Pay to play!

One of my favorite Tamil movie scenes is a comedy routine, performed by the actor Vivek. In that scene, Vivek is traveling on a motorbike, when he is stopped by a cop for speeding. The cop asks him to dismount and starts writing up a ticket. Vivek is all braggadocio and he blusters to the cop, ” I know the Police chief!”. The cop immediately stops writing the ticket and starts groveling. Vivek then puffs up his chest and cannot stop himself from saying, “BUT, he doesnt know me!” To which the cop responds by thrashing him.

It is a hilarious scene, but also a sad scene, because that is the true state of affairs in India. You get by, by who you know. And you get by, by bribery. Your business runs on whose palms you can grease. You can get off the hook by paying. You can land jobs, movie tickets, seats in restaurants, big contracts, anything, by paying money. And in the Govt. there is a fixed price tag for every job that your elected officials are already paid to do. You need a passport? No problem, just pay an extra Rs 500 along with the passport fee. Everyone down to the office peon gets a cut. You need get approval on a real estate form for building your factory? No problem, just pay Rs 100,000 and it will get done.

Money just doesn’t talk in India, it sings.

And people are so desensitized that bribery is no longer something to be ashamed of, corruption is no longer “under the table”. In India bribery is a blatant, “Sur la table”! In your face!

So when I read the screaming headlines of the past two days: “Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich busted in an early morning operation because he was caught on tape negotiating to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat” I felt a sense of deja vu. Been there, seen that.

But what I hadn’t seen before was the media frenzy at Governor Blagojevich’s brash and open misuse of power. As I watched the news media cover the whole sordid tale, the one thing that emerged was the indignation of everyone in Illinios at the fact that everything was “Sur la table”. They couldn’t believe that Blago, as he is fondly referred to, had lost all sense of dignity of his position, all sense of shame, any honor and any respect for the people he was representing. Blago so believed he was above the law that he openly taunted the FBI to investigate him and place wire taps.

As a fairly recent transplant from India to the US, I revel in and enjoy the cultural differences between the two countries. I found that one of most striking cultural differences is between the way Indians speak and Americans couch their words – it is simply the polish. It is a refined and genteel way of saying the unpalatable. Whatever Indians say bluntly, the Americans I know, will pretty the same thing up, and arrive at it in a roundabout manner.

Going by the media frenzy, especially on CNN, it appeared that Blago’s crime was not just the fact that he was corrupt. There are other corrupt politicians. Especially other corrupt Governors from Illinois. Blago’s heinous crime was that he was blatant: his every demand was open. His misuse of power was rampant. True to American form, the media came up with a “sound bite” in order to spare our sensibilities. Pay-to-play!

Presumed guilty until proven innocent?

The American media is a grand old institution. For most part, they do a great job covering various sensational cases. But one Achilles heel that I have noticed time and again, is the propensity of the media to presume guilt even before some cases go to trial. This has been a particularly virulent form of aggression and it does great harm to the defendant.

In the past few weeks, two cases come to mind: the Rod Blagojevich case of the Illinois governor who is accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s recently vacated senate seat to the highest bidder. The press has gone bonkers about this case and every single news anchor I’ve watched so far, has spoken as if Blago is guilty. Truth be told, there are accusations against him, but nothing has been proven so far, because the investigation is still going on.

In the more serious case of Casey Anthony, who has been accused of killing her 2 year old child, the press has tried and passed a verdict on her. Nancy Grace on CNN has been especially unrelenting in accusing Casey of murdering her child.

Now, this may, in fact, turn out to be the case, but that is not the issue I am talking about. I am speaking about the fact that Casey will not be provided a fair trial under the law because Nancy has sensationalized the case so much. Not only that, she has spent many hours accusing Casey of being guilty. There are other people out there, some are “psychologists” who, purportedly, profiled Casey Anthony as a “sociopath” based on scant 3rd hand evidence.

Thanks to Nancy’s innuendo’s, outright accusations and sarcastic remarks, and others like her, who have heard the evidence (3rd or 4th hand), deliberated, tried and indicted Casey, she has lost the basic human right of presumed innocence until guilt is proven in court with no shred of doubt.

While I am all for the media making hay while the sun shines, it must not be at the expense of other human beings. Everyone deserves a fair shake at justice and in these two cases (in the recent past) justice is not being served. Let the police and the court systems do their job. The media, in these cases, seem to have erupted like vultures after a carcass.

Please don’t misunderstand me – I don’t imply either guilt or innocence in these two cases.  I would like to withhold any private opinion – simply because it is not my place to judge until the courts have tried and come to a verdict. I implore everyone else to withhold judgment until then too.

I would urge the media and the people to BE FAIR and BE NON-JUDGEMENTAL – If not for the sake of the defendants, at least for THEMSELVES!