Katju & The Crooks

This is a scene from the movie ‘The American President’ where a presidential aide blasts him for not stepping up and talking to the media as often as his opponent does criticising him. I have quoted this before on this blog but worth recalling: (Quotes, where they appear are in blue)

Presidential aide Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox): “You have a deeper love of this country than any man I've ever known. And I want to know what it says to you that in the past seven weeks, 59% of Americans have begun to question your patriotism. They don't have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand”.

The President (Michael Douglas): “Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference”.

Along comes a spider and he is starting to scare the little Muffets in the Indian news media. Retired judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Markandeya Katju has stated “90% of Indians are mentally backward and need to be uplifted” by the media. That’s right. Where the news media’s magnitude of nonsense is concerned a majority of the Indian population drinks the sand because they don’t know the difference. Fed on a daily diet of ‘rashi and kundli’, mindless Cricket discussions, divisive debates, hollering anchors and reporters, senseless Bollywood crap, Saas and the city, Saas, Bahu aur Betiyaan, ‘Bhoot-Pret’, spurious opinion polls, fashion shows, Kareena adoring her wax statue and utter nonsense like replaying worst moments from BigBoss they do not have a choice. Most Indians are struggling to make ends meet and can’t be faulted for the kind of trash they absorb from the news media. If these were recognised as entertainment channels there would be no problem but they are supposed to be ‘news channels'.

Justice Markandeya Katju (MK) is now the Chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) and he is ringing some discomforting alarm bells. He wants to clean up the news media, implement punitive measures for infringements and improve the quality of media functioning. He is pitted against an extraordinary gang which is as thick-skinned as any political group.

Written over a year ago, the post ‘India’s Worst Journalists’ continues to remain among the most popular posts on this blog. Some of the so called journalists in the list like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, Arnab Goswami among others can share the credit for destroying the credibility of TV news. In recent times the excessive promotion of a Shahrukh Khan movie or excessive space to Modi-haters or Kashmiri separatists is the trend. Some of these media celebs have also been decorated with Padma Shris. I guess that reward is for their excessive mental masturbation on mundane, trivial issues and keeping the real issues in the closet and from the public. That most of these media outlets and journalists are politically inclined toward the Congress is also not a big secret anymore.

Any decently educated and discerning person would hold the mainstream media in utter contempt. Justice Katju does too and that isn’t surprising at all. But before that let’s pick on that coffee shop called ‘Editors Guild’ (EG). For those who came in late, the EG club is nothing but the usual kitty party that rich ladies host with friends to kill time and money except that the EG kills reputations and truth. This is the same EG, when Rajdeep Sardesai was its head, which also sought to bury the Radiagate conspiracy that involved Barkha Dutt and some other journalists. Most of the EG members are your friendly regular crooks. So why would the crooks want policing? Aha! There you are! So when members of this EG appeared before the standing committee of the parliament for the Lokpal bill they were unanimous – Media should not be under Lokpal.

Outlook reports: “Representatives of the Guild led by its President T N Ninan appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice and Personnel here and said since media was a "private body" it should not be brought under the ambit of the anti-corruption watchdog”. A private body? Hmm! Let’s see, they get to peddle opinions to the masses, they get government quota on housing, they get political ads, they get govt ads some of which are mandatory and they exercise powers like many private businesses don’t. In short, they want all the luxuries of government money and accountability to none. Sounds pretty much like NGOs who also don’t want to be under the Lokpal. Funnier still is that Committee Chairman, Abhishek Singhvi, records that the Guild members have stated their views "clearly and provocatively".

Here are some more scathing observations by MK (All of this in an interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN): 

Indian media is, very often, playing an anti-people role. Let me give you that in three respects. Number one, it often diverts the attention of the people from the real problems which are basically economic. 80 per cent of the people are living in horrible poverty, unemployment, facing price rise, healthcare etc. You divert attention from those problems and instead you project filmstars and fashion parades and cricket as if they are the problems of the people.....

I think it is even worse. I think it is deliberate action of the media to divide the people on religious lines and that is totally against the national interest.....

Yes, the general rut is very low and I have a poor opinion of most media people. Frankly, I don't think they have much knowledge of economic theory or political science or literature or philosophy. I don't think they have studied all this.....

