For my money, the U.S. media’s coverage of South Asia has improved a lot in recent years. I often hear complaints about the New York Times’ Somini Sengupta (and on occasion I’ve had my criticisms too), but overall the quality of South Asia coverage at the Times has been consistently high in my estimation.
Periodically, however, major American media sources seem to lose their focus a little. First up, witness today’s article on Widows at Cnn.com. How is this a “fresh” story? Why is it the lede at CNN, exactly? (For several hours on Thursday afternoon, this was the leading story on Cnn.com’s website.) While Indian widows face real problems — and we’ve talked about them at SM before — the superficial style of coverage in this particular CNN story smacks of sensationalism. There is so much happening in the world — the siege of the Red Mosque in Pakistan, and the derailment of the commuter train in London might be two examples. I’m not sure why or how this is judged “leading news.”
And then there’s the unusual New York Times story about the woman in Karnataka who’s started a blog to raise awareness of her husband’s whistle-blowing activities. By getting public attention she’s trying to avoid having his fate resemble that of other government workers engaged in fighting corruption in the past few years — two of whom were assasinated.
I do wish M. N. Vijayakumar and J. N. Jayashree well, and there is something rather smart about this approach: the best way to fight lack of information transparency is to aim for hyper-transparency (“wiki-giri”, perhaps). But a visit to the “Fighting Corruption” blog is a little less than inspiring; from my attempted navigation, it was actually a bit difficult to pin down the specific cases where Vijayakumar has attempted to make interventions. And my bigger concern is the danger that this strategy might only work in exceptional instances. It’s fine if 1 or 5 or 10 whistle-blowers are keeping blogs; people will pay attention. But what about 1000, or 10,000? Since a single blog can hardly clean up corruption single-handedly, to me this story falls under “novelty,” not so much “news.” What’s your view?
Not to be a jerk, but did you forget to close a bold tag, Amardeep?
Isn’t this the major criticism of blogs and the internet at large? While increasing transparency and democratizing information we also have a huge information overload that makes it hard to filter through things and discern what is viable, realistic, useful, etc. What concerns me more than there being 10,000 anti-corruption blogs (indeed, if they were smart about it they would network through a single web site space a la blog-ring) is the lack of capacity to fact-check what is true, what is stunt, and what is an all out lonelygirl15-ish hoax.
I’m sure this has been covered, but I also wonder how high the incidence of widow-killing is in these areas. There’s been some work done on witch-killing in East Africa, but I wonder if, post-legislation, we see higher rates of non-sati-style killings of widows as well.
Camille, yes, I think I did. It should be fixed now — thanks.
Never fear, the intern is here! Fixed.
I must say, this “not really news” has my heart more ached. So the plight of hundreds of thousands of people on path of legal immigration being badly hurt by an arbitrary decision taken by the Department of State and USCIS was not covered by the SM, and this news makes news in the SM blogs.
undeniably.
from the flood in gujrat to latest indian sports news to what company is going public. Associated Press and NYTimes are all over it.
Brown, we may do something on that soon. The incompetence and unfairness of USCIS is certainly an important issue to me… hang in there.
I agree with you on the widow non-story, but the blog story is useful, if only to highlight the innovative strategies that some honest mid-level bureaucrats might use in their crusade for honesty. Also, the story was classified under “Technology”, after all.
Although I hope that no harm comes to Vijayakumar, I don’t fully understand how a blog helps to protect him. Sure, some publicity is good, but I don’t see how the musclemen of Madna will feel bound by this. I thought that Satyendra Dubey’s story got some (limited) publicity even before his murder, although I might be mistaken on this. Maybe he should try the strategy of the Blond Bong instead. If Big Brother can watch, why not all the aam aadmis?
The issue I have with the blog story is the clear implication that in India, whistle-blowers are murdered as a matter of course. Yes, India has many problems, and acknowledging and exposing them is the first step to creating a better future, but … it’s not quite as bad as the story suggests. I think.
What?! Sensational coverage? From CNN?! Why, I never!
more than that, this story is SO generic (“India’s widows”) and uninformed (lots of widows don’t live like the ones in the story). i felt like south asians were being dinged again for their way of life. and i totally agree that there are much more important stories to be covered on the home page of CNN.
