A Sardesai In The Works

Rajdeep Sardesai has released his latest Friday (August 26) blog-buster ‘An open letter to Anna Hazare’. I have always maintained that there are two Rajdeeps, one on TV and one on his blog or print. The latter one usually surfaces from deep contemplation. I have promised that I’ll often be there to rehash Rajdeep. In this case let’s start with the last para of his latest post: “Post-script: I have framed a picture of our meeting earlier this week. The caption reads: "When zero met hero!". India is not Anna, nor is Anna India, but you are now an icon for millions. Please don't allow a personality cult to shadow your ultimate gift of common sense.” What usually amazes me is fake humility, more than fake journalism. But let’s give the benefit of doubt to Rajdeep. The zero meets hero would have suited Kapil Sibal a lot better. We will come back to his open letter a bit later in this post.

I agree, India is not Anna and Anna is not India. That is a stupid statement from a woman in a frenzy. Why don’t journalists ask the question: Is Manmohan Congress and is Congress Manmohan? So why is the constant claim of MMS being clean offered as a defence for a corrupt Congress? As the head of govt if this man can’t even take responsibility for what goes on under his leadership events such as the Anna protest will come about. MPs will be gheraoed. The media should have condemned MMS strongly over the Ramlila crackdown and demanded his resignation. They should have condemned the PM strongly over corruption and demanded his resignation. The media should have demanded the PM’s resignation over Anna’s arrest. They did not. If anarchy is about to visit India it is not the making of Anna Hazare. It is the making of the PM without a conscience, a corrupt govt that has lost touch with people and a media that has been a slave to powerful forces. The shamelessly slavish media wouldn’t even dare ask the Congress or the govt on the truth about Sonia Gandhi or her illness etc. If Rajdeep were an ordinary citizen and watched some of the news channels he would know the media could well be party to any anarchy that might come about. Inadvertently, Rajdeep himself owns up to some of the lies media peddles and absolute fixation with powerbrokers. Now let’s understand the notes in his latest blog in this context. (All quotes in blue)

You (Anna) have worked tirelessly for more than two decades in exposing corruption in Maharashtra but Ralegan Siddhi is a long way from Delhi which is perhaps why television channels hadn't featured your contribution prominently till now. An opinion poll we did just a month ago suggested that more people had heard of yoga guru Baba Ramdev than a tireless fakir-like crusader from a Western Maharashtra village.

Bravo! So I wonder if Rajdeep thinks India is Delhi and Delhi is India. This is one of the cruel truths about our media. Almost all of their reports, be it politics, education, schools, colleges, police are about Delhi and few more metros. Why Ramdev? If I had conducted a poll like CNN-IBN I can guarantee more people would have heard about Barkha Dutt than they would have about Anna Hazare. Are the reasons so hard for Rajdeep to see? That their poll samples are pathetic! Anna Hazare is not a TV hugging campaigner. Ramdev is on TV probably more than Rajdeep and many other media celebs put together. Shamefully and conveniently Rajdeep’s channel has consigned the rest of India to ‘Citizen Journalists’ to report on and proudly tom-toms it as a great innovation in journalism. CJ is a good idea, but that innovation doesn’t take away the fact that the media doesn’t give a damn about the rest of India, which is why the immense response that Anna Hazare has generated has come as a shocker for many media crooks. More importantly, the intellectuals who frequently appear on TV simply cannot digest the fact that a simpleton from Ralegaon Siddhi has brushed their nonsense away with his sincerity, courage and focused campaign.

You've even shown that the Marathas, a community that has failed to conquer Delhi since losing the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, can indeed take the national capital by storm. But in every battle there must come a time when you must call a halt. That time may well be approaching.

I’m not exactly a history expert but what has this got to do with Marathas? If the campaigner was from Indore would Rajdeep be invoking the history of Holkars? Or if he were from Mysore would he be citing the failures of Tipu Sultan? Or if he were a muslim would Rajdeep say that the Moghuls have once again conquered Delhi? This is how Rajdeep cites caste and community and divides the country as does the media in general. One particular channel turned the Anna campaign into the Ramlila crowds V Dalits & minorities. Such was the impact that Dalits and minorities carried out a rally in Delhi’s Connaught place area on Wednesday night causing a complete traffic mayhem. This is how our news media is dangerous for unity and the democracy of India. CNN-IBN’s  Lokmat group editor, the vicious Nikhil Wagle, has been consistently tweeting messages to incite religious divisions in the crowds at Ramlila and the public in general. That’s Rajdeep’s own backyard member.

