MumbaiNaama: What We Need To See In Election Coverage As We Head Into The Polls

Back in May 1991, as India’s general elections gathered momentum and Rajiv Gandhi, who was expected to make a stellar comeback to power, made the mandatory campaign trip to Bombay, I was a young reporter assigned to cover his route in the south of the city. He had been here before, most famously during the 1985 centenary celebrations of the Congress party, after which the Prime Minister’s Grant Project for Dharavi’s redevelopment had got off the ground. Election campaign coverage was a different matter.

There was the general air of how the Congress had been less than fair in pulling out support for the Chandrashekhar-led government at the centre and how Gandhi himself had been on the hit list of extremist organisations. Murli Deora, the late bossman of the party in Mumbai and amongst its most visible faces nationally, had his office double-check the credentials of all reporters who would be on the tempo-truck with Gandhi as the campaign caravan made its way through the streets of Bombay.

The newspapers were inundated with election campaign stories, contests that were friendly and not-so-friendly, and more. Amidst all this, editors called for stories and in-depth reportage on a range of issues, and reporters suggested issue-based stories on their beats. It was par for the course. Reading those pages meant a quick lesson in what the city — or the state or country — needed to focus on by way of governance and public agenda. It was not as good as it used to be, complained senior journalists, but looking back, I can say that it still offered way more than what is served in the name of election coverage now.

This is not a trip down nostalgia lane as much as it is a marker of what the decades in between have come to mean about election coverage. There are more media platforms, more journalists covering elections, more resources and data; yet the range and depth of issues in election coverage seems to decline with every election held. Even comparing coverage from a decade ago shows this — there are no stories of corruption in or by governments or projects now, there is no talk of anti-incumbency, and there’s hardly any discussion of issues.

Coverage, especially in the general election earlier this year and now during the Assembly elections, has been mostly about the war between the two alliances — Mahayuti in power and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi — which means covering six political parties between them, about seat wars in each alliance and which party is under-cutting an ally, about relative strengths of each faction of the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party, about the smaller parties with support bases, about the spoiler impact of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, about women’s vote, and so on.

But how is the incumbent government being judged? What have been its real achievements other than ensuring that its financiers are happy? Has the government been good for Maharashtra and Mumbai? How has the government responded to the concerns of our time — climate change, inflation and rising costs of living, seamless mobility in cities and connectivity in villages, safer public and private spaces for women and non-binary genders, supportive infrastructure for children and the aged?

For Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region, I would like to see journalism do stories and in-depth features on a range of issues that deserve an airing during elections.

Cities are, after all, about economy. What have been the changes in the urban economy in Mumbai, MMR, and other large cities of Maharashtra in the past five years and who, or which classes, have been helped and hurt by them? For a thriving economy in the next decade, what needs to be put in place now beyond isolated mega infrastructure projects? How do the economies of Mumbai and larger MMR cohere and segue to form a larger whole? What do different political parties have to offer on such a critical aspect as the economy?

Urban plans are election issues. How are cities and towns planning their next decade, if not beyond that? This should not be merely land use allocations and a handful of big-ticket projects, but a comprehensive plan that addresses economic growth within the context of a city’s ecology and natural features. A plan may be based on land use allocations but it must encompass transport and mobility, natural green and blue infrastructure, affordable housing options, neighbourhood needs, heat and climate action, and so on. It is hard to find any party discussing these in a serious manner; even harder to find them in media’s election coverage. The exception is the Dharavi redevelopment but that has become a football between the two alliances and, hence, receives media attention.

Ecology is an election issue. I would like to see better and deeper coverage on it, especially in the context of climate change. Whether it’s Mumbai, any city in the MMR, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, or any other urban centre, the next few years are likely to bring a host of extreme weather events triggered by climate change worldwide — more heat stress and heatwaves, more episodes of intense rainfall, higher air pollution and so on. Yes, there may be a few plans around but how will they be operationalised, who is accountable, what are the approaches different parties have towards these issues all need airing. And elections offer the perfect platform to bring these issues to public discourse.

Roads and footpaths — or the lack of them — are election issues. Similarly, housing and transport in cities are issues that we must push parties to come clean on — their approach, their plans, programmes and more. Why is affordable housing, an issue that came into public consciousness more than four decades ago, not found a sustainable resolution yet? How can the property market in expensive cities such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune be left to the real estate developers’ lobby?

Gender is an election issue. Why are gender discussions limited to candidates without exploring how parties have reduced women to beneficiaries receiving handouts of a paltry few thousand rupees a month, what women and other genders want from their government, how can safety in public spaces become the norm — the basic minimum — rather than the aspirational goal it now is, and how can cities and towns be built to suit women and other genders rather than only able-bodied young men?

The temptation and template, for journalists, to dive into seat-by-seat contests, star campaigners, hot takes and provocative speeches, unusual campaign trails, seat projections and election polls will not ebb. It is up to the media to find or make spaces within these templates to focus on issues, generate discussions, seek opinions and commitments of parties on issues that go beyond elections.

Smruti Koppikar, senior journalist and urban chronicler, writes extensively on cities, development, gender, and the media. She is the Founder Editor of the award-winning online journal ‘Question of Cities’ and won the Laadli Media Award 2024 for her writing in this column