Media's Complete Loss Of Decency

The three-day  Sadbhavana Missionof Narendra Modi ended on September 19 with a rousing speech that sought to set new directions for governance, equality and national policies. The mainstream media had no option to be there. After all, no matter how much hatred they continue to heap on him, Modi simply stands tall where leadership and governance are concerned. It also helps that he is a great orator. But make no mistake, the MSM wasn’t there to just cover the event. It was there to see if any more muck can be raised against Modi and to remind him that in the ‘supreme court of the media’ he has already been declared guilty of crimes. Much of the transactions at the Sadbhavana event were live and will also be available to read in newspapers, magazines and online pages for quite some time. So let’s try and understand the orchestration to disrupt the event by the media and other charlatans. Mine is not to discuss the merits/de-merits of the event or its political impact but to understand the orchestrated campaign of hate from some in the media and some activists.

Here’s a tweet from @shammybawejafrom September 16 (She is Harinder Baweja, Editor Investigations of Headlines Today):  “Off to Guj for Modis sadhbhavna. Remorse and legal justice needed for 1984 and 2002. Fast track justice, not cong bjp fast wars”.

Well, one would have thought like others she too would land up at the Gujarat University grounds but where does she land up? Naroda Patiya, a site of mob violence and killing in the 2002 riots. Hmmm, so what was cooking? In the morning of September 17 Mallika Sarabhai, another crusader for justice, suddenly summons a presser and accuses Narendra Modi of having bribed her lawyers to scuttle her PIL on the post-Godhra riots. The crusader-come-lately, Sanjiv Bhatt, backs up her allegations as being true. Then later she too lands up at Naroda Patiya. A small group of people, riot victims, are organised to protest and march for justice by Mukul Sinha, a lawyer. So, by strange co-incidence, Mallika, Mukul and Baweja all turn up at Naroda Patiya. Headlines Today was the only channel telecasting live from the site. The protestors were also carrying printed pamphlets that must have been organised overnight. Ordinarily, there would be nothing wrong in such protests except for the timing. Mallika could have made her allegations and led these protests many times over in the last few months but she did not. But the objective was simple – to rekindle and continue the hate-NaMo campaign during the Sadbhavana event.

And that was trigger enough for NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and others to start their chorus of abuse without even verifying the accusations made by Mallika. So let’s deal with the the lies of Mallika Sarabhai. This report based on comments by her own lawyers should be enough to nail her filthy lies.

From TOI: “Lawyers who appeared for…Mallika Sarabhai in the SCourt in 2002 for her PIL on the post-Godhra riots denied her allegation that bribes were paid to her advocates by the Narendra Modi government to derail the petition…….Advocate Mahesh Agrawala, the counsel who filed the writ petition number 221 of 2002 in the SC with Sarabhai as the petitioner, said it was "totally false that any money was ever paid to us by anyone to do anything or not do something relating to the petition. No money was ever paid to us and we did the case free of cost. Moreover, her case was argued on April 15, 2002, by senior advocate P Chidambaram before a bench headed by the CJI and comprising Justices Shivraj V Patil and H K Sema. The court had admitted the petition, issued notices to the Centre and Gujarat government and allowed early listing,"…….Agrawala said, "She got the relief she wanted on the very first day of hearing. It is unfortunate that after nine years, she is making the allegation about payment of money, which is patently false."

So the TV channels had a blast with the lies of Mallika Sarabhai. And if lies are on the menu can Teesta Setalvad be left out? Naturally, this washing machine of justice was back on TV all through the last three days hurling abuses and spreading untruths once again. Acts for which she was awarded with a Padmashri, of course. And where else to go but on the channel that has been the worldwide platform for the lies against Narendra Modi and about the Gujarat riots, NDTV. It is widely believed that the only channel that Narendra Modi refused an interview to is NDTV. Barkha Dutt herself laments that the CM would not entertain her. There’s a good reason too. Anyone who knows well enough that NDTV and, in particular, Barkha Dutt has carried out a systematic campaign of calumny about Gujarat and Modi wouldn’t trust that channel to be honest or relate to facts.

Long before the Gujarat riots Teesta Setalvad was funded by the Congress, CPM, CPI and others to campaign and carry out ads against the BJP during the 1999 election campaign. She had asked for and received funds from these political parties for her campaign. And she did advertise and campaign against the BJP in her magazine ‘Communal Combat’. Therefore, the lie that Teesta is a ‘social’ or ‘rights’ activist is one of the greatest lies peddled by the media. She is clearly a political activist and her political persuasion and motivation is cunningly suppressed by NDTV and other channels.

Teesta’s campaign against the BJP in 1999 failed as the BJP+NDA returned to power. Naturally, the investments that the Congress made in her had to be recovered somehow. Come the unfortunate Gujarat riots and Teesta had to deliver her pound of flesh. She creates the CJP in April 2002 after the riots have calmed. What followed was the most extraordinary campaign of untruths, fake affidavits, rumour mongering – all gleefully accepted and churned out by the media crooks. How much money has poured into her CJP is not public knowledge. Even the SC had pulled her up for trying to internationalise Modi as a criminal by writing to the UN.