See very often I find those debates totally frivolous. First of all there is no discipline. If there are four people on the panel, all speaking at the same time, is this the way disciplined people should behave? When you speak, I will never interrupt you. But why should you interrupt me when I am speaking?

The majority, I'm sorry to say, are of a very poor intellectual level, media people, I doubt whether they have any idea of economic theory or political science, philosophy, literature, I have grave doubts whether they are well read in all this, which they should be.....

MK is not saying anything new. Such thoughts on the news media have already been voiced over and over again by many in the social media, including on this blog. In response to MK’s statements Karan Thapar points to the National Broadcasters Association (NBA) as a self-regulating body for TV channels. Unlike the PCI, the NBA is not a statutory body and therefore is really not accountable to anyone just as the TV channels are not. MK wants the electronic media also to be under the PCI and for it to be renamed as ‘Media Council’. MK would need to substantially revamp the PCI too. It is the same body that buried its own ‘paid news’ report because most of the members are crooks themselves.

Some of the credit for the collapse of credibility of news channels has to go to some media celebrities like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami, Shekhar Gupta, Vir Sangvi, Sagarika Ghose and more. They are responsible for vitiating the atmosphere so much that any sensible discussion of national issues is simply impossible. And they know the kind of panellists they need to pick who can kick and scream and talk over each other. Of the many great people available in this country you can trust the news media to pick on the most uncouth and uncivilised characters as their panellists. They don’t want a decent debate, they want the drama and the spin. Some of the people that adorn the TV screens actually need to be in prison for some of the worst offences. Some of the channels need to be shut down.

How Justice Katju deals with the crooks, only time will tell. But there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that the new chief of PCI is finally one who is with the people and the country.

Rahul Gandhi - Withdrawal Symptoms

“He has leadership and it is evolving. Rahul does not need to grab power." Digvijaya, in an interview to Headlines Today Executive Editor Rahul Kanwal. Kanwal didn’t ask Digvijay an important question about his comment on RG. A few months ago, on Rahul Gandhi’s birthday in June, Digvijay Singh had declared “I think it is time Rahul becomes the Prime Minister”. Secondly, no one has accused RG of trying to grab power. So why the defence by Digvijay? Even if his cronies, like Digvijay don’t tell him, I am quite certain RG is aware of the many nicknames he has earned. Here are a few: Pappu, Babloo, Amul Baby, Buddhu, RahulRetard, OwlGandhi, ClownPrince and the list could go on. I doubt any ‘evolving leader’ has earned so many titles in a short time. Sure, simply dismiss those people as ones who just hate RG. The carefully crafted media plan and that of the Congress slaves of the dynasty is slowly coming undone. Ever since the mounds of ash and dead bodies of Bhatta Parsaul Rahul Gandhi is, in reality, running from his own shadow. And if Rahul Gandhi does have his ‘own mind’ why does someone like Digvijay have to speak for him so often? Far from ‘Rahul evolving’ there is evidence of withdrawal symptoms. 

The SpiceGirls, a girl-band of the UK, churned out hit after hit during 1996-97 and had become a rage. Britain, devoid of any great accomplishments in recent history, used marketing as a tool to promote personalities. Even David Beckham the footballer fumbled at major events prompting some commentators to bestow him the title “Anna Kournikova of football”. But Beckham did have talent and great performances to back him. What about the SpiceGirls? Well, the first time they went on stage live the crowds discovered the girls couldn’t really sing all that well. They came crashing. They were just studio-creations and not real singers. The media marketing blitz came crashing too. I would liken Rahul Gandhi to the case of SpiceGirls or AnnaKournikova, too much hype by the media and his supporters but lacking in real substance. Rahul Gandhi is, very much, the Anna Kournikova of Indian politics.

 

Ever since his dramatic Bhatta Parsaul discoveries of mounds of ash and dead bodies RG went into hiding for a while, only to resurface during Anna Hazare’s fast in August 2011. (Lately, Congress channel NDTV is desperate to prove he was right.)While the Anna agitation was proving to be a thorn our evolving leader rushes off to meet victims of police firing near Pune. Not a bad idea but the only response he has to Anna’s agitation is a written speech during zero hour in the parliament. He sought constitutional status for the Lokpal. That’s not all, he patted himself by calling it a “game-changer”. That was humility! Hahaha! Having seen the goof up the Congress ministers, like Salman Khurshid, somehow now want to shore up the ‘great vision' of RG in turning the Lokpal into a constitutional authority.

