010, pg 28-31
7. ^ Rathi Neha, Faith’s lawless, Hardnews November 2010, pg 32-35
8. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/oct/03/babri-mosque-india-hindu-secularism