In my post “SC exposes the media’s clean shit” I have detailed the lies that Suzy Roy deliberately peddled about the riots. In case of Teesta her lies were exposed by the SIT itself. All the ‘copy-cat’ affidavits she engineered for the riot victims now stand thoroughly exposed. Her own former colleagues have also nailed her lies. Imagine, this washing machine of justice has twice sought anticipatory bail, something more common among politicians. Her organisation, Citizens for Justice and Peace, parades as an NGO while clearly being a political organisation. However, this campaign of lies did pay off in some way, coupled with many other reasons. The NDA lost power in 2004 and the Congress+UPA came to power. Rewarding Barkha Dutt, Teesta Setalvad (and also Rajdeep Sardesai) immediately would be a dead give-away. So a few years later all three were awarded the Padmashri. But every time Narendra Modi is in the news, these washing machines unfailingly get back into action.

Reading motives or even words where there were none, the MSM uniformly talked about NaMo’s PM ambitions. They sought an apology from him when their attempts to nail him legally haven’t produced anything so far. Interpreted Nitish Kumar’s absence from the Sadbhavana event as a snub and for that reason the event is not supported by all. They even employed fake tweets or manipulated them to heap further abuse. During the event CNBC-TV18 even carried a full interview with Teesta in its programme “Beautiful People”. Hahhaaa, that’s an irony and, mind you, I am not talking about her looks.

The Sadbhavana event can be criticised on many other fronts but that wasn’t the case. The entire narrative was built on continuing the hate-Modi campaign. Every media celeb that talked to Modi had not one question to ask about the development model of Modi. Not one had any question of how Gujarat coped with the historic problem of water shortages. Not one talked about the girl-child education campaign in Gujarat. Not one talked about how Gujarat grew without frivolous subsidies. Not one talked about how Gujarat got around to building such great roads and highways. Not one talked about how Gujarat manages to provide uninterrupted power supply. Not one talked about reasons why industrialists are thrilled to set up businesses in Gujarat. Nothing! Whether Modi gained by the event or not, time will tell. But one outcome has been clearly established. The media’s complete loss of decency, respect for facts and truth, and further erosion in their already low credibility. Modi was giving interviews to all and sundry and if Barkha Dutt feels snubbed by not getting her chance that should tell her how low her image and credibility has sunk. An interview with Modi would have given her some redemption, but I doubt that is ever going to happen.

For all the campaigns against Modi the same crooks are yet to even find what is wrong with Sonia Gandhi, her illness, her treatment, her whereabouts. NDTV has even comically reported her return to India at least 4 or 5 times. And I doubt they still know where Sonia is. Never mind that. But this mainstream media is hurtling towards greater decimation. The social network is already delivering it a severe blow. The online netizens have become a watchdog over the media in absence of an independent body. And if that isn’t enough, there is Wikileaks exposing all the information that the media may have covered up or suppressed.

The future of Narendra Modi doesn’t exactly concern me enormously as much as it concerns the media crooks. They live in fear that his rise to the top may completely destroy whatever is left of their credibility. Whatever else, but there is one thing that these crooks can learn from NaMo. In all this campaign of calumny he has conducted himself in a dignified manner and never shot back at any of his detractors. They called the Sadbhavana event a political stunt or gimmick. NaMo is a politician and the event IS political – what is so wrong about it? That is what politicians are supposed to do – mobilise political views and directions. Modi has successfully done that in at least one thing – ‘vote bank politics will not pay in the future’. The media even tried to make a big issue of Modi not wearing the muslim skull cap offered to him by a visitor. Here is the best response I found on Twitter to that by @Pari500: “…and Maulana says 'refusal of the cap is an insult to Islam', really? Now we know the honour of islam rests SOLELY on Modi's head!”

Here is an interesting observation by The Economist: “The biggest shift is that journalism is no longer the exclusive preserve of journalists. Ordinary people are playing a more active role in the news system, along with a host of technology firms, news start-ups and not-for-profit groups. Social media are certainly not a fad, and their impact is only just beginning to be felt. “It’s everywhere and it’s going to be even more everywhere,” says Arianna Huffington. Successful media organisations will be the ones that accept this new reality. They need to reorient themselves towards serving readers rather than advertisers, embrace social features and collaboration, get off political and moral high horses and stop trying to erect barriers around journalism to protect their position. The digital future of news has much in common with its chaotic, ink-stained past.”

If ever Bill Gates made a business error, the biggest one has to be his refusal or failure to see the potential of the Internet when it came about. Since that failure, his company has only been playing catch up. Google now reports that India will add 200Mn more net users by 2014. That’s a good sign for the nation but a serious warning for the MSM. If they don’t see the writing on the wall the social network will grow to a level that will make them obsolete where news and debates are concerned. The loss of credibility has already come about.. the best they can do is to attempt restoration of some decency and respect for facts and truth.