Ram Lila is not Mumbai's Azad Maidan nor is it the village square in Ralegan Siddhi. This is not some battle to stop the local thug from shutting his liquor shop. Here, there are multiple agendas that require dexterous negotiation and not mere sloganeering. The sight of gangster Abu Salem's girlfriend Monica Bedi parading Mumbai's streets with an Anna cap should convince you of the dangers of reducing the fight against corruption to a well-choreographed prime time TV spectacle.

Fantastic! Who else to warn Anna Hazare and talk to him about ‘turf wars’ than Rajdeep? The idea is, go back to your village you village-idiot, places like Ramlila or Azad Maidan are not for you. These are for greater men and women who usually appear on CNN-IBN. The ones who believe have the right to set the multiple agendas. The NAC types who draft spurious bills to be presented in the parliament. The best part is about Monica Bedi. Hello? Who made Monica Bedi a media celebrity? Who are the ones who talk about Rahul Mahajan’s swayamwar as lead story? Have you forgotten all that Rajdeep? Monica Bedi has appeared for the protests voluntarily but it’s the media who promoted her on their channels. I am under no illusion if CNN-IBN had the chance to interview Ajmal Kasab they would be thrilled to devote an hour to him.

The frenzy being built up in the media by hyper-ventilating news channels and demagogic acolytes could easily transform a genuine people's movement into a lumpen expression of mob fury. It's a transformation that could end up destroying the hard-earned credibility of your struggle.

Imagine the extraordinarily malicious campaign that Rajdeep & Co. carried out on CNN-IBN against Ramdev during the first week of June. I could very easily say that media campaign emboldened the govt to become a lumpen expression of state fury. You never know what can happen with mobs, but so far the crowds at Ramlila and other places in the current agitation have been largely peaceful. It could well be that the goons floating around could well be plants of the movement's adversaries, just like media threw a spanner in the works of Ramdev. It is when the media has their own agenda that great concerns confront them – in this case another channel that has grabbed eyeballs. TimesNow maybe. Rajdeep even came up with his own 5-point strategy to end the current crisis. Is that the job of a news man? Someday, Rajdeep must wake up to the fact that the media actually throws a spanner in the works many times. Remember 26/11? In such a situation it’s a bad idea to throw a Sardesai in the works.

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.

The Full Monty Of Tricks

On Thursday, August 18 NDTV’s  programme, the bullshit never stops, started off with a tagline question ‘India Interrupted?”. The second headline was if Anna Hazare has brought “Indian democracy to its knees” (quoted needlessly from an other media report). The subtle but sly mischief behind such headlines can usually be missed by viewers who may be focused on the discussions. There are many times TV channels try to push and peddle a statement posing it as a question to deliberately spread falsehood. For instance, if I were to make a statement: “Is Anna dying?” You cannot accuse me of lying but at the same time you can recognise the mischief I am trying to spread through what may appear to be an innocent question. The NDTV programme by Barkha Dutt also credited wrong captions to the Washington Post which was later corrected by their reporter, Simon Denyer, who was fortunately there as a panellist. So watch out for questions like, protest or blackmail?, Lokpal bill only solution?, ‘Anarchy or Democracy’. All of these are NDTV questions. You will find similar ones on other channels too. And the best title of all has to be – ‘Anna-tommy’ as a commenter on this blog points out to suggest he is being projected as a US stooge.

Simon Says: India’s democracy has not been brought down to its knees but maybe the Indian government has been brought to its knees. That is more truthful than the headline that NDTV chose to use as the starting point of the discussion. In fact, Simon went on to say that actually these protests reflect the vibrancy of Indian democracy. The real shame of our democracy happened when the govt wrongfully arrested Anna Hazare and others and imposed the most foolish of conditions for protests and fasts. If you look up the history of democracies, it is usually never the people who murder democracy. It is usually the governments or armies that murder democracy. Our armies have always been respectable, that leaves only one criminal. I would go one step further and suggest that when the government is repeatedly flouting the constitution, indulging in corruption, looting the nation then people must take up the responsibility of protesting and fighting back.

