This weekend on Documentary 24×7 on NDTV 24×7….
Nero’s Guests by Deepa Bhatia
Saturday – 3 pm
Sunday – 11 pm
Synopsis: Over the past 10 years, more than 200,000 farmers in India have committed suicide. This drama has had a huge impact on the rural community, but the matter is not being taken up by the authorities or the media. Journalist P. Sainath makes it his business to increase awareness of the fate of the victims (both the farmers and their families) by publishing their stories in the daily newspaper The Hindu. This is unusual, because “Not a single newspaper in this country has a correspondent working full time on poverty.” In other words, in the eyes of the Indian elite, 70% of the Indian population is not newsworthy.
Sainath uses the suicides to address the issue of the huge wealth disparity in India. Filmmaker Deepa Bhaita follows him from indigent farming families to well-attended lectures. Between times, Sainath speaks directly to the camera in this fluidly edited documentary (director Bhatia is also a Bollywood film editor). The driven and well-informed journalist repeatedly exposes the distressing lack of social justice in India and the hypocrisy of neoliberalism. He paraphrases Tacitus for his somewhat apathetic highly-educated audience: Nero burned prisoners to provide light at night. His guests stood alongside and watched.
Many thanks
Gunjan
This is unusual, because “Not a single newspaper in this country has a correspondent working full time on poverty.” In other words, in the eyes of the Indian elite, 70% of the Indian population is not newsworthy. – i am shocked and some how feel guilty about it..