The Rating Game

Another weekend and we have another Friday blogbuster from RajdeepSardesai. This time it’s about the plight of Irom Sharmila and her 11-year old fast against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). This time, his lament is why Anna Hazare got all the attention and Sharmila didn’t. I usually help Rajdeep rehash his articles, because he's a favourite of mine, but this time I will let it pass. Though there are many holes in his latest article I am for anything that can help Sharmila end her fast and fight for her cause in a different manner. Right now, it’s the battle of TRPs that the media is engaged in with advertisers that is not on front pages or on our screens.

Okay, this was a headline on a news channel today morning (either Headlines Today or CNN-IBN) ‘Kareena Kapoor with all three Khans in a row’. Would any bright intellectual ever explain to me what exactly that is supposed to mean? Why in heavens are news channels more and more like ZoomTV or ImagineTV? It appears the only thing that drives news channels is a terror strike, an Anna type movement or fierce political battles. Their main programming is made up of cricket, Bollywood, cheap thrills, cars and gadgets, Hindu-bashing and if after all that, they find some time, there is news. And they'd even like to think they are the ones mostly making it. On most channels there are no serious documentaries or any serious investigations. The now extinct ‘News of the world’ and that dead dodo ‘Illustrated Weekly’ would be proud of our news channels any day. Kushwant Singh would applaud what our news channels have become. Mindless banter by the fair and lovely manly crowd of Kanwal, Rajdeep, Arnab and the extinct Prannoy! Oh, that includes the ladies too! This is where Rajdeep Sardesai came in lately. TRPs!

Television Audience Measurement (TAM) releases TRPs every week. Now, Rajdeep leads the chorus that wants them to release the ratings monthly and not weekly while advertisers want it weekly, as it currently is. Wait, advertisers even ask: why not every day? The ratings for TV channels are given in time bands from morning till prime time. In case you haven’t looked at the ratings, I recommend you just take a casual look. Mind you, the TAM ratings aren’t released publicly but only to members, who in turn use it to claim superiority in one segment or the other. You might get to see those TRPs as they get slightly dated and not before. As ordinary viewers you and I are not normally concerned about these ratings but for TV channels and advertisers these are their Bibles and Korans. They swear, live and die by it, after they have paid for it.

The recent Anna Hazare movement had TimesNow taking up the cause against govt so strongly that it had other channels playing catch-up. TimesNow took pole position like Demi Moore in Striptease, sort of! Now, Rajdeep and others contend that the weekly ratings negatively affect content on TV. Oh yeah? So if your news content is bad you throw up a Kareena Kapoor and a Khan because the ratings are bad? Yes, indeed! That is pretty much the strategy of all news channels. Saas Bahu, Bhoot Pret, Cuckoo on the couch, Flashback Bollywood, Total Recall – all these are supposed to be worthy of news channels?

“Have you noticed how news channels are getting more and more breathless in their coverage of the news? How anchors tend to shout rather than speak? How every bit of news, no matter how mundane, is deemed worthy of a Breaking News headline? And how sensation is increasingly replacing the sort of thing that used to be regarded as news?” That’s not me. That is one time Radiagate hero Vir Sanghvi writing on his website Counterpoint. I am tempted to ask Vir Sanghvi what he did when he used to be on TV. At best I could call his shows gentle massaging while you snoozed. And I am being kind really. But let it be!

Let’s hear some more from Vir Sanghvi: Currently, the news channels and the advertising industry are locked in a fierce battle over ratings. The news channels say that the current system in which ratings are declared every week is bad. It should be replaced by a system where such ratings are announced only once a month. Nonsense, say advertisers. We are in the business of spending the money our clients give us wisely. We need information that is accurate and up-to-date. In an ideal world, we would like ratings that are instantaneous. At the very least we would prefer the current system of weekly ratings that allows us to judge how well a show is doing. Why should we have to wait a month to find this out?

Let me not bore you with Vir Sanghvi. The larger principle is pretty clear. In the recent discussions about a CAG report damning Air India, every channel had conducted an inquisition on Praful Patel with severe questioning. Not one, I repeat not one channel dared mention the other report on the Reliancescam relating to the KG Basin scam. Why would they? Just as ordinary citizens that they accuse of politician-bashing,  the news channels derive the same TRPs by politician-bashing. After all why would they bite the hand that feeds them? Right? And then, would an interview or screwing some lame executive from Reliance get them the same TRP? In both cases, Praful Patel and Reliance, the end result would have been denial, denial, denial! Given that end result in mind who would the channels pimp with? That’s simply a business decision and not a ‘news’ decision’! That’s the rating game.

