VINOD MEHTA

Vinod Mehta at the Nepal Academy

What I knew about the Indian press was gleaned from reading the English broadsheets 30-years ago.  Now I know a lot more thanks to Vinod Mehta who spoke at the Nepal Literature Festival dubbed NEPAL’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL LITERARY EXTRAVAGANZA at what was formerly known as The Royal Nepal Academy.

Vinod sat on the stage like an old bear facing a packed audience in one of the marquees and delivered an incisive analysis of the Indian press in answer to Kunda Dixit’s prompting.  The latter’s presence was much more effete but he still showed evidence of the savvy and power of his past as the Asia-Pacific Director of the Inter Press Service and sometime editor and publisher of Nepal Times amongst other impressive roles in the media. I think Vinod must have done some things right in his career in journalism, having been sacked from three-jobs.  He is the author of several books including biographies of Sanjay Gandhi and Meena Kumari.  He is also the founder of India’s first Sunday paper, The Sunday Observer.  He now lives in New Delhi and holds a UK passport.

Vinod Mehta with Kunda Dixit

Vinod goes back to the 50s and 60s and points out the differences between now and then and explained that because of partition, many Muslims moved to Pakistan but had their roots in Lucknow where he was brought up after his parents moved from Rawalpindi when he was three.  Vinod makes his convictions about secularism clear.  He lived in an environment which was secular:   Later on in life [after partition] I needed no more convincing about secularism…that to survive as a democracy in an open society the basis of that has to be secularism…You can’t get away from the fact that India is a mixture of so many religions and so many cultures and all of them have enriched India.

Through humour, Vinod regaled the audience with anecdotes from his past: he was responsible for introducing Outlook magazine and when advertisers wanted to pay they would arrive at the office with a basket full of cash because they didn’t believe in cheques.

Kunda Dixit asked about the Indian media’s role in strengthening democracy to which Vinod replied:  Indian media had great opportunities.  One of the good things about Indian media is that politicians are scared of the media…I’m accused of corruption.  I find when five or six ministers are sitting around talking at a party and they are having an animated conversation and I go and put my head in between they immediately start talking about the weather.  There doesn’t seem to be much difference in Nepal where the agenda of the politicians seems to be hidden and very little of the veracity of their strategies is revealed to the press. 

Kunda Dixit also asks about public television in India and suggests that they seem to know what the public wants.  In answer, Vinod speaks about a particular channel with a constant stream of breaking news at the bottom of the screen.  This channel had the bulletin that the next breaking news will be at 10.30 with the response of laughter from the audience. 

One person from the audience asks: Why is there so little mainstream reporting on Nepal and when there is reporting it is actually wrong like a recent report that happens every monsoon that Nepal released water and therefore India’s flooded.

Vinod agrees that Nepal is badly reported in the Indian press.  He also concedes that the Indian press is obsessed with Pakistan. He says, we are paranoid about any country which has close relations with China and we are paranoid about a country which we perceive, not that’s it’s true, favours China over India.  And what we perceive is that the top leadership over the past four or five years is more pro-Chinese than pro-India…We not only under-report, we mis-report.

One person in the audience asks what he thinks of the English language reporting in Nepal.  He admits that he looked at the Himalayan and he didn’t like it because it didn’t cover his function. He also said that despite the fact that India is going through one of the major crisis yet very little is reported in the Nepalese press.  He is perhaps condescending about the English newspapers in Nepal that he didn’t find them particularly good or bad.

He says that the main reason why news other than conflicts is under-reported in the Indian press is because India is obsessed with America. One of my old friends in Nepal is Mr Thapa.  I knew him from Delhi and he had three-children who were overseas. You go to any Indian middle-class house and you will certainly find that if there are two-children, either both are abroad or one-child is here and one-child is abroad.

He further says that India is scared of China because of India’s inability to forget the humiliation of 1962 and that the country is making much bigger inroads than we are and also that China has an ambition to surround India with friendly countries. 

China is going to explode one of these days because what they’ve done is opened up the economy but kept a tight rein on politics.  This is exactly opposite to what Gorbachov did.  Gorbachov opened up politics but kept the economy closed.  I think there are going to be social explosions.

Another speaker from the audience points out that newspapers, books, especially text books, are easily available in Nepal whereas Nepalese books, journals and newspapers are not allowed in India.  Kundit Dixit points out that there is some kind of restriction on the border and that Vinod might want to take that up to the higher authorities as well.

On the way out, I buy a copy of Vinod’s memoirs, A Lucknow Boy, and thank him for his entertaining talk as he signs it. I notice that so many other people from the audience are also buying his book and considering his standing in the media and also the way in which he is able to get the audience on board, I look forward to a revealing and honest account of his days in the business.