In 2008 when India’s Chandrayaan spacecraft orbited the
moon, Fox News ran this headline: “Whoa, where’d they learn to do that!” To the
rednecks at the American television channel, it was news that India had
aerospace scientists and engineers. It was, therefore, predictable that when
they covered India’s successful Mars mission, Fox News’ view was: “It’s also a
major feat for the developing country of 1.2 billion people, most of whom are
poor.”
The statistics about India’s poverty is a stock phrase that
is used with uncanny regularity by western journalists whenever India achieves
a significant milestone. The Guardian of England writes: “Some have questioned
the $70m price tag for a country still dealing with widespread hunger and
poverty.”
The Guardian, in fact, attempts to communalise the event,
saying the “Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a hardline affiliate group of (Prime
Minister Narendra) Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, offered
ritual prayers in Delhi for the mission. The leader of the group said success
would prove that India ‘has regained its status of superpower of the world’.”
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The British Broadcasting Corp, which doesn't miss any
opportunity to highlight India's poverty, pontificates: “Many, however, say
this bid to reach Mars is a ‘delusional dream’ of India seeking super-power
status since 400 million Indians still live without electricity and 600 million
people still do not have access to toilets.” Apparently, the British elites
still haven’t got over their post-colonial hangover.
The newswires Reuters headlines its report “India triumphs in
maiden Mars mission, sets record in space race” and then offers a parting shot:
“Despite its success, India faces criticism for spending on space research as
millions go hungry.
In contrast, countries as different as Russia and Pakistan
have reported the event dispassionately, and without editorializing.
RT's coverage is textbook journalism – you report what you
see without peering through coloured filters. "This is India's first
mission into such deep space to search for evidence of life on the Red Planet.
But the mission's primary objective is technological – if successful, the
country will be joining an elite club of nations: the United States, Russia and
Europe," it writes.
The Voice of Russia quotes Russian Academy of Cosmonautics
member Andrei Ionin: “For India it is a huge success. This is definitely a
gigantic project. India, like many other countries seeks to increase its role
in the global technological process and hence pays great importance to space
exploration. After all, one of the attributes of a highly technologically
advanced super-power is the national space industry.”
In another article, the radio station says: “In the sprint
for the Martian marathon, India has shown its technological capability and
resilience to undertake arduous inter-planetary journeys.
You see, there was no need to reel off hunger statistics
when they are not relevant to the topic. The big news is that India did
something incredible and at a jaw-dropping low cost. Also, the photograph of a galaxy
of “Rocket Women” clad in colourful silk saris launching into celebrations at
the mission control facility in Bangalore was a story in itself. But then, that
wouldn’t fit in with the western media’s narrative, which depicts India as a
brutal place for women.
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One key area in which the western media excels is in
constantly referring to any Indian advance in space as part of a tit-for-tat
race with China. The Economist, the western mouthpiece, nonchalantly dismisses
the event, saying, “Mangalyaan carries few sensors and will discover little of
scientific merit.” But it quickly agrees that “to point that out is both petty
and beside the point. The main purpose was to get a craft there quickly (ie,
before the Chinese) — and cheaply”.
This is plain ridiculous. First up, the Chinese mission was
planned a lot earlier but unfortunately became a nonevent when the Russian
rocket carrying it failed to place it high enough, causing it to plummet back
to earth. Secondly, the Indian mission was launched after the Chinese
spacecraft was lost. So how is it a race when nobody was chasing anyone?
In fact, the only race – if at all – was between Mangalyaan
and NASA’s Maven, which arrived over Mars just two days the Indian spacecraft.
However, the western media never talked about that as a race because to do that
would be hyphenating the US with India whereas they would rather club
India-China together and project it as an Asian version of the Space Race.
Again, RT puts things squarely in perspective. “Many
analysts argue that India is engaged in a space race specifically with China,
and that the former’s Mars orbiter was spurred on by the failure of China’s
Yinghuo-1 mission to Mars in November 2011.”
“Yet, unlike in the Cold War era, when the USSR and the US
engaged in a spectacular tit-for-tat space race while remaining economically
and politically estranged from each other, China and India today have a booming
trade relationship and are not engaged in any outright ideological
confrontation. If there is a “new Cold War” rivalry now, it is more between a
whole group of powers led by Russia and the US.”
“There are elements of a Cold War mindset when China and
India square off in strategic competition, but it remains embedded within the
liberal framework of economic globalization and cooperation. The Chinese
Foreign Ministry’s call for “joint efforts” in space exploration after India’s
Mars orbiter launch underlines the complexity of this key bilateral
relationship in Asia.”
RT also adds considerable value to the coverage, offering
this interesting nugget of information: “India is mindful that the strides it’s
making in space science can also be a medium for enhancing international
cooperation. For instance, its Moon mission in 2008 won the International
Cooperation Award from the International Lunar Exploration Working Group for
carrying a payload of as many as 20 countries.”
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Basically, the western media is so predictable in its
coverage of India’s successes in the aerospace and defence sectors that you
could almost set your watch to it. Space being the next frontier of
colonisation, it touches a raw nerve in the West. Having colonised most of the
planet in the past 300 years, western nations – especially of English origin –
instinctively react with hostility when other nations reach for the final
frontier.
Those who argue that India shouldn't embark upon space
exploration because it has lots of poor people miss the point entirely. The $1
billion (India’s annual space budget) saved would not be of much help in
removing poverty. Plus, India’s space programme has brought huge benefits to
Indian farmers, the fishing industry, the telecom sector, disaster management
agencies and the military, to name just a few.
Take Cyclone Phailin, which struck both India and the
Philippines last year. India, which depended on ISRO’s weather satellites, had
casualties in the single digits; in Philippines, which had no such satellites
and resorted to mass prayers in churches, over 10,000 people died.
Critics of the Indian space programme need to be told that
if the US had waited until there were no poor Americans before sending
astronauts to the Moon, then the Apollo rockets would still be sitting on the
launch pad. For, there are over 50 million Americans suffering from chronic
hunger today.
Courtesy: #Russia & India Report
