A
journalist friend based in New Delhi and working for a
London daily
rang me up recently asking for a story idea from "our
part of the
land". I instantly supplied her the news of Sudesh
Mahto's wedding.
She was left perplexed and inquired: "Who's this
guy and why should it
be important?"
I
told her that Mahto was the Jharkhand home minister, a
position next
to the chief minister. Then I reminded her of her trip
to Patna to
cover the wedding of Rabri Devi and Lalu Prasad's first
daughter Misa,
in 2001."I think if his daughter's wedding was important
to you, why
can't Sudesh's wedding be?" I asked. But she stayed
indifferent.
"I
had covered a very colourful marriage of a Ho couple in
a Jharkhand
village. I don't think the idea of covering Sudesh's marriage
will go
down well with my editors. Moreover, I don't find any
report on this
guy's marriage in any of the newspapers here (Delhi) unlike
that of
Lalu and Rabri's daughter which was extensively covered,"
was her
explanation.
Really,
why not? I paused for a while, wondering why the national
and
international media had not shown any interest in Sudesh's
marriage. I
remembered the flashes and stories of the marriages of
other political
VIPs in the country.
Take
for example the marriage of UP chief minister Mulayam
Singh
Yadav's son Akhilesh Yadav and the gala parties related
to it. That
generated quite a buzz. The same may be said of Sonia
Gandhi's
daughter and Lalu Prasad's two daughters, Misa and Ragini.
Details
like the list of VIPs attending to the menu was prominently
covered by
the national media.
Contrarily,
Sudesh's marriage has been low-profile. Though local
newspapers have been devoting enough space, it has found
few takers at
the national level and none at the international level.
I
recently saw the wedding wishes of an underworld operator
Bablu
Shrivastav, from UP, enjoying prominent space in many
national
dailies. A southeast Asia-based daily, too, carried the
story.
Then
why are Delhi and Mumbai dailies mum over the Mahto matrimony
issue?
Even
BJP leaders — L.K. Advani, Pramod Mahajan (then alive)
and
others, including H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and George
Fernandes,
attended the receptions thrown by Lalu Prasad and Mulayam
Yadav.
But
very few members of the top echelons of Indian politics
attended
Mahto's wedding. If this wedding got any publicity at
all, it was
confined to the local media, prompting a wag to say, "jungle
mein mor
naacha, kisne dekha? (who looks at a peacock that dances
within its
own confines)".
News
is perhaps a puzzle. Because birthday parties of lesser-known
"celebrities" get more prominence than our young
minister's wedding.
Few of us knew about one Mika, till he planted a kiss
on "item girl"
Rakhi Sawant at his birthday bash. But Mika's birthday
party and the
pictures of him in action, made news in all editions of
almost all
dailies. Amazingly, the incident also found a place in
many
international news portals and TV channels. I can bet
you that now
every news reader knows the veritable unknown Mika. But
Sudesh is
another matter.
In
fact, Sudesh Mahto is not the lone Jharkhand minister
whose
marriage failed to draw national attention.
Former
Jharkhand panchayati raj minister Madhu Koda's wedding
in 2004
had elephants, horses and tribal dancers and singers gracing
it. But
that event, too, was a non-event, at least as far as the
political
VIPs in Delhi were concerned. It did not figure anywhere
on the
national news.
I
somewhat sympathise with the young home minister. Though
the local
media has been talking about his "use of official
machinery"
personally, I believe that the minister received only
a fraction of
what people of his ilk get elsewhere.
Had
he been an UP or Bihar minister his wedding would have
got more
publicity and even VIPs like Advani, Vajpayee, Mulayam
and Amar Singh
would not have ignored it.
Sudesh
Mahto, is only in his early 30's. If he goes ahead and
becomes
the home minister for India in the years to come, then
perhaps some
day the top brass would be there for his son's wedding.
For
now, wishing you happy married life.
