The motorcades of foreign leaders were still winding their way through Lutyens’ Delhi for the BRICS summit on Sunday, when a motorcycle made news some 25 kms away in Gurugram’s hit-and-run case.
On Monday morning, videos of this “road rage nightmare” (NDTV) were all over TV news channels.
They shared screen time with two other incidents.
First, a retired Air Force Group Captain sustained head and arm injuries after a parking attendant reportedly assaulted him with an iron rod in Gurugram.
Second, Sushant Singh Rajput’s former manager Disha Salian’s death by suicide in July 2020 was reexamined by the CBI. A fresh FIR now names politicians like Uddhav and Aditya Thackeray and senior Mumbai police officers who, allegedly, “played a significant role in the conspiracy and subsequent cover-up.”
These three events took over the news cycle. We all but forgot Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning on the “weaponisation of technology and critical minerals” at BRICS – a statement which dominated front-page headlines across Monday’s English and Hindi newspapers.
An attempted murder?
In the video footage of ‘Ggm horror’ (Hindustan Times), Shivani ‘Sia’ Chauhan, in full protective gear, is seen riding her Aprilia RS 457. She gets sideswiped by a white Maruti Ciaz and tumbles to the ground. The motorcycle continues to zig-zag along the road for a short distance.
The driver of the car, Kalyan Bainsla, was arrested 50+ hours after the incident for allegedly “trying to kill her deliberately”, said Times Now.
By Tuesday afternoon, a few news channels had a label for the incident.
NDTV called out the bodybuilder Bainsla for his “toxic masculinity”.
Times Now saw it as a classic example of the “male ego syndrome”. He was “outraging the modesty of women,” added Times Now in outrage.
TV news channels devoted most of Monday and a great deal of time on Tuesday to the motorcycle ‘accident ’, with each fresh crumb of news making headlines: ‘Attacker identified’, ‘Accused driver drunk says Sia’, ‘Cousin arrested’ are some examples.
Sia, who had first posted the videos on her Instagram account, soon came out in the open as Shivani Chauhan and gave interviews to most channels. Her account of the ordeal on Sunday was dutifully reported by television news and the newspapers.
Her father also spoke up, voicing concern about the security for his daughter and other women on the road.
Another video grab soon made the rounds: the Ciaz driver Bainsla draws down the window and wags his finger at another bike rider who had chased him down to a traffic light. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
We lost count of the number of times we saw the footage of the motorcycle being hit by the Ciaz on TV during Monday and Tuesday –the sleek black Aprilia and the white Ciaz were overnight TV stars.
By the way, before getting arrested by the police, Kalyan Bainsla gave an interview to Aaj Tak (Haryana) for his side of the story.
He denied Shivani Chauhan’s version of what happened. He claimed it was the other way around: she and her motorcycle groupies were ‘pinching’ him on the road by driving slowly and then fast around his car.
He didn’t abuse her verbally; he didn’t intentionally hit her bike. “It was her mistake,” he said.
Clearly, at this stage no one believes him, certainly not the police, who have added the attempt to murder as one of the charges against him.
Question of women’s safety
The newspapers were more measured. ‘Man in car chases biker in Ggn, knocks her down,’ wrote The Times of India in a two-column Page 1 report (15 September).
It attached greater importance to a gym trainer being shot dead in Delhi on 14 September. That report covered almost a half-page on an inside page.
The Hindi daily newspaper Hindustan Times was one of the few angered by the Kalyan Bainsla-reported crime— ‘Shameful’ screamed its lead headline on 15 September.
Jansatta thought the incident deserved editorial comment. In ‘A question of safety’, it said this was another instance that highlighted the inability of the government and the administration to safeguard women on the streets.
Also read: Shivani Chauhan’s biker identity was a secret. Even her AAP boss Atishi didn’t know
Crime makes for good TV
What accounts for this TV news fascination with a hit-and-run case?
Is it because there was no other big political news story to vie for news space—with everyone recovering from a BRICS overdose?
Or was it because of the ‘live’ nature of the footage? The videos of the car hitting the motorcycle are riveting – it makes for good television.
Violence against women is another compelling possible reason for the excessive coverage. The news media tends to highlight instances in which women are the victims of male aggression.
Last, crime or a possible crime sells. People watch it, read about it with relish. Be honest: How many of you enjoy a good murder mystery?
The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
It’s not hard to answer.
Because the female biker was an AAP activist.
Everyone knows how strong the AAP’s social media game is. It has formidable friends and well wishers in Western nations who help it with social media content amplification.
Even the CJP phenomenon has AAP written all over it. It was the same social media ecosystem which catapulted Dipke and company to fame.
Because the media in Bharat is lost, and is trying to find its identity in vain, and thereby seek reason for its existence, for which there is none.