If a Congress member like Rashid Alvi states that the protests are a US conspiracy our media rushes to him for more sound bites. Unfortunately for the media there isn’t enough substance in Alvi’s crap which they could have built on and turned it into a larger discussion. In desperate times like these the govt should have put out their best and moderate spokespersons to ease tensions. Instead, who do they put out? Renuka Choudhary! She is a politician quite well known for intemperate outbursts. So naturally when someone asked her about Rahul Gandhi’s response to the protests she came up with something as lame as “he is not a parrot”. If I were Rahul Gandhi I would actually take statement as an insult to me rather than great defence. I think even someone like Satyavrat Chaturvedi is a lot more sensible and should have been speaking for the govt.

And why is the media so desperate to hear from Rahul Gandhi? If past record is any indication the man really doesn’t have a sensible view on anything and even if he speaks, he is neither eloquent nor articulate. In times of distress it is not kicking and screaming spokespersons like Renuka Choudhary who should be thrown at the media and people. The highest official must directly speak to the nation. Now, given that the PM himself is totally lost and those who were in charge caused more harm to the situation, it is a particularly bad pothole for the Congress. This is the situation that some media channels are somehow trying to retrieve for the party. Still, some saner voice from the Congress has to step up to the crease, show humility and try to ease the situation instead of appearing to be more provocative in defence. If you want to make a bad situation worse you will surely want the Renuka Choudharys to speak for you.

At a different level there are reports that the Congress is now trying to run a campaign to counter Anna Hazare’s protest through social networks. Here’s a piece from DNA about an SMS doing the rounds : “One SMS doing the round reads: “I am strongly against corruption but I am NOT Anna! I am NOT a dictator saying MY BILL OR NO BILL.’ I believe in the democratic process through Parliament. I do NOT belong to any opportunist political party who have selfish concern in not letting the Parliament function. I am proud India and would like to do my bit by being honest. YOU DECIDE WHETHER U WANT TO BE ANNA OR A PROUD INDIA! Forward this message and let your friends decide who they want to be. We are the ppl of 21st century and we can think.”

Has the Congress think tank totally lost it? This is not a battle on twitter or facebook! This is a battle on the grounds right at their doorstep. This is not a battle by nameless and faceless people. This is a battle by real people right in the heart of Delhi. If the reported SMS is true then the Congress is suffering from a serious poverty of brains. What does it say about the party when one of its staunchest supporters, Sanjay Jha, calls it all a comedy of errors? This is a guy who runs the ‘Hamara Congress’ page.

Protest or blackmail? Recently the Gujjars, agitating for reservations, blocked railway tracks for weeks. Trains had to be cancelled or diverted. The media reported it but not one channel had a discussion condemning that illegal agitation. That agitation was illegal since there are already High Court orders preventing the blockade and also the reservation demanded. Every protest that demands something and threatens an extreme action may also appear to be blackmail. But in the case of Anna Hazare’s protest he has not threatened the govt with blockades and bombs. He is simply willing to lay down his own life. There are people who have killed themselves over issues of reservations and even Telengana. It is some in the media who simply cannot stomach the fact that these protests have come about because of the stupidity of their own darling Congress. The question is why is the media so desperate to paint this as blackmail? Politicians in power have often proven to be anti-people, what spurs the media to behave similarly?

The worst of the lot has to be the ones who will ask you “why don’t you idiots vote”? Ever heard Suhel Seth ranting about that? Really! This is the funniest of arguments you will get. As if getting out and voting for someone once in 5 years is the eternal solution. In a post about Mumbai I had outlined why the Mumbaikar’s vote really doesn’t count as far as Mumbai itself is concerned. NDTV or CNN-IBN doesn’t need middle class audiences. Their segment is clearly those you would find in a bar or in a fashion show when the country is burning. Sometimes you will find them vacationing abroad while the nation burns. Do you think these channels give a damn about India? I seriously doubt. All that matters is whether they are able to rake in money. And even at that NDTV is doing badly. If their main priority is money you can make a guess whose side they would be on. And that is why Lewis Caroll visits Barkha Dutt’s head everytime there is an agitation by the lowly assholes. They are all mad, aren’t they? The only smart one is Alice! I am the only smart ass alive these channels would suggest. And then bring on the misleading headlines posed as questions. Unfortunately, the media team of Anna Hazare seem to be much smarter. How else can you explain a term like ‘jokepal’?

