Vogue-India: Not à la Mode

When Queen Marie Antoinette supposedly had said, "if they don't have bread, let them eat cake," about the starving French commoners during that infamous and controversial monarchical reign, she had underestimated the power of people and also, did not think much if her 'creative' quip would backfire that horribly, costing her own life. Legend may have spun this tale into something we all want to believe.

Priya Tanna is no Marie Antoinette and although being in charge of 'creative' aspects of Vogue India is something she is serious about, she is not serious about India's poverty and the way the fashion industry shape the middle class psyche, not legend but reality. She won't be guillotined for sure, but a lot of folks would want that little head of hers to think a little more humanistically.

Fascinating really is while the Indian media, of course those channels and papers that pride themselves as "mainstream", is busy producing oodles of newsprint and tape about the Indo-US Nuclear deal deliberations in Vienna, a handful of journalists are talking about a recent photo series by the fashion magazine Vogue-India. There's even a Facebook protest group.

Since the mainstream media is still dithering, let me cut to the backstory, a report in the New York Times:(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/business/worldbusiness/01vogue.html)

According to Heather Timmons, the writer, for many in India there are reasons to feel squeamish about the photos as the editorial spread seemed “not just tacky but downright distasteful” according to Kanika Gahlaut, a columnist for the daily newspaper Mail Today. She denounced it as an “example of vulgarity.” There’s nothing “fun or funny” about putting a poor person in a mud hut in clothing designed by Alexander McQueen, according to Gahlaut who spoke in a telephone interview. “There are farmer suicides here, for God’s sake” she said, referring to thousands of Indian farmers who have killed themselves in the last decade because of debt."

Priya Tanna, the editor of the fashion magazine in question, tried dismissing the notes of disapproval. “You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously,” Ms. Tanna said. “We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world.”

Precisely, that's the problem. Ms. Tanna ignored the fact that in a country like India, statements, reports, photos, features, songs -- everything has a political bearing. Every crumb of bread is politically earned by a huge majority. Every slice of cake produced (I presume Ms. Tanna likes her cake) by impoverished underpaid workers translates into social and political ballot. So, to depict a poor villager who perhaps earns less than $2 a day holding a Burberry umbrella or a toothless and clearly poverty-stricken old woman cuddle an infant wearing a designer French bib is nothing but political immaturity and an unpardonable frivolous act.

Do I then say that fashion cannot and shouldn't depict the poor and the underprivileged? Why not. I love fashion, I have my own version of it and I think the established fashion houses only need employ their resources a little better to "democratize" fashion in India.

Let's back up from the pseudo-arty pretension of Vogue/Ms. Tanna and see how else fashion events can make a difference. All of us here know about the UN's recent bid to promote awareness about sanitation and the NYC event where Indian sanitation workers (mostly Dalits) walked with top models (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7489296.stm). Naturally, the intention of that fashion event was to make the society open up its sluggish eyes (Cosmopolitan or Bloody Mary-induced) and look at folks who have barely earned any respect for a service they have been providing to a society divided so comfortably hierarchically...

Lip service? I'd rather have folks do that than turning away from realities as if they never existed. If Vogue had an iota of concern for the people they recruited (were they paid in French bibs and Burberry umbrellas?) -- perhaps a poor farmer like thousands we hear committing suicide, an old homeless woman, her ilk neglected and discarded, a baby representing millions that don't have basic care, a young girl who symbolizes gender imbalance and female foeticide -- I'd have probably looked at their campaign with sympathy in a country where it's cruel to call this photo series anything like 'art'.

Having said that, it's a pity that quite a few people still love a war, a drought, a hungry sad face... Be it fashion or news reportage or community outreach, so many book covers/magazine covers/annual reports (of NGOs too) etc. are full of sordid images meant to sell. If you ask me, one of my favorites is that famous photo of the Afghan girl (Sharbat Gula) looking with her stunned bewildered green eyes clicked by Steve McCurry. But then, here the photographer's mission statement was clear -- exposing the brutality and uselessness of war.

What is Vogue's mission in their caricature of a campaign? Just "lighten up" as Ms. Tanna said? She should probably suggest international Vogue editions to do high-fashion photo-shoots with East European war refugees, Katrina victims, rundown Chicago neighborhoods, jobless US auto workers etc., and see the reaction. Not only lighten up, she'll sober up too. If there has to be a fashion agenda making these folks the cynosure of all eyes, there better be a good reason beyond just selling magazines.

Why boycott Vogue India? They say the circulation figure is 50,000 although I doubt about the magazine's real following. Just march to Priya Tanna's office, bombard her with e-mails and phones, post blogs and messages, so she takes both fashion and poverty seriously hereafter. As a journalist I have seen worse, as an activist I don't want to see more.

My journalist friend Subir has blogged on this issue and as he mobilizes more opinions, I shall draft all that here.

