Umesh Anand
IN recent months we have often been asked why we in Civil Society haven't been doing "election stories". Our response has been that our coverage of these elections began all of five years ago ---- when the UPA government came to power.
Reporting politics becomes interesting when you go beyond the politician. For journalists interested in issues, the UPA's first term in office was an exciting one. We tracked the deliberations of the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Sonia Gandhi. We reported extensively on RTI and rural employment guarantee, going from one public hearing to another and witnessing a rising tide of support for both ideas.
As we observed the troubled birth of new legislation, we realised how difficult it is to take causes into the mainstream of government. Without the NAC, which listened to voices from the grassroots, the UPA may not have gone in for RTI, rural employment and other social initiatives that have brought it to power for a second time.
Civil Society also reported on forest rights and the turmoil over land acquisition. We were the first to do a cover story on SEZs and the real estate scam that they were going to be. You had only to meet those farmers facing displacement to realise how flawed the SEZ policy was. Harivansh did a cover story for us on Naxalites. We were similarly at Nandigram and Singur and in touch with the agitation by fishermen. It was easy to see that the CPI(M) was out of sync with the times.
Even as the election results come out, we've chosen to do a cover story on Hindi cinema. Think about it, when politics change, the radical easily becomes mainstream in more than one sphere.
The directors we have profiled are using exceptional skills and talent to inject larger Indian realities into cinema and yet be commercially viable. Many of these directors come from small towns and diverse backgrounds. They portray Indian women differently. They show a churning in politics. Their films are about an India which increasingly goes beyond caste and gender. This is an India that policymakers and politicians need to wake up to.
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