And the Congress has now started advertising about the Lokpal bill inviting suggestions from public. If they really cared about public opinion they wouldn’t have brought the silly Lokpal bill they made. That is like setting a thief to catch one! Are we done? No we are not, watch out for more misleading headlines, rotten statements and dirty tricks. The full monty is yet to come!

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.

The Official Indecency Act

I would have liked to quote an Indian MP, but I couldn’t find a speech that is close. But here are excerpts from a famous speech to the US Senate in 1950, called the Declaration of Conscience speech (in blue),  by the late American senator Margaret Chase Smith

It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate Floor.  Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal.  Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we “dish out” to outsiders.

I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some soul-searching—for us to weigh our consciences….on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges. I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution.  I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism:

            The right to criticize;

            The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

            The right to protest;

            The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood… The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as “Communists” or “Fascists” by their opponents.  Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America.  It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.

There are those in our government and our media who follow an unwritten law. The Official Indecency Act. Chief among its practitioners are Congress spokesmen Manish Tiwari and Digvijay Singh. In the media you have the likes of Nandita Rao (CNN-IBN panelist) and again another Congressman V. Narayanaswamy. It does not take great intelligence to recognise these personalities as some of the most foul-mouthed people in the public domain. Yet the media delights again and again in putting them on your screens and in your drawing rooms. The filth that follows is unbelievable. The worst is character assassination, smearing and tarnishing of reputations and of course frequently calling others RSS agents and fascists, anarchists and Maoists.

Media doesn’t get to choose the spokespersons of the political parties. Yet they can choose who they invite on their panels. A Manish Tiwari maybe the Congress party’s choice. There is no need for the media to choose him on panels unless they deliberately enjoy the theatre of the foul-mouth. Same goes for those who invite the likes of Nandita Rao or Narayanaswamy.

In the current Anna Hazare stalemate, when asked if this was like the Emergency of 1975, Ram Jethmalani replied on CNN-IBN, that it is even worse. He explained that a court order had dethroned Indira Gandhi, there was a threat of her losing power, her government falling and therefore declared Emergency. But the current UPA is facing no such threat of any kind and yet chose to act in the most indecent and arrogant manner that any government in a democracy could. At the top of the pile is a Prime Minister who is simply lost and has proved to be the worst measure of lack of leadership.

So we had three stooges, P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Ambika Sonieloquently explaining how the government was not involved in the Delhi police decision to impose sec.144 and bar Anna Hazare from holding his hunger-strike and then making a preventive arrest. The arrogance and audacity with which they mislead the nation and attempt to whitewash their wrongs had to be seen to be believed. And then you previously had those that called Hazare an anarchist, a fascist and much earlier Ramdev was called a ‘thug’. What have these crooks taken the people for?

This was backed up by foul-mouthed media experts like Nandita Rao who has problems with Anna Hazare dictating terms on the Lokpal bill. There are also others like Tavleen Singh and some more. Now the issue at hand is first not the Lokpal bill itself. The issue has now turned into deliberately and illegally arresting individuals and denying them their right to protest. And the piety with which the three stooges defended the 22 obscene conditions imposed on Anna Hazare for the protest can only be described as a mockery of our constitution and mockery of our democracy. These people who cite our constitution, law and order are usually the ones who frequently abuse it. Many should remember that Ambika Soni herself has the Emergency to credit for her rise to prominence.

The Digvijays and Tiwaris have really gone a step too far in calling the agitators fascists and communal and being funded by invisible right-wingers. Fingers were pointed at pictures of Bharat mata or chants of Vande Mataram as proof of anti-nationals and right-wingers being involved in the protests earlier. Seriously, pictures of Bharat mata or chanting Vande Mataram are symbols of anti-national right-wingers and fascists? This time the scandalous crime that the Congress has tried to perpetrate has failed. Their propaganda stooges in the media have failed. No matter how much spin they tried, the NDTVs and CNN-IBNs failed.