NFI Northeast Media Exchange Programme Fellows

2000; Shillong, Meghalaya; NFI Northeast Media Exchange Programme Fellows.

Its amazing how a photograph can make you feel good. This one above is taken years ago. At the Northeast Media Fellowship's grand conference held in Shillong by National Foundation for India, one my former employers. Their flagship project used to be advised by Sanjoy Hazarika, the noted journalist and writer from Assam (Fellow, C-NES, New Delhi; he blogs at http://hazarika.c-nes.org/) and at that time was just handed down to me as the media coordinator, from Sunita Bhadauria, my former colleague and a very good friend.
We are standing outside on the front lawn of the famous Pinewood lodge in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. It's sunny and pleasantly warm because of Shillong's calm hilly weather. The only women in the photo are Sunita and I. She is far taller than I am, so you know who's who!

Apart from Sanjoy Hazarika, there are our prominent Media Consultants in this picture -- D N Bezbaruah, former Editor of The Sentinel newspaper in Guwahati, Assam, where I began my journalistic sojourn as a fledgling reporter and subeditor in 1988 (ahem, I'm really that old!); Dileep Chandan, Editor, Asom Bani (affiliated to The Assam Tribune newspaper) in Guwahati, and A J Phillips, another media stalwart.

Of the Fellows from the "Northeast", the one standing next to Sunita (in dark shawl) was from Nagaland. A fine man with a great sense of humor. He told me about his recovery from substance abuse and his experience of violence from insurgency in Nagaland. He had to leave the conference early and I kind of missed him. Also, the Fellow from Manipur, don't remember his name, was apparently an active member of an underground outfit. I used to notice him a lot during our sessions. A very quiet and surly man, he barely spoke or replied to questions. When I tried making a conversation, he told me very briefly how aghast he was at the "incorrect reportings" by the mainstream media in Manipur. I felt I had to apologize on behalf of the "mainstream media". But I was a northeasterner too, I understood his points.

I thought this man will never open up, never really participate in our fantastic sessions because he was such an angry man. Well, at the after-party, I was proven wrong! At that informal gathering at the lovely guesthouse at the majestic Barapani reservoir of the Umiam river, when we began to read poems and sing songs, one of us strumming a guitar, he began humming too. Then clapping. And singing loudly. He even requested me for a particular song (when I told my colleagues with sufficient embarrassment that I tried singing for the radio and TV a couple of times) -- I think, Old Man River. I think I saw his eyes get moist and he quickly turned his face away from my curious gaze.

Subir Ghosh, a fine reporter and writer (married to my former schoolmate Richa Bansal, a journalist too), is standing fourth from the right in the picture. He is the one who posted this memorable photo on his facebook page! Thank you Subir (he blogs at http://www.write2kill.in/ about politics, media and art)!

Making it to page 1 (published in Indiatogether.org)

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/oct/med-localnews.htm

3 October 2005 - Recently I met this lady from Chennai. To start a conversation I asked her what her occupation was. I was hoping to receive a stock reply like you often do from homely looking women in their late fifties. She surprised me by saying that she actually ran a small-scale business -- that of providing computer hardware to companies. She started to work while she was in her later 30s. She traveled from her city to other towns, combed the streets of her city, walked, rode buses, soaked in rain and endured the humid sun. Not to mention inquisitive neighbours and disdainful dissenters.

There are probably not many like her who single handedly launched a project like this and brought it up to a respectable status. “When I would reach my client’s place, they would ask: where is your man?” Revathi said. “”Here am I”, I would say as I opened up my tool box …!” “Their mouths would gape open,” she said laughingly.

Stories such as Revathi’s do not always make news in regular newspapers. It’s not typically rags to riches stuff, nor is it news of the weird. In a country where political shenanigans, hoopla on cricket or scandals seem to go down well with the morning’s cup of coffee, Revathis are usually not even on the metro page of a moderate size or even a town newspaper.

My experiences with the news coverage in places like Assam or Delhi highlighted nothing that could be put in the category of community news coverage. Community mattered when political leaders visited a ward or a municipality for a specific reason or when it was time to woo voters. Even then, assignment editors would not want the stories to be woven around the tribal farmer with his subsistence pig farm or the poor Muslim pith crafter community (whose craft is nearly vanishing).

In 1988-89, in Guwahati, Assam, where I started learning the first lessons in journalism, as any newbie would be, I used to be the jack of all trades – whether it was covering the annual book fair, writing a theater or a film review, interviewing the best school in town, attending a meeting or profiling a cultural persona. As a fledgling reporter cum subeditor, I was obviously not writing hot political stories, investigative themes or business stories. I was too new and young for all that. But I knew there were stories swarming around me – people, events and moments of life in the community. It was just that they were really not perceived as story ideas. National politics, state politics, big business and glitzy cultural news made headlines.