Reliance, of course, is a stake holder in some of the news channels. Reliance is also a major advertiser on all the channels in India. So the crimes of Reliance can pass, but Praful Patel, like other politicians, is fair game for our news channels. Anna Hazare knew that pretty well. So, when Rajdeep Sardesai wonders why Irom Sharmila doesn’t get the same media attention he makes the same mistake most journalistic cub idiots make. Corruption is more identifiable with politicians than with the army. That is why the rating game prevents news channels from the issues of Irom Sharmila. The news channels are as corrupt as the political class. Try and figure this – IndiaTV for all the ridicule that is heaped on it for its ‘Bhooth preth, Karma, Punar Jamn’ stories could still be business-wise the most profitable one. If your game is getting eyeballs, real news and truth is not about catching the criminals by their balls. I doubt anyone would pay to see Rajdeep Sardesai in the nude on TV, but hey, make no mistake, if Poonam Pandey makes that announcement - that would break a lot of eyeballs wouldn't it?

So it’s neither about truth nor about news, it is just about the rating game. Our news channels just want to ensure that they remain sexy and attractive for their paymasters. Where do we, the viewers, come in? Go figure!

Media Mullahs

In an interesting oped titled ‘Messianism versus democracy’ in The Hindu this is what Prabhat Patnaik had to say: “Maulana Bhashani, a popular peasant leader in what is now Bangladesh, used to give marathon speeches that were interrupted when people went home for lunch or dinner, or even for a night's rest, and resumed when they re-assembled afterwards; and the speeches contained much information about everything…”

Here’s another excerpt from the article: “Messianism substitutes the collective subject, the people, by an individual subject, the messiah. The people may participate in large numbers, and with great enthusiasm and support, in the activities undertaken by the messiah… but they do so as spectators. The action is of the messiah; the people are only enthusiastic and partisan supporters and cheerleaders. If at all they ever undertake any action on the side, this is entirely at the messiah's bidding, its ethics, rationale and legitimacy never explained to them…” Well, I don’t agree with quite a few parts in the article but this post is not to debate that. Patnaik probably has inadvertently described religious following itself. The para I quoted can be used for Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Moses or any other prophet you can think of. Imagine if prophets from centuries ago had 24X7 media in their time.

Till the time a messiah from the general public, as Patnaik sort of describes Anna Hazare, comes around the role is usually played by those hyper media celebrity anchors and hosts. Each one passionately intent on heaping some agenda on viewers and readers. Desperately agitated and tired with the twittering and twattering of people on the social networks criticising her, one prominent media cacofonix called them ‘Internet Hindus’! If Maulana Bhashani’s marathon speech is an indicator our media celebrity speakers would have to be called the ‘Media Mullahs’.

If Prabhat Patnaik does a casual count of the number of followers our Media Mullahs have on their twitter accounts he will find them outnumbering those out on the streets supporting Anna Hazare. Secondly, to those who dismiss the crowds as not representing all of India one must point out that if social scientologists like Yogendra Yadav can make conclusions for the nation on sample populations of 20000 then the population sample of Anna is far more superior and far more reliable where accuracy is concerned. But in the crowds in the media are also those whose criticism of Anna’s effort is based on sloganeering and not completely on facts. Is everything in Anna’s protest fair? Obviously not. You are unlikely to find any mass movement in history where you are likely to find every part being fair and logical. This is simply because the end objective of mass movements are their stated objectives and that is that. Sometimes even unstated objectives like the partition of India are achieved/conceded. We don't exactly hang our earlier messiah, Mahatma Gandhi, for that.

Some innocent tweets wondered why Barkha Dutt wouldn’t go to Ramlilamaidan to cover the protests when she considered it so important to rush to Egypt and Libya. The reasons for her not doing so is pretty obvious to people who have followed her reporting over the years. But taking the cue the other media mullahs rushed to Ramlila. Rajdeep Sardesai went to meet Anna and even had a photo op. Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today is reporting live from Ramlila today. After his return from Ramlila, Mullah Sardesai’s pattern of discourse has substantially changed. You can expect a similar change in Mullah Kanwal’s approach. The media mullahs may also have to slowly admit that the battering they receive from Internet Hindus is not entirely unjust or misplaced.

What does it say about our media mullahs when they invite those who trash people or protests with absolutely no logic at all? Mahesh Bhatt calls the Anna movement Taliban. Does that make sense? Yet he figures prominently on NDTV and CNN-IBN. Nikhi Wagle of the CNN-IBN group also tweets of religious bias and questions secularism of the protests. Since when was secularism the agenda of the protests in any case? Since when was a religious tone or bias the agenda of the protests? But both Bhatt and Wagle would like to tweak facts brazenly to lend some insidious motive to the event. And where Arnab Goswami is concerned, he is already a convert and is doing a non-stop coverage of the event.

What Prabhat Patnaik misses is that when the protest eventually winds up the only messiahs left continuing the messianism will be our Media Mullahs. They may just have to alter their agendas a bit.

Forces Of Calumny

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. (Hamlet, 3.1.129) – Shakespeare.