The concept that parliament is the supreme law making body is certainly not misplaced. But the law makers need to be guided by ordinary people and not vested interests. The rulers in a democracy cannot rule without the consent of those being ruled. The one vote every five years is not a blanket sanction to pass any and all laws. It is particularly NOT a sanction to indulge in corruption and loot the nation. When that happens, parliament surrenders its supremacy and ordinary people must intervene. When that happens people power will definitely prevail over parliamentary authority. People power will definitely prevail when governments do what they have not been authorised to do by an electoral mandate. Corruption is one of those. What vote or what constitution has authorised our government and our MPs to indulge in such unprecedented corruption?

Those who call Anna Hazare’s demands for the Janlokpal as street laws are simply foolish. In a democracy every individual or group has the right to demand a law or demand the removal of a law. It is for the government of the day to discuss, negotiate and arrive at sensible solutions. The behaviour of the current PM is all the more reason why he should be under the Lokpal, but that is an altogether different issue. He should have stepped up and said “I am the Boss, and I will talk to you”. He did not. The people will then need to show the government who the boss is. Why only PM, I want even the media brought under Lokpal. One can prove any day that our media is not only corrupt that it is also a frequent law-breaker. Anna Hazare and company have not held railways, roads, buses and airlines to ransom or held up normal life to ransom unlike many other agitations have. To deny them the right to protest with absurd conditions and then arresting them is the last resort of a frightened, fascist government. And the government must and always should fear the people and not the other way around.

To back up their indecent and foul-mouthed statements, the Congress has now backed it up with indecent and unconstitutional action. If peaceful protests are drowned then violent ones are likely to follow. This UPA is quite clearly the most corrupt and dangerous government this nation has ever had. The media should also learn a lesson now that all their propaganda will not help when people power takes over. They need to really play the role of the watch dog. Foul mouthed politicians and activists should not be allowed an excessive platform in the media. The official indecency Act must die.

Shekhar Gupta's Summer Freeze

This afternoon I had posted sermons to the media and the UPA by Rajdeep Sardesai. A little later I was delighted to learn that the question I asked through my post ‘Why is Indian media scared of Sonia Gandhi?’ is a question a lot of people have been raising. Well, that’s because I ran into an article by Shekhar Gupta, Editor of Indian Express and Padma awardee. This one is nicely titled ‘The Summer Freeze’.

Overall the article fairly reflects the mood in the country and is as well written as can be expected from a journalist of Shekhar’s stature. Except that there are few jarring notes, almost bordering on delusional. One cannot help agreeing that appointments to major positions in important government bodies are held up due to the government’s summer siesta. Sensex and markets are battered. I wouldn’t really consider stock markets to be an indicator of anything more than economic concerns of a limited population. Besides, markets act more on sentiments than mere economic logic. Here’s an excerpt:

“The paralysis in the government is matched by the confusion in the Congress party. Its carefully scripted strategy of distancing itself from all government decisions except the most obviously populistic ones has now unravelled and backfired. While the government finally responded to this by suspending all decision-making on anything even remotely controversial, it is the party that is now getting the rap for all the scams, some real, some exaggerated and some……. You can blame the formidable whispering machine of the RSS for it, and maybe you are right, but the clamour over “hundreds of lakhs of crores of dollars” stashed away in foreign banks has a very strong undertone of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin’.

So you see, the temptation to drag in the RSS out of nowhere in an otherwise sensible article gives away the whole plot. It makes me wonder what the difference is between the Congress and Shekhar Gupta. Next, what does money stashed away in foreign banks got to do with Sonia’s foreign origin? It’s been reported there are many Indians who have stashed away money in foreign banks too. Even assuming that’s an RSS whisper campaign how do you explain Shekhar’s next para?

“The same whisper machine talks of her recent Europe visit as some smoking-gun evidence of a conspiracy to vacuum-clean India’s wealth. The more brazen, like Subramanian Swamy, say so in public: that Sonia and Rahul have gone to Switzerland to sort out their secret accounts, nervous that now their time is up. Over the past three weeks I have been stopped by ordinary people at airports, in shopping malls, at a petrol pump, in a spiritual ashram, at the national athletic games in Bangalore and so on with a question that seems to have become a clamour: why are you in the media so scared of the Gandhis? Why is no one exposing their humongous stash overseas?.... It is all bunkum, of course, and in any case the beauty of Swiss accounts is that nobody needs to go to Switzerland to do anything with them.”