If at 41 RG is still evolving then I have to wonder when he will mature. There have been at least six or seven people who have been prime ministers or presidents around RG’s age, including his own father. For the record, William Pitt (The younger) was the youngest PM of the UK at age 24. Not just that, Pitt went on to be PM for 17 years. What does it say about a man about whom someone like Renuka Chaudhary, Congress spokesperson, had to say that “he is not a parrot”! He runs around schools and colleges and talks to students where cameras and media are banned. He suddenly dashes off to trouble spots like Bharatpur to sympathise with riot victims, sometimes wearing a skull cap.And the only channel that seems to be allowed to cover him is NDTV. His Bharatpur visit was shown on NDTV in grainy mobile videos. Later his stunt on a Delhi metro train and taxi ride was also reported on NDTV. So he even gets to pick the media he likes and is friendly to him. Evolving connectivity, I suppose!

Someone mentioned RG had a drug addiction problem and Tehelka even defended it. Yes, people do make mistakes. But it’s how they handle responsibility that counts. And what exactly is RG’s responsibility. Failed in Bihar, failed in Tamil Nadu, did he own up to any responsibility? Bihar is all the more shocking where his campaign leadership not only resulted in a severe loss but more or less wiped out his party. And reading written down speeches (God knows who writes those) without having to do a Q&A after it is a reflection of a person who does not have the slightest conviction in what he’s talking about.

Following the Anna agitation and Team Anna’s promised campaign against Congress in the Hisar bypoll one would have expected a leader to stand up and fight. What does RG do? He rushes off to Jhansi, for heaven knows why, and meets up with a Dalit family for dinner. You have an election battle that is being rated as a decisive bypoll and RG is nowhere to be seen. It’s not a shame to lose an election battle. It’s a shame to not even put up a fight by the so called evolving leader. And Hisar isn’t very far from Delhi either.The fear of failure is a serious withdrawal symptom in any supposed leader, even 'evolving' ones.

TOI in an article states (Oct 24): “It has now emerged that Rahul was at least partly responsible for the PM's insistence that Union ministers' spouses and children should also disclose their assets”. That is nice, it’s not as if RG does not have good intentions, it is just that he doesn’t have the talent or the courage to take issues head on. And whenever he speaks impromptu he betrays a severe lack of knowledge and intelligence. The more his gaffes are exposed the more he shrinks into a shell. The letter about family disclosing assets should have been extended further to include his own – Robert Vadra. The phenomenal rise in the reported wealth of Vadra surely does not seem to be mere business acumen.

If the Bhatta Parsaul comedy wasn’t enough, RG had to face some more sordid moments in front of cameras. His visit to the RML hospital after the Delhi HC blast on September 7 gave him a taste of something he had never experienced before – heckling and booing. Even though he might have been genuinely concerned for victims of the blast he has been so cocooned that he doesn’t learn how angry people are at his party. His own silly statements of RSS=SIMI etc., tutored by his mentor, reflect his thoughtlessness on issues of terrorism and suffering. Prior to the Delhi blast his "99% terror attacks averted" statement after the Mumbai blast was another instance of stupidity and bad timing, if not ill-intentioned.

Last week RG also gave a speech on globalisation. This was at an event at ‘Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies’. The speech sounds like a cross between Arundhati Roy and Aruna Roy. “There was only one India 60 years ago and it was poor. That India was completely unconnected, both internally and externally. But India today has changed and is changing as we speak” said Gandhi. This reflects very poor understanding of history itself. There were rich people, very rich people, even 60 years ago as there were poor. There were zamindars, nizams, businessmen. The thought and longing from freedom from the British connected many Indians. If there is one party to be held responsible for damaging the aspirations of a free India it has to be the Congress. Why? Because for most part it was Congress that was dividing the nation at every single opportunity. The two Indias, which is RG’s pet theory, is a creation of his own party. What does it say about a two bit man-child who runs off to some European location to celebrate his birthday? If anyone has to introspect it has to be the Congress and not the people. In July 2011 RG is reported to have stated that “UP is being run by Dalals”. Hmm! Who’s running the Congress?