NDTV and CNN-IBN simply couldn’t have expected events that unfolded. When a carefully cultivated line of thinking and campaign goes terribly wrong it leaves one wondering which way to jump. Throughout August 17 as the Anna Hazare stalemate continued NDTV could only think of calling it a ‘circus’. Barkha Dutt kept tweeting about Alice In Wonderland and how this is all mad. Her late evening programme sported the tag line ‘protest or blackmail’ and an hour prior, Nidhi Razdan started her Left, Right, Centre by once again calling the event a ‘circus’. I couldn’t help laughing at the irony. When Barkha Dutt rushed to Egypt and Libya she didn’t find those events to be circus or the world of Lewis Caroll.  To Rajdeep Sardesai’s CNN-IBN, of course, must go the credit of inaugurating mud-slinging season. When a prominent news channel like CNN-IBN undertakes brazen mud-slinging it starts emboldening the forces and faces of calumny. The three stooges that were the faces of Congress in the entire Anna Hazare episode pretty much reflect the combined faces of calumny spurred by some in the TV news media. Rajdeep and Yogendra Yadav would be delighted to know how their recent opinion polls confirm everything they are seeing on the ground now. Oh yeah, if elections were held today the UPA would be voted back to power! That's what they would have you believe. And, of course, their poll suggested that only 28% believe UPA is corrupt. Will the truth ever set these media dealers free?

Faces of Calumny

Things didn’t go wrong on August 16. They went wrong on the night of June 4 when a peaceful crowd was lathi-charged in the middle of the night. I had then written that ‘Chidambaram, Sibal and Soni were the ones to have hatched the Anna arrest. But the people already knew that by now. What is worse is having a PM who has more or less abdicated his responsibilities and received a severe pasting from opposition leader Arun Jaitley.

The Congress and many in the media have tried desperately to spin these events as ‘parliament v street legislators’. Even that has failed. If the intellectuals in the media haven’t realised yet that no matter what Anna or Baba or Bedi do, they simply cannot make a law, the ordinary people are under no illusion. The best they can do is fast, agitate and protest. After the murder of journalist J. Dey did the media not demand special protection laws? Did they not demand that crimes against journalists be made ‘non-bailable’ offences? Is that not demanding laws that they want? The laws that Anna Hazare demands may be different but it’s not different in principle. He just seems to have more determination and the will to die for it. Fact is, journalists were demanding special privileges whereas Anna is not demanding any special privileges. But, that’s OK, people demand all sorts of things.

The most striking feature of the debates on TV is that people like Mahesh Bhatt, Nandita Rao, Rahul Kanwal question the wisdom or intelligence of ordinary people. I’m not kidding, here’s a tweet from Rahul Kanwal:

Rahul Kanwal:

Quite certain protesters don't understand finer nuances of Anna's bill. Doesn't matter to them. They're livid with Govt over corruption.

Finer nuances? Alright, I can laugh but the media morons wouldn’t understand nuance if it kissed them in broad daylight. What they hide is that the crowds are just as angry with the media as they are with the politicians. I can safely vouch for the fact that there is not a single lawyer or constitutional expert who knows everything that they talk about. What they talk about is a common-sense stand that they take. These opinionated egos of media might be under the impression that every MP even reads every bill that is passed. Ordinary people just have a boiling point. They keep watching the crimes of those in power and when it reaches a crescendo they will come out and fight. They don’t need to read law books before coming out on the streets as some of our stupid media dealers seem to desire. And a man like Mahesh Bhatt believes without cameras the Anna Hazares would disappear. Without a camera it is the Barkha Dutts, Rajdeep Sardesais, Sagarika Ghoses, Rahul Kanwals, Arnab Goswamis who would have had to choose a different career and would be consigned to the bin of the thousands of unknown journalists. Bhatt’s statement is like an idiot cursing the very gift by which he earns his livelihood. Same goes for the media dealers who claim protests would die without the camera. This is the same belief that leads them to believe that they are indirectly the most powerful law-makers in the land. An offence they accuse the street protesters of.

Rahul Kanwal shouldn’t assume people on the streets are dumb. If he offered them a choice to listen to a moral sermon, between Anna Hazare and Barkha Dutt, I’m certain even Kanwal knows who they’d pick. And Hazare isn’t the cacofonix on TV screens every night. All said and done it is not Anna who has lost his sense of decency. The media should ask the PM if he has lost all sense of decency and let loose his ministers to take the actions they did. I doubt you need a constitution or law to tell you what common decency is. After all, the Ten Commandments didn't include rape or child-abuse. Common human decency helped us learn that.

