Karnataka’s Labour Minister Santosh Lad has some special advice for women ahead to the Lok Sabha elections: watch teleserials, not news. He was speaking to beneficiaries of state government schemes in Dharwad district. The context was that news channels are constantly beaming “fake publicity” about the central government’s welfare schemes, which could influence women to vote for the BJP. Without doubt, Lad is being sexist and patronising in singling out women, and obviously believes they are incapable of discerning between reality and publicity. He also implies that women are easy to brainwash, while men are not at such a risk, and has reduced the female intelligence to the saas-bahu soap opera variety. As expected, his foot-in-mouth moment has invited criticism from women activists. It is unfortunate that even educated representatives of the people—the minister is a graduate—hold such a view of women voters, who can change electoral fortunes.
Apart from Lad’s mindset, his comment also reveals the Congress party’s fear that in the battle of guarantee schemes between the Centre and Karnataka, news channels could tilt the scales towards the BJP. The BJP has indeed snatched the ‘guarantee’ catchword from the Congress and refashioned it as ‘Modi ki guarantee’, which can confuse voters. Saffron leaders took a swipe at Lad, saying he and his party were afraid of defeat in the parliamentary polls, and are preventing voters from watching news channels broadcasting the truth.
But there are many shades to the truth put forth by the media, especially the electronic media, these days. Lad’s fears of a publicity blitzkrieg by the BJP are not unfounded. Over the past decade, the Centre has spent over Rs 6,000 crore on advertisement campaigns alone, a figure the Congress certainly cannot match. That apart, a number of channels broadcast party campaigns as prime-time analysis, blurring the line between news and propaganda. This lack of objectivity could lead to an unequal political battle for opposition parties, and diminish any gains the Congress may have made in the past few months. As the elections near, we can expect carpet-bombing by political parties of all hues, trumpeting their achievements. Voters, especially women, cannot afford to blind themselves to the truth. They will need to sift through the clutter to discover what really benefits them, their families and society before casting their votes.