But an interesting aspect of this early stage was that I was also learning to edit town roundups for The Sentinel, a Guwahati English daily, where I was a sub-editor. That put me in touch with town reporters who were filing stories from towns all over Assam. These were literally barefoot reporters who would survive on a paltry salary and dream of finding the big story some day. Most of the time, I acquainted myself with their work through faxes, handwritten and mailed reports and telephone (there wasn’t any e-mail then). One such reporter from either a small town like Dhekiajuli or Bijni faxed a story about a tiger venturing into a part of the town and attacking a person or being warded off by some fearless townspeople. The story was dramatized, poorly written and obviously the reporter did not ask several necessary questions. One of my senior colleagues pinned up the handwritten report, all outrageous portions underlined, for everyone’s review. The entire newsroom resounded with guffaws.

I am pretty sure that story about the tiger attacking a human in a small town in Assam never made into that edition. May be it would, if it was higher on the death score, or the fearless town people were somebody to reckon with. Anyhow, I happened to remember this particular incident. Something told me right then that someone had to take note of that kind of town or village life and elevate it to the rank of news. But that was not happening. All our town reporters were eager to do, was to write was a big time story. Period.

News coverage in Delhi had not much exception, except that here the themes were bigger. I worked with Down To Earth - an environmental magazine -- and many years later, at Tehelka.com. My colleagues and I wrote and edited stories on environmental disasters, million-bucks deals, super cops and super stars, war with corporate giants, political parodies, scandals and apocalyptic events. The public needed godheads – different ones at different times – and villains as well, and we provided them just that. Some how, the community in question here, never seemed to take any interest in its own microcosm – or so we were made to understand.

This could have been the nature of things for all times to come but then, what is journalism without the spirit of quest and change.
I am sometimes glad that took the time to look at affairs of the world from different angles, as a student, as a journalist, a short-term teacher of language or even as an NGO worker. At the National Foundation for India (a funding agency aided by Ford Foundation), I worked closely with journalists to creating space for community/development reporting from the Northeast, Bihar, Rajasthan, and parts of South India. Those projects brought me closer to ‘real life real news’ issues.

Interestingly, during these projects, news the way it has always been changed remarkably. Especially, the northeast -- seen normally as the hub of all shades of insurgency and unrest, a trouble spot in the national canvas, a zone marked by poverty and inaccessibility, and oftentimes, fringe presence in the mainstream – emerged in a fresh new light.

I worked with reporters who wrote about farmers emerging from insurgency crisis through planned subsistence farming, women raising awareness about dangers of alcohol and drugs though door to door campaigns, communities misused by politicians coming up to voice their needs, artisans’ groups bolstering themselves against government apathy through small cooperatives, and much more. Each of these themes generated scores of stories. The Revathis of this world – from the northern badlands to the northeast and the south all had a chance to make headlines. Community news was being created, at least during those projects.

But then, this endeavour had to be pushed along, cushioned with incentives to even writers and reporters and followed up with aggressive media campaign for column space in major papers. We lobbied with newspapers in all corners of the country, especially those that did not regard community news as strong a sales indicator as politics, cricket or big ticket entertainment. Community reporting for most publications, was inside page stuff that didn't sell. We were trying to change that notion, and maybe we did, for a while.
Ithaca, a town of roughly 30,000 population in New York state, and home to Cornell University, is where my exposure to community journalism took on a special meaning.

Working with The Ithaca Journal as assistant Metro editor for the past two years has again brought me closer to the concept of community journalism. Dairy fests, bake and sales, AIDS run, firehouse fund-raisers, EcoVillage, reading partnerships, community art efforts, church missions for literacy, local farming – the list can be endless and evolving. Here community journalism was the benchmark of one’s understanding of slice Americana, how life went about in small town America in general. Often this brand of journalism could be oblivious of issues like war and peace, climate talks or globalisation. But at least in Ithaca, it all blended into a worthy mix of stories that had both local and national impact. So much so, that a small group of students lobbying to save a small patch of woodland from being turned into a parking lot in the prestigious Cornell University grabbed national press recently. The community here was extending its tentacles to life outside, to issues more complex.

Such a representation of life – through a prism that reflects intimate and seemingly commonplace events -- is not common for Indian English newsreaders. But again, efforts do exist in several vernacular media, although there too, they seldom become national headlines. Even when they make it to page 1, there has to be something more than just a community news element in it.

It will be worth trying to regenerate – or reinvigorate -- a culture of community journalism in the English newspapers in India and lobby for a greater proportion of those stories that are about local efforts. Whether it is profiling the Revathis of the world, seeing how the 73rd amendment is enacted in villages, witnessing the coming up of a local-run anganwadi for quake-stricken Kutchhi children or interviewing the village dai who now campaigns for right of the girl child and against female infanticide – which my esteemed former colleagues and I have been lucky to involve ourselves with -- community journalism only has a better future. It is a tool for reflecting empowerment and is an indicator of people's participation in a vibrant democracy like India. ⊕

Nabina Das 3 Oct 2005
Nabina Das is an Ithaca, New York based journalist.