Because the suits up in ATL paid Arwa Damon for his “spiritual” boondoggle to India, so he could write a sensational non-story that can draw lots of eyeballs and moisten them up.
I am not sure 10,000 blogs filled with whistleblowing is a bad thing. Not everyone is interested in everything and we are all getting very good at “pulling” information, rather than being fed a standard stream. We will find ways to organize it for our own consumption.
I was equally surprised to see the article splashed all over the CNN main page. As sceptical as I am, I immediately started to think of the reasons , a) Slow news day? Umm not really, they almost blowed a mosque in Pakistan. b) Deepa Mehta’s agent planting stories. Umm again no, Oscar time long gone. c) They have hired a journalist to write solely on India and the dude had nothing better. Definitely not, cause India will never disappoint the jurnos by not having anything interesting for a week. So seriously I have no clue
I think this is less of a news and more of a Story. Would have been a good thing to put in Time magazine.
And when you go to yahoo’s main page, what you get is the story and picture of Nepal’s Living Goddess – a Kumari, who was stripped of her title upon return to her country because she left the country to participate in a documentary about that tradition.
To me the greatest concern is the wrong ideas that Indian people get from this. Corruption in a powerful poorly paid bureaucracy at the helm of a behemoth centralized regulatory controlling machine? It is not a problem, it is a tautology!
The solution is not to shame the people into becoming less corrupt by blogs, it is to take power away from them.
Additionally, corruption actually greases the many-geared creaking machine. It is necessary; if everything were to go procedurally by the book in bureaucratic India, it would be a nightmare!
In short, people are wrong on this on both counts: corruption is necessary, and it is inevitable if you have a behemoth convoluted bureaucracy.
Of course not always murdered. Why murder when you can establish your power and might AND take revenge on your enemy by throwing acid on them and disfiguring them for life? What is more powerful, a dead victim who will be forgotten after 3 months or so, or a walking corpse (I feel guilty about my choice of words, my apologies to all those women and men in India who have been subject to this brutality) who will be constantly reminded of their situation and who will, by their mere presence among the living, remind others to be silent and look the other way?
I am sorry Amardeep, despite the angle of your stated interest in this story, I believe that those of us living outside have no understanding of the ground realities there. We have the luxury of choosing to comment on the story or not, clicking on the link or not, giving them coverage/exposure or not, but for them there is no choice, after a certain course of action.
In other words, novelty or news for us, but desperation for them, I think.
malathi, same-post-time pinch!
I might have thought CNN had taken their cue from Water (Deepa Mehta)alone, if it weren;t for tghe fact that they are running a show on hijras on CNN International on Saturday, It’s called Harsh BeautyCNN is getting into the Subcontinent’s pants is all. Scandal-mongering, although their may be some merit to individual pieces– who knows?
In such a mindset, a single blog is all it takes to expose a multitudes of corruptions- maybe not enough to address the problem but enough to make good yellow press.
dosa;
Dosaji
Lots of widows don’t live like the ones presented in this article. But at the same time, lots of widows do. I personally feel this is a newsworthy item, as it continues to be a major issue in India. If you don’t believe it, just make a trip to Vrindavan or Varanasi the next time you are travelling in India.
A commenter on the CNN site feels differently;
That’s nice. Guilt trip them during the first break they’ve had in three years, even after they explicitly stated that the blogging volume would be low. Because none of them have outside lives or actual jobs, right? Did it ever occur to you that sometimes, the “heavier” issues are also tougher/more time-consuming to blog? Throwing up a video of Kal Penn endorsing marrow donation takes ten minutes, delving in to immigration policy, probably ten times that.
I hate when people play the “How could you blog this and not THAT?”-game. Lame.
I think that to be sophisticated, we need to think about what a legitimate “base rate” of critiques-focussing on the negatives of South Asian society–is in the news media. There can definitely be too much–but equally clearly there shouldn’t be a whitewash “everything is de-lovely” facade either.
Any thoughts? It’s tough….