In all this, conspicuous by their absence from the media are M/s. Hit and Run. Yeah, both Digvijay Singh and Rahul Gandhi must have run out of silly statements. The media must be dearly missing the crumbs that this duo is used to throwing at them. Tarnishing RSS doesn’t seem to be paying anymore. In Gujarat,  Gandhi is a name used to refer to the corner-shop grocer. That’s because Gandhis are traditionally grocers. There is a reason why Gandhi cared to understand ordinary people. The Gandhi-grocer is the one who interacts with ordinary people almost every minute of his working day. That someone like Rahul walks around with the name of Gandhi may not be his fault, but there is a reason why he has a severe disconnect with the people as does the media. And the most stunning comment on the man came not from his detractors but his ally in UPA-I. It was Brinda Karat of CPM, who for the first time sarcastically used the term ‘prince charming’ in parliament to describe the white-wash that the Congress attempted to make in the bungling of the Hazare incident. The Congress and media attempt to credit Rahul Gandhi with diffusing the crisis failed miserably. We had one great Gandhi who is now in heaven. We don’t need fake Gandhis in our parliament.

The PM who stupidly talked about ‘skeletons’ before the current parliament session is now warning Anna Hazare of consequences. His lack of decency and miserable failure as PM is embarrassing for the whole nation. When he indirectly condones the sacking of the nation and then lets loose his forces of calumny the nation looks for leadership. In the absence of a leader they found one in Anna Hazare. In less than 12 hours they have made him a national, and probably international, hero. This is a time to be humble. If the PM cannot find his own conscience then a Janlokpal bill will not be the only thing that the protesters will demand.

Get Swamy

Seema Mustafa, in response to Subramanian Swamy’s article in DNA wrote: “The language that the politician who heads the one-man Janata Party has used is reprehensible to say the least and I am sure there are laws in this country that can be invoked to take him to task for inflaming passions through complete falsehoods.” There you are, a veiled invitation to trigger happy secularists to drag Swamy into FIRs and court cases over what he has written. Did she manage to have the desired effect? You bet!

Now, if the statement Mustafa made had come from some ‘secular’ politician it would have been understandable. Unfortunately, it comes from a journalist. Journalists are usually the ones to shout themselves hoarse over freedom of speech and ironically it is a journalist who tries to invoke the law to prosecute someone who has expressed his views. This is not just true for Seema Mustafa, this is true for all the so called secular media which doesn’t hesitate to drag The Gita into concocted controversy but doesn’t have the balls to ever even mention the Koran. If the secularists will somehow and someday learn honesty then the likes of Swamy wouldn’t need to write provocative articles. Swamy also exposes how thin and flimsy the tolerance of these secularists are. I had the privilege of going to school but had to learn in later life that the moghuls that our school textbooks glorified were actually villains and enemies of Hindus. You can now expect all the self-righteous nonsense to flow from the minorities commission and other groups to follow.

Here’s the first one from a petition by constituents of Harvard University:

“Swamy proposes a truly shocking set of "strategies" for "deter[ring] terrorism" in an op-ed appearing in the July 16th edition of the Daily News & Analysis, an Indian newspaper. These include "declar[ing] India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus"; "[r]emov[ing] the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites"; "[e]nact[ing] a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion"; and "[p]ropagat[ing] the development of a Hindu mindset…..Writing in the wake of the July 13, 2011, bombings in Mumbai, Swamy has exploited this event not only to promote a vision of Indian society based on Hindu supremacy, but to disparage and cast suspicion on the entire Muslim community in India. "Muslims of India," he states, "are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus."

The muslims in modern day India are not responsible for any of the past. But those denying the past and wilfully ignoring the aspirations of some Islamic agenda are clearly living in denial. Some of these honourable men and women come from the stock of the JNU, the Congress and the Communist ideology which glorifies the Islamic atrocities as secular rule in India. It takes rare character and courage to be as outspoken and honest as Swamy is. Sure, tar him as a maverick, call him names as Seema Mustafa does, ignore his multi-religious family as the media does and peddle lies about the history of India as the JNU lot do and you have a concoction for a heady clash of religions sooner or later.

Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today, a bright journalist who is a rising star had this to tweet:

Rahul Kanwal:

Strange Twitter logic. When we do story against Cong, we are hailed as patriots. When we expose BJP, we are called Cong agents & traitors.

August 3 – 22.30

Oh yeah? Who exactly called you agents and traitors? What Rahul forgets is that he tends to ridicule the BJP and Hindutva at every step of the way. Every political party has factions and each faction has their leader. That is why we have elections too. Is that logic lost on journalists? If Rahul Kanwal was sensible enough he would find an answer to his tweet in his own stupid tweet he made earlier:

Rahul Kanwal

How can hand picked nominee of tainted CM be expected to prosecute boss to whom he owes elevation & existence. #MoralHighGroundOnCorruption

August 3 – 16.26

There, that stone-throwing, calling someone a hand-picked nominee ignoring the fact that there was a secret ballot held to elect the leader of the Karnataka BJP is not the doing of the Twitterati but Kanwal’s own way of casting aspersions. The election by secret ballot of a CM is one of the finest things to have happened in Indian democracy and a practice that should become more frequent and common and yet media brokers like Kanwal ridicule that process and then wonder why the twitterati are against him or his channel. No, they aren’t against you but the severe bias with which you report events and colour news items.This same bias colours every aspect of the Hindu-Muslim reporting that the media indulges in. Hindus are fair game, muslims are victims. That's the media line.Those who die are the aggressors!

