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  • The place of the media in an effective liberal democracy is generally seen assacrosanct. The media play an important role in the collection and dissemination of information and provide an avenue for keeping politiciansaccountable to their constituents.Mindful of the impact themedia can have onthe fortunes of a political party, and the careers of individuals within it, mostpoliticians in liberal democracies tend to tread carefully in terms of how theymanage their relationship with the media. Politicians hire public relations andmedia advisors, and seek media training in order to learn how to ‘use’ themedia to further their political aims. In the main, the approach of India’spolitical parties to media relations has become remarkably similar. However, an exception appears when we examine the relationship of theBahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and its leader Mayawati, with the media in bothits mainstream forms – print and television. Despite early attempts to engagewith the media, by the late 1990s the BSP was running election campaignswith a media strategy of almost complete disengagement. This has not led topoor electoral results for the party. In fact, the party has been in power in thenorth Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) on a number of occasions: in 1995,1997 and 2002, either in coalition or as a minority government. Upon winning minority government in the 2002 election, a journalist declared that ‘Inan age of television and information technology, Mayawati is a politician whodefies all conventional standards and norms . . . [and] despises giving interviews . . . ’(Bhushan, 2002: 18). In May 2007 the BSP won the UP state election outright to take power as the first majority government that UP hasseen for 15 years. Again this election was won while largely ignoring main-stream newspapers and television, with Mayawati even taunting journalistsafter the win, ‘I know you were upset I did not meet you during the campaign but I noticed that you had already run ahead with your conclusions, so Ithought why disturb you?’ (Gopinath, 2007).

  • The changing relationship between cricket and satellite television in thecontext of the Indian sub-continent has been a subject of considerablescholarly inquiry. That one nourishes the other is well known. However,what is relatively little known is the degree to which this interdependence hasgrown in recent times. So much so that cricket tournaments, or ratherdesignated TV tournaments, are being planned with alacrity by the Board ofControl for Cricket in India (BCCI). Television rights for these overseastournaments/matches spread over the next 4 years had initially generated $219.5 million for the BCCI.1 On the other hand, satellite channels too havestarted planning cricket programming around these tournaments, program-ming expected to generate millions in advertising revenue.2 While theorganization of such big-money events well encapsulates the symbiotic rela-tionship between cricket and satellite television within a burgeoning Indianeconomy, other local/regional dimensions of this relationship are often noless fascinating. Tele-visual hype generated on the occasion of a regionalcricket body election in July 2006 in West Bengal, especially by the multiple 24-hour Bengali news channels, drew attention to the local variant of thestory involving big-money television and even bigger-money sport. Thischapter, on the basis of two distinct case studies – the implications of the tri-nation 1-day series played in Malaysia in September 2006 involving Aus-tralia, West Indies and India, and Television coverage of the Cricket Asso-ciation of Bengal Elections in July 2006 – will comment on the complex andever-changing relationship between cricket and television in India. At thesame time it will attempt to question the rationale behind this growing interdependence and probe what this means for the Indian nation at large.

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