Its been a pretty terrible week for the brown man trying to shake off the bad rep… The Britian bombings, doctors from Bangalore among the suspects … and so on. I think the timing of this story, if anything, is politically motivated … CNN, FOX news, and many other American channels take it upon themselves to consistently keep the ‘enemy’ evil .. During the early days of the Iraq war, it was how badly the Iraqi civilians needed ‘freedom’, the plight of oppressed women in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle-east… and how the US was ultimately doing the right thing by ‘saving’ them.
Today, India is facing the heat … Our doctors were involved in this Terrorist plot. Now would be the best time for these channels to ride on the anti-brown sentiment, fueling the flames… by reminding the viewers about India’s corruption , and the evil Indian men who oppress Widows.
I’m probably reading too much into this, but CNN’s always been waaaay too sleazy for anyone who has grown up watching the BBC.
apologies for typos– Water keeps cropping up after all. The state of very poor widows in Desh is the result of centuries of extreme poverty and social adaptation to harshest conditions of poverty– not some quirk of Hindu trickery, as this article will lead people like this commenter to believe.
Mostly Americans get to know other places via the underbelly as depicted in the domestic press. At last this isn’t a war.
The issue should not be trivialized as in the above statement. India’s deeply held views regarding widows does indeed need to be deeply changed, from the inside out. It needs to be pulled out from the roots, like a weed that is threatening to destroy fertile crops. In order for this to happen, that region of the world needs to rethink it’s ideas about women in general – you know, the ideas that a woman is almost useless without a man by her side and her very personhood is defined by the men (of lack thereof) in her life.
Inevitable, I can understand; but necessary??
If a department was bureaucratic as hell, but its officers were honest, they would find ways to make things less bureaucratic, no? I agree that the solution to the problem is to take power away from them, rather than shame individuals.
The relationship between power and corruption is interesting. In the developing world, corruption mostly involves grabbing power and then using it to build wealth, where as in the developed world, it involves the wealthy using money to grab power. I read this some time ago, not sure where.
Hold on a sec now, Widow Power– you know that’s not the whole picture about widows in India– Remember Indira Gandhi? A Widow who was Prime Minister? Hillary can’t hit the top spot without her husband– think again –please!
@Widow Power :
I agree that Widows are being treated badly… and I do not intend to trivialize the matter… However, I see something fishy in the timing of this particular piece.
To be fair Amrita, it’s a combination of both. If it were just the poverty then I would think these families would try to marry off their widows to second husbands, wealthy widowed men perhaps. You can’t deny that Hinduism does indeed have a taboo against widows re-marrying.
And when I say “hinduism” I don’t neccessarily imply that some old scriptures may allow for the remarriage of widows, I mean the present day culture of Hinduism as it is played out amongst ordinary citizens of India.
I only know one widow in India who remarried after her husband died, and she was a young woman in her twenties when she did so and she was ostracized by her family and her dead husbands family for doing so.
I know more women who were both married and widowed in their teens who dawned the white sari and shaved head, typical of Bengali culture especially. The majority of widows in Vrindavan are from West Bengal.
You’re citing politicians as examples and norms of the common masses. I’m speaking of the common masses.
The two are very different. Indira Gandhi had clandestine intimate relationships with men after the death of her husband, yet she never remarried. Wonder why?
Yes, I know widows who are wealthy, working, independent women enjoying their lives in India. But they have not remarried nor would they consider it because in their words, “it goes against our culture”.
Why is that? Why does it go against the culture? This is what I’m getting at.
I meant, At least this isn’t a war– so far. It’s definitely some sort of campaign by CNN, though, as the NYTimes article has a slightly more ameliorative approach, whereas the CNN stuff is just a stream of bad mouthing. Why are these peole allowed to film in Desh? Should there be teams from NDTV making movies about murders in Morningside Heights and dire poverty in West Virginia to introduce Indians properly to America?
Even that is not that simple. There is a class/power family/political family issue alongside the issues of a largely (politically) illiterate populace accepting of demi-gods and heirs. While Hilary also has been blessed with some of those factors (class, power family), she does not benefit from some other socio-political-economic factors.
If Indira Gandhi had had a brother, I wonder who would have been groomed?
