Irom Sharmila : A newsmaker ? A script from Bollywood
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 06 2011 -

Irom Sharmila produced before the Court of CJM Imphal East on August 30 2011 :: Pix by Bullu Raj - Poknapham

Should the credit go to Team Anna or to the fertile imagination of a journalist, for it is not every Tom, Dick or Harry, whose love story gets written in the newspaper.

Either one has to be a celebrity in her/his own right, a Rahul Gandhi if one is in India or some personality who has managed to make his or her way to the select class of people who are newsmakers, to make it to the news on account of one's love life or love story.

There is nothing more natural than to fall in love and there is nothing more unnatural for a Government, that too a Government that swears by the principles of democracy, to maintain an air of complete indifference to a fast launched by one of its citizens for nearly 11 years.

In the unnatural list comes the blind stand taken by the so called mainstream media to the fast by a lone woman for over a decade. The only point that may be deemed fit for an argument over "its naturalness or unnaturalness" is the informative report on her love life filed by the correspondent of a paper published from Guwahati and Calcutta.

These contradictions form part of the life of Irom Chanu Sharmila and the casts in this Act include the lady herself, the Government of India, the free media in mainland India, the man who managed to steal the heart of Sharmila and of course the correspondent and the paper in question here.

So what are the factors that have catapulted Sharmila to the league of newsmakers so much so that her love life is deemed fit for a news story, that too as the lead news, in the Guwahati edition as well as in the Calcutta edition ?

This question is all that more important given the fact that most stories concerning the North East and Manipur in particular are carried only in the North East section or in the Guwahati editions of the major media houses, leading to a situation where there has been an implosion of news and information of the region.

As noted earlier, falling in love is one of the most natural things in the world and given the general understanding of what make news, the question of why such a natural attribute of humanity should be deemed fit to make the cut for a lead story.

The picture gets all that more ironic when the unique, the "nature defying" struggle of Sharmila has failed to register in the consciousness of the expert commentators and media gurus of mainland India all these years.

That is until Anna Hazare and his team came on the scene with their anti-corruption slogan and the Gandhian decided to stop eating in full public glare.

This sure is a sign of coming to age of Sharmila, at least as far as media coverage is concerned, but it is still a point worth pondering on why her love life should suddenly become a topic of such interest to a correspondent, who at the most has only reported on her in passing references in the past that is from 2000 to 2011.

If there are any detailed reports filed by the said correspondent then it would be enlightening to know that. So Sharmila is today a newsmaker in the mould of the stars whose every step is keenly watched by the fans as well as a media, eager to ferret out juicy stories.

Credit should be given too for the minute study that has been conducted to include how the supporters of Sharmila responded when the story of the budding romance reached their ears. The report on her love life reads like a classic Bollywood romance, with Sharmila's supporters taking on the role of the disapproving parents and relatives who are hell bent on derailing the budding romance or love between her and her man.

And just as Bollywood scripts go, the supporters were also cast in the role of the over protective big brother who did not hesitate to order his men to pummel the loverboy to pulp. A la Ek Duuje Ke Liye ?

Having said this, the more fundamental question that arise is why has the love life of Sharmila suddenly become so important so as to occupy prime space in a newspaper which is easily the most widely read in eastern India ?

Is there something more than merely reporting on the protective role taken up by her supporters ? Protective of a young woman who has found love, that too with a non-local, perhaps provides the right fodder to script a story that would cast the protective supporters in the mould of a xenophobic people.

And the negative connotations that xenophobia carry in today's world need no elaboration. It is also important to note that the supporters of Sharmila should not be seen only on the persons of human rights defenders but consists of the people of Manipur as a whole.

Herein lies the potentially mischievous points in the report. It is amazing to see the speed with which Sharmila has been elevated to such a stage that her love life is today deemed to be news worthy.

This may be seen as a step forward or backward, depending on how one views the new development, but that hint of mischief, that whiff of engineering a story cannot be brushed aside that easily. Sharmila is human. She is not Superman's cousin. Hence it is natural for her to fall in love.

What is not natural is the sudden interest in something as private as her love life. What is unnatural and definitely news worthy is her fast for over a decade and so is AFSPA, which has been interpreted as Constitutional and hence legal. These are news material and why the selective silence on this ?