One of the funny reports about RG’s speech last week comes from SunetraChoudhury. “To find out this somewhat inane fact (Blackberry addiction), I, along with journalists representing all major news organisations, had to pass through an obstacle course that included arriving more than an hour before the event, being separated from all our own communication devices, and then sitting through long, academic lectures. Yes, us foolish hacks did all this to hear the elusive Gandhi express his views on some of the urgent issues facing the nation, but all we got was a balcony view of Gandhi toying with his phone and sneaking glances at it while others were speaking……The argument that his supporters and Congressmen make is that it is real India that matters and its voters are the ones that the UPA government needs to engage with. So does that mean the people who came from Ralegan Siddhi weren’t from the real India? Is that why the villagers, who announced their intention to meet Gandhi days before, were humiliated till the last minute? Gandhi’s office simply said that no appointment had been granted to them so there was no question of an audience. But don’t they get the ridiculousness of asking villagers to get an appointment?” Withdrawal!

The ridiculous incident with the Sarpanch and villagers of Ralegan Siddhi says it all about his connection with rural India. As far as I can see the behavioral patterns of RG are not of one who has evolved as a leader or whose understanding of issues has evolved into a direction or vision. He only seems to have developed serious withdrawal symptoms from real issues and is happy to read out speeches written by others. Maybe his mother’s illness has some influence on that. But clearly this is a man who cannot face any challenges and is unfit for any leadership role. If there was a title I would bestow upon him it would probably be Miss ‘Hit and Run’. A man who cannot honestly reform his own corrupt party can hardly be expected to handle a nation or international issues. He was heckled and faced protests in own constituency of Amethi during a recent visit. That done, he can now withdraw to a Dalit dinner in some corner of one of the Indias.

Team Anna - Goodwill Blunting

From the time you learned to read you were probably brought up in the belief that journalism is a noble profession. You were taught about ethical journalism through which facts are brought to you and journalists are obliged to speak the truth. As you acquire wisdom you would have also learned that all that is just as much a myth as the Aryan invasion. Journalism and news media are as much a business as Shoe-making and selling or running a Barber shop. All of it is meant to ‘serve your interests’ as you’d often hear. To put it differently ‘viewer or reader interest’. Believe it or not, ethics and journalism go together as much politics and ethics go together in current times.

Celebs like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami or Sagarika Ghose, Vinod Mehta, Vinod Sharma, Shekhar Gupta and many more are not journalists. They are ‘editorialists’ whose job is to swing public opinion one way or another, which they attempt diligently. Subramanian Swamy even stated that Shekhar Gupta has properties worth over 20 times of his known income and so has to ‘behave’ for Sonia Gandhi. Would any man with any ethics tolerate such a comment? You decide! NDTV even had a prominent tagline: “Experience Truth First”. I haven’t seen that tagline in a long time. Wonder if it went into the garbage can. CNN-IBN tagline says “Whatever it takes”! IBN didn’t stop to think that in normal parlance that can also mean by ‘hook or crook’. Effectively, news media business is only as ethical as a shoe business or a barber shop. Frankly, they don’t give a damn about the viewer or public but only about their paymasters. This is what Team Anna managed well in the first phase and later fell prey to the evil designs of the media.

So what exactly is the media agenda? BRING DOWN any person or group that goes against their paymasters, as simple as that. I am surprised Team Anna doesn’t know this.

During the two-week fast by Anna Hazare in August 2011 there was a ground swell of support for his movement all across India. Crowds waited outside Tihar jail where Anna was held for a few days. Team Anna, as his assistants have come to be known had become symbols of the crusade against corruption. By the time the fast ended they were all more or less heroes in a scam-tired nation. Among the more prominent ones were Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan, Medha Patkar and Shazia Ilmi. The media didn’t ‘make’ them (to use a mafia term) but were forced to pay attention due to the overwhelming support of people. It was truly their peak and ever since, it has been downhill.

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! When you seethe you begin with Ag-Ni-Vesh! Hmmm! During the first round of fasts at Jantar Mantar in April this is what I wrote on April 10: “First, corruption is a sore wound that hurts all citizens. Anna got it right. Then, it was important to get some honest and credible people into his campaign. So there was Anil Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi (I am not sure I want to put Swami Agnivesh in that league)”. Later events proved beyond any doubt that Agnivesh, a morally corrupt moron, didn’t deserve to be anywhere near the anti-corruption movement. Did Team Anna learn any lessons? Doesn’t look like it. That’s where the problem starts.