But making things less bureaucratic would require not following the book, and that is technically wrong, and illegal. Ergo, honest officers would go by the book, which is bad for the efficiency of the system and for people overall. Bribes aligns their incentives to break through the gearwork, greases not only their hands but also the system!
Very interesting quote. It suggests developing countries are feudal and centralized: power is required to make money. I’d rather have money being required to make power.
When I clicked on cnn.com and saw that as the featured story, I was disgusted. This is beyond sensationalism, and it’s simply unfair and a poorly covered news story. Why now? Why all of a sudden, if this has been going on for as long as it has been? Of course, it’s a problem, but India has so many deep-rooted, controversial, hushed scandals that are really cultural matters that will take decades to have any semblance of progress made on them. India needs so much work in so many ways that it’s overwhelming. That may be a really heavy statement, but it’s true.
And while this is an issue and it is upsetting, I feel that CNN needs to stop taking on these ‘charity-case’ stories that they go on touting as ‘Human Rights issues’. If they want to move away from their sensationalistic news stories into some aspect of accurate journalism they really ought to find similar stories or occurrences in other countries and find a common thread.
To add to my statement about corruption being necessary, those who’ve lived in India should introspect honestly: is the usual bribe out of necessity (work would not have gotten done otherwise) or due to increased convenience and efficiency (work would get done faster than if there was an honest officer)?
This falls in the ‘Look at those backward Hindus in India’, we have it so good here in the US, style stories. That said, is this practice of widows being sent to the streets common outside of Varanasi and Vrindavan (i.e) some communities in UP and West Bengal, that too among the poorer srctions of society? I haven’t heard of such issues in the south, although widow remarriage may not have been as common there as well in the past.
While a lot of it is true, I did have a problem with the following statement
Now it clearly says the estimate of widows is 40 million but it gives no indication of how many of these widows actually have to endure such things. It also does not point out clearly about the prevalence of such problems say 50 years back and now, and thus whether things have improved. Thus it leaves to the reader to assume the worst and one gets no idea about the scale of the problem. To me this almost feels like biased reporting and journalistic dishonesty. A case could be made that such numbers do not exist but then usually reports like these mention that aspect and at least give some numbers based on an average town. Vrindavan is an exception and thus numbers from there are not reflective of an average town.
As for the RTI thing, if anyone wants to help out, please get in touch with ushere.
Common masses? Come now, there is no such person! There are people who put their parents into nursing homes here where they die of neglect. It;s just a more moneyed way of doing the same thing– woudl you call that a Judeo-Christian way of life?
Right, and neither did Jackie Onassis the second time around, once she had enough to live on. She just dated a guy whose wife wouldn’t let go.
I don’t think you’re getting at anything– it’s money, and what poverty does to custom and practice. Of course there are socialite widows in India who screw around and those who don’t, but either way, those widows are needed by their extended families and do go to a lot of parties or pursue active public lives in charities and politics. Middle class widows in India are also needed by their families in a way that American widows in their seventies and eighties just aren’t. Those you’re calling “the masses” in India are very very poor, much poorer than old widows here– just look around– it’s a richer country, built on virgin soil, and not by accident.
In response to HyperTree’s question, bribery is done out of necessity for the average person living in India. It has simply become status quo because the police officers, among others, have witnessed it all of their working years from higher-ups and see how much quicker they get results they want (i.e. money). When the common folk see and know all about government scandals then what kind of example is there for them to be honest?
Agree 100% with Ardy.
Poor, medium, wealthy – I’ve met many widows in India from many different backgrounds leading many different lifestyles — either with extended family or not. Only one out of all of them remarried because they said it was against their customs, culture, religion. That is what I am getting at.
Do you know any specific reasons why it is against their customs, culture, religion?
HyperTree, in a fight such as fighting a corrupt Govt. machinery, every thing one can do is required. For eg. take the case of the RTI act. After the act was passed, the bureaucrats have tried (and from what we know through rumor mills they will again in the next session of the Parliament) will try again to implement an addendum to the act which takes away something called ‘file notings’ from the purview of the act. These notings basically outline the thoughts behind any decision and why a certain decision was taken and by whom. If this goes away from the act, a lot of accountability does too. The last time the Govt. tried removing the same – activists, bloggers, news media etc all put pressure on the Govt. and the awareness generated finally resulted in a lot of public pressure and the temporary withdrawal of the addendum.