P.G. Wodehouse in one of his novels talks about two train-engine drivers who jumped into the furnace of the engine to escape the oppressive summer heat. It sounds credible doesn’t it? So when Subramanian Swamy says the Gandhis went to Switzerland “to sort out their secret accounts” that sounds just as plausible, doesn’t it? Well for the benefit of Shekhar Gupta I must mention that the remark Swamy made can at best be described as ‘sarcasm’ and at worst a ‘snide’ remark. Ordinary people get it but surprisingly Shekhar Gupta doesn’t get it. So he even goes on to educate us that you don’t have to be in Switzerland to handle your accounts. Funny, lately you don’t have to go to your bank even in India to handle your account. What Shekhar doesn’t tell us is: how in the world does Swamy get to know all this? How does he know about Sonia Gandhi’s movements when all the media bimbos didn’t report it? There were some in the media who were even speculating if Jayalalithaa would meet Sonia in Delhi June 14 when Sonia was blissfully in Switzerland. And Subramanian Swamy is a maverick politician rather than a full-time media person. So at least it establishes one thing clearly – Swamy deals with facts while the Gandhis manage to hoodwink the media.

So all this money stashed in Switzerland etc. is “all bunkum” according to Shekhar Gupta. But that is not the only thing that makes Sonia Gandhi a very suspicious and intriguing character. Here is a write by Arun Shourie, one of India’s finest investigative journalists, (he was with the Indian Express too by the way). It’s titled Annexation Through Technicalities. Some excerpts:

“Sonia Gandhi, without having any known sources of income, has become the controller of one of the largest empires of property and patronage in Delhi. The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library and Museum…..It is situated in and controls real estate which, because of its historical importance, cannot even be valued. The institution runs entirely on grants from the Government of India. Sonia Gandhi has absolutely no qualification that could by any stretch of imagination entitle her to head the institution: has she secured even an elementary university degree, to say nothing of having done anything that would even suggest some specialization in subjects which the institution has been set up to study. But by mysterious technicalities she is today the head of this institution. So much so that she even decides which scholar may have access to papers…..

Real estate, only slightly less valuable, has been acquired on Raisina Road. The land was meant to house offices of the Congress. A large, ultra-modern building was built -- the finance being provided by another bunch of technical devices which remain a mystery. The building had but to get completed, and Sonia appropriated it for the other Foundation she completely controls -- the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Congress(I) did not just oblige by keeping silent about the takeover of its building, in the very first budget its Government presented upon returning to power, it provided Rs 100 crores to this Foundation. The furore that give-away caused was so great that the largesse had to be canceled. No problem. Business house after business house, even public sector enterprises incurring huge losses, coughed up crores……The Foundation has performed two principal functions. The projection of Sonia Gandhi. And enticing an array of leaders, intellectuals, journalists etc. into nets of patronage and pelf.

But the audacity with which the land and building were usurped and funds raised for this Foundation falls into the second order of smalls when they are set alongside what has been done in regard to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts…….This Centre was set up as a trust in 1987 by a resolution of the Cabinet. The Government of India gave Rs. 50 crores out of the Consolidated Fund of India as a corpus fund to this Centre. It transferred 23 acres of land along what is surely one of the costliest sites in the world -- Central Vista, the stretch that runs between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate -- to this Trust. Furthermore, it granted another Rs. 84 crores for the Trust to construct its building….”

The whole article by Arun Shourie makes sorry reading for any Indian.

So Mr. Shekhar Gupta, you see it is not just the allegations of money stashed in foreign banks or payoffs by KGB. There are a whole load of other issues concerning Sonia Gandhi and her family which is not even being reported by the mainstream media, let alone conducting any serious debate on those matters. So the next time someone walks up to you and asks ‘Why Indian media is scared of Sonia Gandhi?’ don’t say “it’s all bunkum”!

The only bunkum around is a cowardly news media.

Rajdeep Sardesai Sermonises Media & UPA

If you go through Rajdeep Sardesai’s blog and if you are even casually observant, you will notice that his blog-posts are usually made on Fridays. That’s almost like Bollywood movies being released on Fridays. Rajdeep sort of neatly summarises the week that was or uses hindsight to say the things he should have said on his channel through the week. Mind you, his posts are well-intentioned, thoughtful and are fair. If one were to just read his blogs it would be difficult to believe this is a TV anchor. Let’s first go through some excerpts from his latest post ‘TVnews a zero sum game?’.