A few days ago I watched an interview of Arvind Kejriwal (AK) with Barkha Dutt on NDTV. The chat was so warm I could even call it love and affection. Well, on hindsight I can now say that AK was informed that he was NDTV’s ‘Indian of the year’ award winner. He must have already known and so the interview. Two days later AK does receive that award. That’s the icing on the cake of silly acts by Team Anna. If you are campaigning for a public cause, the last thing you should be doing is accepting an award from a dubious media shop. But that is not where it began.

Kiran Bedi did an impromptu ‘ghoongat’ dance about politicians with a mask during the fast in August. MPs even wanted to prosecute her. People supported her and she was lucky to get away with that silly act. Now, if the entire movement is against corruption and cleanliness in public life why do these people go about giving sound bites about unrelated issues? Starting with Prashant Bhushan’s comments on Kashmir which earned him a thrashing to comments about Sanjiv Bhatt Team Anna simply failed to understand that being in the media spotlight beyond a point can be damaging.

Last month Rajdeep, Barkha  and Rahul Kanwal went on a picnic to Ralegan Siddhi, hometown of Anna Hazare and each did an ‘exclusive’ interview with almost similar questions. Each tried to somehow trap Anna into the questions of RSS, Digvijay comments and so on. Anna bites! The objective of media celebs to support the Congress theory that RSS is evil and any association with it has to be demonised is an agenda set by their paymasters. Anna fell into that trap.

Hmmm! A few days later Sanjiv Bhatt is arrested in Gujarat for some offence and instantly Anna Hazare condemns the arrest of the so called ‘whistle-blower’. So does Kiran Bedi. Who the hell asked you people? Without touching upon the merits of the case to simply support Sanjiv Bhatt because it is anti-Modi is another trap Team Anna has fallen into. Kiran Bedi was so foolish that she failed to grasp the kind of support Modi has. After tweeting and condemning Modi all day long she had to tone down her nonsense on the same day and speak glowingly of Gujarat and her Gujarati friends and so on. Did her tweets delight the media? You bet! And if that wasn’t enough there is always gutter-mouth Digvijay Singh to throw more fuel at Anna. Pretty soon Digvijay V Anna was a street fight that became a joy for the media. Somewhere else AK’s statement of people and Anna being above parliament was widely publicised as “Anna is above parliament”. AK doesn’t seem to have learnt how the media likes to twist mild statements. Each time Anna or his team members opened their mouths the public couldn’t believe these people had become such a dysfunctional group like the govt.

If corruption was the main issue for the group where was the need to talk about Kashmir, Sanjiv Bhatt and more? Did the people give Team Anna a blanket license to talk crap on every issue like politicians? They did not! But that is how some fame in the media leads people to believe they have that license. Each time a member opened his or her mouth the team was eroding the support they worked so hard to earn. Two of the team members who aren’t so prominent have withdrawn because of the manner of AK’s working. Prashant Bhushan’s continuance with the team will bring more damage so he is more or less out. And Kiran Bedi and Kejriwal don't know when to shut up. That’s the problem being in the media. The media simply loves to destroy reputations and groups. Like scavengers they would love to feast on the disintegration of Team Anna. This is something Anna, Kejriwal and Bedi do not understand. The media works for its paymasters who happen to be the target for Team Anna. As on date Kiran Bedi’s flight details, her usage of her gallantry award for discounts is being splashed around by Shekhar Gupta’s Indian Express and NDTV. Maybe she will now understand that the media will do a hit job on her to please their paymasters.

Arvind Kejriwal increasingly comes across as an arrogant, bashful kid. This is what NDTV needed to play on. If the fight against corruption was an award winning effort then an award should have been given to Team Anna. Instead, NDTV picks the gullible AK and bestows him the sham award of ‘Indian of the year’ (jointly with Anna Hazare, of course). Even the Roman spy in Asterix comics couldn’t have done better than NDTV. Job well done! And Kejriwal gleefully falls into that trap. To top it all AK goes all out to campaign against the Congress in the Hisar by-poll. That is another act uncalled for. The three most vocal persons in Team Anna have slowly managed to erode all the goodwill that they have earned. Media is full of reports of cracks within Team Anna. Next time Anna and his team are on the streets they will find how much support has vanished.