Similarly, the commissioners who hear appeals in case of a denial of information are mostly ex bureaucrats though the act stipulates that these ICs (information commissioners) should be from various walks of life in the citizenry. A good number of these ICs side with the Govt.. We did an analysis of the decisions given by the ICs and a bulk of them were to the point of being absurd in the impunity they gave the offenders who denied information. Of note was a certain Mr Ansari who recently came into the public eye for saying that the machinery is overburdened and thus so many pending appeals and quick dismissals.
Thus through various ways, one has to highlight the crap that goes one, public awareness and thus the ensuing pressure is the best way to tackle such problems. Shaming is a step towards taking away their power – something which they are trying their best to resist.
More than half of the widows I know outside of India have remarried. Jackie O notwithstanding.
What does their families needing them have to do with anything? Their second husband can come and live in the widow’s household and be absorbed into her family and then you have a man alongside your mom there when you need them both! And especially for the poor, if the new husband/dad has more money than you do… it’s a win-win situation! In fact, that is precisely why some widows do remarry, to be able to provide for their kids in ways they wouldn’t if it was just them alone as a single mom.
I really don’t get your poverty argument here at all. Could you explain further, because to me it seems more logical to have a financially poor widow remarry, than to not.
Shanti: necsessity of bribes might not be the “average” case, it is true however for the very poor. Isn’t it ironical that the socialist bureaucratic regime tailored towards a forced egalitarian society, by stifling profits and excess efforts, ends up harming the lower class more than it does the upper class?
Let this be a lesson to those in free countries glancing flirtatiously towards socialism: limiting the supply of freedom only makes it a tradeable commodity. This would not make things egalitarian, this would only mean that it is the rich people who would be able to buy their freedom, while the poor people would remain constrained by the snares.
First up, witness today’s article on Widows at Cnn.com. How is this a “fresh†story? Why is it the lede at CNN, exactly?>/i>
this is exactly what i thought when i saw the article first thing this morning. i had wanted to post it to the news tab with a “wtf is this sensationalist crap?” but saw it had already been posted … i could swear that they ran a similar piece in the last year, around the time that “water” (was that the latest?) was making some waves over here. this is the same news outlet that employs journalists who use slang and poor grammar in all sincerity, so what can you expect, i guess?
Whatchoo talkin’ about, milli?
i saw this live on cnn tv today. and i was wondering how mutineers would take offense, as i couldn’t see anything even vaguely disagreeable. although, i must admit, after at least 1 year of SM indoctrination, when I saw this story I think i invented a new term: neo-noblesse oblige.
You don’t need a new term when one already exists: White (Wo)man’s Burden. And there’s a term for people like you too: agent provocateur 🙂
Actually, I think this issue is not getting enough front page news. For the sake of Indian women in general, as well as widows in particular, this should be front page news on every newspaper in the world, at least one time. Maybe then someone will be inspired to actually do something meaningful for these women, instead of just talking about them and how their story is not important or newsworthy enough.
i like it! much better that Uncle Thomas varghese.
Oh yeah, and to say it’s not part of the “hindu” belief system, there is a qoute by some revered Hindu figure, Manu, Chanakya, someone, to the effect of, ” that woman who marries a man in the presence of her sons becomes their enemy” — talking of widowed women with children who remarry. This was widely qouted by some of the widows I’ve met.
So, yeah, it’s definetly beyond a shadow of a doubt a cultural religious thing.
Or Ted Kennedy?
Actually, I don’t know about the TV coverage, but my problem with the article is that it is completely vacuous, just playing on images of poor abandoned osteoporotic 85 year old women, without much context and useless statements like “Generally all widows are ostracized”. It is exactly the kind of essay that is going to fuel the responses on this thread, with the people who either harbor notions of a dark, uncivilized India or are upset about the genuine mistreatment of women getting all upset, and those who hold up the image of India Shining feeling that this is just another attempt by the West to take the sheen off. I am fine with CNN doing a more detailed study giving context, background etc., but where’s the money in that? (surely, you understand that logic? 🙂