Forget temples that Swamy talks about, I am not even willing to accept all the crap about even the Taj Mahal. If you go through the writings and investigation by Stephen Knapp there are lies that have been peddled through the centuries. Would the secularists dare and be open to a detailed investigation of the Taj Mahal? When Swamy talks about temples being destroyed, let’s start with the Taj Mahal itself. The rest can wait. Knapp’s site has sufficient evidence and photographs to warrant a detailed investigation. You may want to go through his site and many others who claim it to be a Shiva temple.

One needs go through the roads less travelled across this country through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and many other states to notice the many small Islamic townships that have come up. Many of them resplendent in their riches and well-built houses and shops. You have to wonder in amazement where all that money and wealth comes from to set up such mini Islamic colonies. The radicalisation of those willing muslims who may wish to overthrow democracy and our way of life is not unique to India. Take a look at this little poster and the related news item:

Daily Mail: "Islamic extremists have launched a poster campaign across the UK proclaiming areas where Sharia law enforcement zones have been set up. Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: ‘You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.’

The bright yellow messages daubed on bus stops and street lamps have already been seen across certain boroughs in London and order that in the ‘zone’ there should be ‘no gambling’, ‘no music or concerts’, ‘no porn or prostitution’, ‘no drugs or smoking’ and ‘no alcohol’. Hate preacher Anjem Choudary has claimed responsibility for the scheme, saying he plans to flood specific Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the UK and ‘put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long term". The media in UK suggests it’s the work of sick minds but those living there have already wound up their shops and many others have exited the area and moved to other places where they aren’t threatened by these Islamists.

I have read news reports which mention Hindu homes were marked with yellow paint for slaughter in the erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Swamy sort of warns you not to wait for such a day to arrive in India. Subramanian Swamy, I think, only alludes to the fact that there might be many stray muslims and muslim organisations in India who wish to emulate or secretly dream the dream that Anjem Choudary has. Are all muslims involved in that dream? Certainly not, but there are no muslim voices against those who nurture that dream. Their voices only come up when provoked by writers like Seema Mustafa to invoke stupid laws which should not exist in the first place.

For those petitioners in the US who want Harvard University to get rid of Swamy I have to say that they must constitute the greatest gathering of useful idiots who neither know the law nor the idea of freedom. The US supreme court once dismissed even a suit by religious leader Jerry Falwell who was featured in a silly ad by Larry Flynt (Of Hustler magazine) which was outrageous and even allowed a Nazi march through a predominantly Jewish area in Chicago. That is the kind of freedom of speech that democracies need.

The stupid hate speech laws should be removed. You don’t need freedom to say nice things. Real freedom of thought cannot be stopped by laws. You can stop speech but you CANNOT stop thought. And I wish our politicians would wake up and alter such laws. Whether you agree with Swamy or not, give him the space to utter whatever he wants. Let’s not forget that joker from Samajwadi party who announced a prize for the head of the Danish cartoonist who made the Mohammad cartoons. That man still roams free despite encouraging murder in public. Swamy hasn’t incited or encouraged any violence whatsoever. Those who can’t stand his writings are free to write against him. If not, they can shut themselves in their bathrooms and weep.

The best part of the whole drama is that Subramanian Swamy loves a court battle. Anyone dragging him to court would only be stupid enough to oblige him and when they do, there will be more worms crawling out of the secular can. These fools should realise that the ‘Get Swamy’ campaign will not work.

Maria Susairaj & The Media Crocs

On July 2, the media had its O.J. Simpson moment with Maria Susairaj.

It would have been another boring day full of Lokpal stalemate and Team Anna’s audience with the Queen herself but for small mercies (no pun intended). Maria Susairaj walked out of jail after three years having served her time for ‘destruction of evidence’ in the Neeraj Grover murder case. Anyone can understand the outrage and anger of the Grover family and even of the general public. But our media did exactly what was expected of them: create great drama and then blame Maria for all the publicity. Behind all the self-righteous outrage the media reporters could hardly hide their glee over the chance of displaying their histrionics and their moral superiority over courts of this land. Here is a tweet from the usual Rahul Kanwal, on July 2, that says it all:

Rahul Kanwal:

“Media also needs to be careful. Maria is finally getting all the publicity she could have dreamt of. Feel very bad for Neeraj's parents”

Hmmm! It wasn’t just Rahul Kanwal’s channel but also Arnab Goswami of Times Now who provided the most extraordinary nonsense in the coverage of Maria’s release. Kanwal’s tweet is a perfect reflection of the media – first behave stupidly, then sermonise. That’s behaving like vultures and then shedding crocodile tears. Whether you’re good, bad or evil the vulture doesn’t really care as long as it gets to have a sumptuous meal of you. That's the media for you!