Currently, people are sick of the excessive promotion that SRK has undertaken for his movie Ra-One. Seeing his face on every channel 24X7 is a repulsive experience for many viewers. Even SRK’s die-hard fans will admit the excess. Team Anna needs to learn from that. Being in the media too much is self-destructive by itself. And helping the media with controversies that help the adversary is a blunder that novices make. It will take some introspection for Team Anna to analyse what they have lost. It’s called goodwill blunting!

Barkha Dutt - Queen Of Telly Trolls

A fired journalist creates a fictitious letter from John Doe, as her last column, who threatens to commit suicide for society’s ills. The letter enjoys wide public curiosity and the journalist is hired back. Also hired is a character to play the fictitious John Doe. Before the journalist and her employer know it, John Doe’s movement becomes a real political movement and he really attempts suicide. That’s the story of Frank Capra’s 1941 movie ‘Meet John Doe’. Closer home, Bollywood remade that movie as ‘Main Azaad Hoon’featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Shabana Azmi. In the Bollywood version Bachchan does actually commit suicide. These are works of fiction but good examples of how far journalists can go for sensational stories and lucrative careers. However, there is every reason to believe that even in real life many stories are manufactured, especially in the new dreamland of Indian media. Fame, wealth can lure the best to fake stories and slanted reporting and planted stories.

Not convinced? Okay! In an article titled "Jimmy's World", which appeared in the Washington Post on September 28, 1980, Janet Cooke wrote a gripping profile of the life of an 8-year-old heroin addict. She described the "needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin, brown arms." The story engendered much sympathy among readers, including Marion Barry, then mayor of Washington, D.C. He and other city officials organized an all-out police search for the boy, which was unsuccessful and led to claims that the story was fraudulent. Barry, responding to public pressure, lied and claimed that Jimmy was known to the city and receiving treatment. Well, despite suspicions, the Post’s Assistant Managing Editor, Bob Woodward of the Watergate fame, stood by the story. Janet Cooke went on to win the Pulitzer prize for her story. It was finally established that the story was a fraud and Cooke returned the prize and was fired from the WaPo.

TV news media is not all that old in India but has acquired all the bad symptoms of shoddy journalism very quickly. Imagine the luck of TimesNow that the thrashing of Prashant Bhushan happened right in front of their cameras. And they went on to film the whole scene without pausing to think. Soon the scenes were on all the channels. The reason for beating up Bhushan was a statement he made supporting plebiscite in Kashmir. The incident was enough to set up discussions on all news channels with the usual suspects turning up as panellists. And the usual rant was about freedom of speech and intolerance. But this one is about a particular telly troll who considers herself the champion of free speech. Barkha Dutt. Except for some hot heads I don’t even believe anyone would remotely condone the thrashing of Prashant Bhushan. But BD would like the world to believe that there is a huge population of hot heads are spreading hate and encouraging violence.

Now personally, I support ABSOLUTE freedom of speech with no limits and no restrictions. If in that exercise someone defames, libels, incites violence or overthrow of the state or causes real damage to any person or group the courts can make him pay the price. Those who call themselves liberal and tolerant will never support that kind of absolute free speech. Why? Because it would then open the door to speech against the very things they hold dear – their fears, their biases and their hidden agendas. Barkha is fond of calling people who vehemently criticise or ridicule her ‘trolls’. Barkha was even silly enough to threaten a blogger for an article criticising her. That is the level of tolerance she has for opinions and criticism. After peddling all possible biased opinions and analysis on her channel, she then finds solace in sermonising in print. Therefore she writes another article “Argue your case” in Hindustan Times. That this media outlet is a mouthpiece of the Congress is not exactly a big secret, but that’s a different issue.