"In recent weeks, as the images of Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare have played out relentlessly across television screens, the government has appeared to panic. Four cabinet ministers rushed to the airport to mollify the yoga guru. In Hazare's case, a fast at Jantar Mantar was enough to hasten the government into issuing a formal order appointing a Lokpal committee without any consultation process. In both instances, the government blames the media for forcing it to act in an unwise manner by giving disproportionate coverage to the street agitations…..It's not just the power elite, but also we in the news business who need to introspect. Why is that we cover a Hazare or a Ramdev with such intensity, but barely touch the story of an Irom Sharmila…."

If the government ever blames the media then the media should pat itself on its back. It's when they give out Padma awards to working journalists you know something's not right. Well? In this case this is a two-way back-slapping exercise. First, the media itself blew out of proportion the agitations because of the drama value attached to it. Two, in the case of Ramdev the media unleashed a vicious campaign to malign the yoga dealer. The pied piper here was CNN-IBN itself. (Read HERE and HERE). Time and again Rajdeep has stated the ‘media should introspect’. Does he really do that? No one stops them from covering Irom Sharmila or Medha Pathkar or that Swami who died fasting to protest mining along the Ganga. Fact remains the media is a clown that will go where the circus is. It is only natural. Didn’t Barkha Dutt already tell you that, Rajdeep? More importantly, the fasts by Anna Hazare and Ramdev were on corruption which concerned Indians across the nation while the other fasts were more on localised issues. Can’t tell the difference, Rajdeep? Still, the media could have covered those agitations too.

“….Perhaps, Dr Singh's image makers fear that the television lens will expose his limitations as a public speaker. Since he is a soft-spoken individual, the fear is that his voice will not be heard in the cacophony around him. Once again this is a misunderstanding of the media. Just as the camera captures the noisy, it also zooms in on sobriety and decency. At a time when the viewer seems to be tiring of the constant barrage of zero sum debates, the prime minister has an opportunity to set himself apart as a voice of reason and rationality….”

Rajdeep goes on to once again give a ‘clean’ certificate to the PM when he refers to his integrity as his calling card in his post. Now then, being soft-spoken or possessing a feeble voice may not be great attributes for a PM. However, is that the only reason why MMS is quiet? Why discount the possibility that MMS’s conscience is hurting, that he has to lie to defend all the corruption, that if he speaks his lack of conviction will be noticed, that if he speaks there will be more questions to be answered. That he has possibly lost moral courage. No? If voice were a strong guiding factor in public life I simply don’t understand how the Deputy Editor of CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose, continues to offend ears with her cacophony. She would probably be the exact opposite of MMS in this case.

Rajdeep then makes a sensational point about Rahul Gandhi. “As for Rahul, have we ever heard him express his views on matters of national importance?” Wow! So this is the guy whose views on national issues are not known. This is the guy whose public meetings are “choreographed” according to Rajdeep. And this is the guy that CNN-IBN chose to bestow the ‘Indian of the year’ award in 2009. Well, Rajdeep, how do you explain that? If this is your assessment of Rahul in 2011, did you know him better in 2009? And here is what you said back then, Rajdeep:

“Rahul Gandhi has been chosen CNN-IBN politician of the year over many of his more experienced colleagues and rivals because no one toured India the way he has in the past 60 months. Nobody has enunciated a vision of new India the way he has and none has understood the immediate need to bridge the city-country divide the way Rahul Gandhi has. His efforts show that hard work pays even in the uncertain world of politics.”

Well I suppose Rajdeep Sardesai understood the “new India” that Rahul Gandhi had enunciated then but now states he doesn’t know his views on matters of national importance. Will you now stop these sham awards, Rajdeep? And as for the blogs for you write every Friday I do appreciate them. I only wish you would put as much thoughtfulness in the conduct of CNN-IBN Monday through Friday and on weekends too.

PS: There are many who have also understood the manner in which Rahul Gandhi has enunciated his vision of a new India. These have been chronicled extensively through tweets under #Rahulfacts. This site, Chirpstory, has a complete collection for those who are yet to fully understand Rahul's enunciation of India. As for Rahul's achievements this website will tell you everything: www.rahulgandhiachievements.com (And no there is nothing wrong with your browser or net connection either)