It has been a week since my beloved city was held captive to the latest edition of neo-guerilla terror. From point of view of those who planned this, it has almost succeeded by and large; something which was intended to terrify the public and the state at large. If you were to judge this based on the coverage by the electronic media, the terrorists would have taken something parallel to a medallion at the Olympics. We can almost see them partying at the quasi-glorification of their efforts by sections of media for which, we ourselves have to be blamed.

We have had dramatic, minute-by-minute evolution of the attack and its aftermath broadcast live to our homes by the television channels for close to three days. In that coverage which paralyzed the entire nation by forcing it to be glued on their television screens and internet portals, we have seen many a ‘memorable’ moment. The terrorists have become instant celebrities; slogans and rhetoric have been drafted to equate the terror to a rather well known terror attack in the past; prominent personalities from the industries have been handed a microphone where they could advocate fascism and hegemony. The degeneration of the purpose of coverage progressed to the extent that the one average middle-class man almost became India’s ‘Uncle Sam’ when he advocated compulsory military tenure for the youth of India.

The over-dramatization has been evident in the usage of the footage of the attack being collated with accompaniment of orchestration befitting a big-budget bollywood musical. The doctrine of the life captured in a movie completed the full circle when the unfortunate incident of the terror-tourism offered to a leading director by the chief-minister of the state itself. We even had ministers and citizens indulging in pre-adolescent vulgar lsexicon which probably did not garner its TRP potential because of being in a relatively ‘minor’ tongue. The debates conducted in the first few days since the onset of the attacks ranged from relevant to farcical while retaining the primeval quality of the total lack of conversational manners. It even made some of the paranoid Pakistani television footage that was aired look respectable.

Does this help? Aren’t we playing right into the hands of the men who aimed at such a reaction to start with? One of my friends put it eloquently that he needed the coverage as there was no other option to know what was happening. He might have the wisdom to know what to make out of the coverage, but can we expect the same sense of discretion from everyone? I firmly believe that such tainting news and analysis with marketing gimmicks would only lead to deeper percolation of terror in our society. The media needs to stand up and take a look in the proverbial mirror and see if it can see shades of what it vows to fight against.

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