Is Privacy Becoming a Dirty Word in India?

By Sreelata Menon — 'The Hoot'

When Greta Garbo asked the world to 'leave me alone', the international media hesitated, but by and large did so. This was possible primarily because she was able to effectively keep them at bay, and, more importantly, because most media houses followed some semblance of a moral code they operated well within. The world and its media were then in perhaps a much less commercial and a touch more kindly place.

Today, unfortunately for the 'celebrity' or even the 'ordinary law-abiding citizen', the obsession for scoops and snoops is at an all-time high. It appears almost vital for the media's very existence. Defying all self-governing guidelines and principles that used to and should define good journalism, the media now hounds to death the very target that feeds them. Even in India.

Take any of our leading newspapers. From the old lady of Boribundar to the venerable Hindu, last month only one story was repeatedly played up: Tiger Woods'. In font sizes large and enormous we have been fed every little unnecessary detail of a brilliant sportsman's private life. These icons of the Indian newspaper industry joined hands with the international media to systematically set about destroying a young man's professional life.

Sleeping with a celebrity' was headlined in 'HT City' of the 14th of December  and the HT correspondent asks 'Do women get special kicks getting involved with 'high risk' men?' as did many others in even more salacious words.

Does it honestly matter to anyone in India if Tiger Woods did or did not sleep with anyone? Other than out of passing interest it is doubtful whether anybody other than the reporters themselves gave it more than a perfunctory read.  

Here was a man who had gone to immense lengths to keep his private life private. And had succeeded to a large extent but for that unfortunate accident. It is neither the media — whatever it might say — nor his extraneous affairs that built him up. He achieved iconic status because of his professional expertise in golf. He was put on a pedestal due to his brilliance in that game. His sponsorships followed because of that. What he does or does not do in his private life is of no consequence to anyone including the media if it does not impinge on anyone else's life other than the ones concerned or involved. Now thanks to the media's gleeful witch-hunt sponsors are pulling out and his personal life has been bared to the public eye. Media hype has all but destroyed a brilliant professional and all for entirely the wrong reasons.  

This must not be acceptable.

Privacy is defined by Wikipedia as 'the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view or to control the flow of information about themselves'. Not only is the media hell-bent on ignoring that underlying principle, it actually sees it as something that it needs to overcome at all costs with nary a thought to the havoc they wreak on their mostly innocent targets. The contemptible ease with which they circumvent all known norms and ethics in their quest for a 'celebrity' scoop over-rides the very definition of the word 'privacy'

The right to personal privacy is also contained in our laws. But it evidently needs to have more teeth. Our lawmakers had probably not foreseen the kind of unpalatable onslaught on privacy that we see today. Yet the Supreme Court did rule in 1994 (Auto Sankaran case) that every citizen had the right to safeguard his or her privacy and nothing should be published on family, marriage and education without the citizen's consent 'whether truthful or otherwise.'  

In June last year every single newspaper and TV channel in the country went to town with every little detail they could find on a young airline stewardess who had sadly decided to take her life. It made life unbearable for her friends and their families alike. Media pressure even sent her young innocent colleague to jail for no real reason and his life held up for public scrutiny. His family was hounded by the press day and night. The enormous psychological and monetary havoc it wreaked cannot be measured. The trauma caused by sensation-seeking reporters on the lives of those totally unconnected cannot be emphasized enough.

To read the full article, click here.