Let’s start with the release of Maria. Times Now ran a headline “Killer Walks Free”. So that headline tells you who’s the best judge of a crime. That headline is not so much against Maria but against the judge who passed the sentence. Put aside emotions for a moment. No matter how much one is enraged by the event, Maria is not a killer unless she had put a knife into the deceased or participated in that act. Yes, she could be an ‘accomplice’ or as the court has ruled, ‘destroyed evidence'. She was convicted for the latter and sentenced accordingly to 3 years which was time she had already served and therefore released. The prosecution does not appear to have accused or proved Maria to have put a knife into Neeraj. But the media goes on a song and dance with ‘how can she be released’? Well, what are the police to do? Hold her against the orders of a court? Little does Times Now realise that the ‘killer walks free’ headline could well merit a defamatory case. And if Sharif Shaikh, Maria’s now famous lawyer, decides to walk that line it could hurt the Grover family even more. Such is the cavalier reporting by Times Now.

Times Now’s hyper reporters screamed that Maria was protected and given special treatment by the jail authorities and allowed to drive away without letting the media question her. Well, let me make it clear the media does not have any RIGHT to question Maria and Maria has the absolute RIGHT not to talk to the media at all. So Times Now continued to protest that the media was not allowed to question her. Reporters were hanging around the jail like vultures ready to swoop on Maria and shove and jostle her and maybe even heckle her but fortunately that did not happen. And that unfortunately is the media’s grouse.

Let me make another point amply clear. The frontline reporters and cameramen of the media are the most indecent lot you will see in a democracy.  Some of them are as indecent as regular goondas. No one taught these goondas that you cannot push and shove, no one taught them you cannot shove mics into someones face and body, no one taught them they should keep a safe distance from any person they wish to cover or question. In fact, this crowd of vultures do pose a physical threat. It can anger convicts like Salman Khan who once beat up a few reporters for similar behaviour. Even in regular press meets with a PM or a prominent public figure these assholes do not know how to behave and usually end up shouting questions all at once instead of one at a time.

So who exactly are Times Now and Headlines Today to demand that Maria should have spoken to the media on her release from jail? Why should she? She is under no obligation whatsoever to talk to ANYONE. And then her foolish lawyer, Sharif Shaikh, discloses her movement plan (church, evening presser etc.) so that the media can chase her and follow her to the church she visited. He had his 15 minutes of fame and is now likely to be in great demand too. And be careful how you read headlines like ‘Killer walks free’. Who the hell is the media to decide she is a killer? This is how the media plays on public opinion. Even if the general public believes Maria is a killer the media has no business to declare her one.

Then they complained that media was not allowed to question Maria on her release from jail. Well, when she did hold a press meet in the evening Times Now was quick to ridicule the exercise by asking ‘What’s the point’? Well, if TimesNow didn’t see a point in the press meet why is it they wanted to interact with Maria at the jail area in the first place? Wait, that’s not all they declared the press meet was all a ‘bizarre insensitive drama’! Drama or not the media was the one that wanted her to speak to them in the first place. And then the TimesNow reporter went on to do a psychological analysis of Maria on her calmness, how she was faking, that she was used to cameras, and that she had achieved her goal of ‘publicity’.

If all that was not enough there is a jerk called Ram Gopal Verma, whose movies have now been flopping with regularity, who crawls out to make a statement. The media can’t believe its luck. So there is more drama with insensitive comments about a movie with Maria by RGV and in the evening Headlines Today pits him against the family of Neeraj Grover for a discussion. So Rahul Kanwal, when you say “Media should be careful..” you’re speaking through your ass and your channel is the one that is not being careful.

Even if there wasn’t all this drama after her release Maria Susairaj had already become a celebrity-criminal. The question for the media is why aren’t they asking the same about others who have already been convicted? Why is there media silence on Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt? Both are convicted criminals and both should be in jail. But the media will not talk about them because indirectly they are a source of revenue for the channels and the press. All the song and dance and comedy and action from movies of Salman and Sanjay are an immense source of revenue for the mediacrooks. So why should they want to see these convicted celebrities in jail? Why in the world would they want to see Maria Susairaj in jail instead of seeing more movies or TV serials about her that means money to the channels?

The family of Neeraj Grover is rightfully feeling hurt and anger. Those friends of Neeraj Grover who disrupted the press meet of Maria Susairaj did him no favour. One protester even got close enough to pose a physical threat to Maria. This doesn’t do any good for the Grovers. The Grover family must understand that the media is neither interested in justice nor in what happens to Maria or Jerome. They wanted their fun and they had their day in the sun.  The Grovers can now start their long trudge towards the justice they seek.

Mark my words! In a few months or years these very channels will be falling over each other to do emotional and charming interviews with Maria Susairaj over some movie release or some Big Boss episode. She provides all the regular ingredients for our media - murder, sex, deception, intrigue and a grieving family. Vultures really don’t care who dies and crocs need to have their meal. You know what feeds them.