The binary framework is a way of analysing any issue through only two lenses – “either” or “or.” While the binary framework has its uses in some forms of education, it’s usually tested, questioned and even avoided, in the wider social sciences and humanities, (of which journalism is a part.) This is since big, complex, social phenomena – like, say, the causes behind climate change, or India’s partition, or Hindu-Muslim sectarian strife in the Indian subcontinent – can rarely be fully explained with a reason or two, and certainly not with an “either” or “or.”

In social discourse, the binary framework is often a way of moving away from the layered nature of a problem. Complex phenomena need complex approaches: Even in by-the-hour, deadline-driven professions like journalism, and in particular television news. Do we see that in our mainstream media today? Have we seen it over the last few years?

A prevailing feature of public discourse in many parts of the world including India over this decade – and in India particularly over the last five years and more – is the resurgence and standardisation of the binary framework. And wherever binary framing grows, intellectual polarisation follows. Thus, in the last five years, most hot-button socio-political issues have been assessed with perspectives only from the ends of the spectrum of that problem.

There has been an evasion of balance, a discarding of the centrist position. The most common instance in public conversation is criticism of the current government, for it implies one is automatically a supporter of the Opposition! But let’s consider some other examples.

Be it the intolerance discussion in 2015; Rohith Vemula’s protest and suicide in 2016; the sedition furore over Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2016 and after; the public discussion (or lack of it) over demonetisation; the public discussion (or lack of it) over the Goods and Services Tax (GST); beef-related lynching; the sidelining of Muslims and other minorities; the asylum for Rohingya exiles; the National Register for Citizens (which predates the current central government) – have all been matters that have triggered a nationwide screaming match.

In the mainstream and social media, the narrative undergirding the discussion over these matters has been one either being “for” or “against” some of these policies (like demonetisation or GST) or the larger socio-political and socio-cultural matters that have emerged (beef-related killings of Muslims). Any person’s view that has diverged or dissented from the current mainstream has been labelled as “anti-national”.

So powerful has been the miasma of this binary framing, that it afflicted the discourse of an extremely important moment: #MeToo India. While there was little doubt that #MeToo India helped jolt and subvert the quiet consensus over sexual harassment by exposing abusers, it stopped short of becoming a sustained conversation over sex, gender roles and socialisation in Indian society.

In fact, the “movement” too, blackballed those who were questioning some of its methods while respecting its intentions. Indeed, the binary framing within #MeToo India, checked it from examining some critical questions, like the social construction of the harasser. Thus, the binary framework has brought big intellectual losses in its wake. One of them is the wiping out of crucial habits of critical enquiry like context-setting or understanding the many perspectives surrounding an act or event of social significance or political importance.

For example, those who raised the reasonable query on how 80 kilograms of RDX went undetected in Pulwama – in a region that is the most militarised zone in the world – were censured for it. Those asking for evidence of the 300 killed Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in Balakot, were castigated for being insensitive towards the retaliatory capacity of India’s military. In worse cases, the questioners were branded as “unpatriotic” and “anti-national” for not taking the government’s view at face value.

These were very important questions, meant to deepen the public’s understanding of the veracity of what had taken place. Instead of democratic engagement, we got responses from the binary framework template.

In another instance, actor Naseeruddin Shah was castigated for questioning the binary framing and the hounding of Indian Muslims. Even a remotely critical question of the government or about Indian social norms is being met with calls for the questioner to go to Pakistan. It’s hard to find a moment in the history of independent India, where public discourse has been so claustrophobic.

The way out of the binary trap is very simple and very difficult.

In his book-length essay, The Age of Anger, writer and critic Pankaj Mishra takes Western liberalism apart. Mishra argues that liberal ideas of secularism, cosmopolitanism, equality, ethnic inclusiveness were predicated on economic growth, and more importantly the distribution of the fruits of growth to disempowered social groups. But the story of growth in the West shows it to have served elite interests. The moment growth began tapering off towards the end of the last decade and nosedive through this one, we have had a rise in political populism and ethnic nativism of the most narrow and segregationist kind. The United States, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom (over the European Union and Brexit) and a host of other countries have seen a surge in populism. It has been followed by a hollowing out of the public discourse and the rise of binary framing and polarisation.

In Donald Trump’s case, the binary framing has led to two new ideas, “fake news” and “post-truth”: Both of them are designed to divide, polarise, incite, manipulate. They have found a home in many parts of the world this decade. ‘Does the rise of this populism in India signal a real decline in growth?’ is a moot question.

The way out of the binary framework is to forcefully re-state the case for intellectual diversity and craft. When diversity is under attack, exceptional gestures towards it need to be made.

Professions like journalism are bound up with the humanities and social sciences and their methods. In the current media context then, there’s plenty of journalism to be done (especially by television) looking at the “other side” of most Indian social phenomena. Whether it’s unemployment, gender or religious bias, the minority voice, the less explored but socially and journalistically germane questions over the environment and the economy need to be regularly posed to avoid, evade and transcend the binary framework.

Look at how the US media has questioned Donald Trump’s government, governance and policies; even corporate captains haven’t pulled their punches. In India, someone has to lead the way.