Her opening shot: “One would have imagined that increased communication opportunities would have led to a greater civility in public discourse. After all, the internet and social media have democratised debate and eliminated the arrogance of a hierarchical talking-down style. Yet, lurking online - usually behind anonymity or names that suggest an evangelical religiosity - are many propagators of hate and violence”. Maybe in her dreamworld Barkha doesn’t understand that the Internet didn’t bring about hate or violence. They have existed for eons. The social network just provides a vent where every other forum has failed. Would NDTV publish all the feedback it gets (if it does have a feedback system) including hateful, negative ones? People in public life need to get used to ridicule, sarcasm, satire and even hate messages. Someone saying “I feel like killing so and so” is not exactly a violent threat. It’s an expression that the literary types like Barkha fail to understand even as they invoke Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll so frequently.

 “What lessons can we learn from our own experience? Is it that as our country travels through a phase of restless flux - the sense of being betrayed by the political leadership - all kinds of subterranean faultlines are being exposed? My instinct is that disillusionments notwithstanding, the majority of Indians are uncomfortable with extremes of any kind - opinion, ideology, politics or religion. Yet, our public discourse has been slotted into black and white boxes in a manner that can only be called anti-intellectual”. The main reason for the hate and ridicule Barkha experiences seems completely lost on her. That biased reporting and opinionated TV shows anger people. As in the case of Cooke’s fraudulent story that won the Pulitzer prize, there is a former Admiral who has mentioned that a lady journalist was the cause of some deaths in the Kargil war. The lessons that Barkha hasn’t learned yet is that terms like Paidmedia, Chormedia, Dalalmedia didn’t come about because people simply wanted to sit in a corner and spread hate or coin new terms.

That many had suspicions of Barkha’s reporting and her doctored panel discussions was finally established when the Radia tapes broke. Amazingly, unlike Janet Cooke, Barkha continues to retain her job. Why? It is something nobody knows but it’s quite possible that she holds many secrets about NDTV and therefore sacking her may not have been a good idea. And she also forgets that much of the anger against her is generated by the kind of people she hosts. She proudly claims that she cut off and never had that Imam Bukhari on her shows after he had called Shabana Azmi a ‘naachnewali, gaanewali’ on her show. There was Taslima Nasreen who was attacked in Hyderabad by the group belonging to A. Owaisi. So why does she host this Owaisi so frequently? The man is foul mouthed, vulgar and has also stated on NDTV that he wants all Indians to convert to Islam. I guess those are ‘liberal’ views that Indians should tolerate and get past.

There is an old case of the publisher of a book called “Rangeela Rasool” about Mohammad. He was murdered. I wonder what Barkha would ever have to say about that. To not acknowledge that much of the intolerance that has invaded this country comes from religious sentiments is to ignore reality. The Kashmir issue also has its roots in religion. Some hotheads thrashing up someone does not mean society as a whole has become intolerant. If anything, it is the so called liberals in the media and in the establishment who have become intolerant of any opposing views. That’s the reason Barkha finds so many trolls on the net and has to use the block button so often.

“Anna's Team clearly struck a chord and tapped into a deep public anger. So, it was not surprising at all when its members were heralded as new-age heroes. Yet, the moment, any member of the team deviated from a certain kind of online consensus, they were heaped with abuses and vitriol. Whether it was Kiran Bedi's criticism of the arbitrary arrest of IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt or Prashant Bhushan's comments on Kashmir and Maoist violence - suddenly the same individuals who had been feted were now being roundly condemned. When I argued on Twitter that serious disagreement with his comments could not in any way justify the sickening assault on Prashant Bhushan, I was immediately targeted by some of these 'trolls' for supporting traitors”. That’s a strange twist of facts. That Anna or his team were feted by people doesn’t mean a permanent fan-base. Barkha must finally realise that such support is for causes and not a blanket sanction. Kiran Bedi tweeted a lot of rubbish about Gujarat and Modi in the case of Sanjiv Bhatt’s arrest. By the end of the day she had changed her stance about Gujaratis. She did not differentiate between Gujarat and Sanjiv Bhatt. The second lie that Barkha peddles is that she makes it appear that online people approved of the thrashing of Bhushan. On the contrary a very huge majority of people online condemned the attack while also stating that his comment was bad. Even Sachin Tendulkar, God of cricket, would have received severe condemnation had he made the same statement as Bhushan. And yes, no one would approve of beating up Sachin either had such an incident were to happen.

How can anyone explain Mallika Sarabhai as a panellist in the case of tolerance? She lies profusely and her own lawyers have exposed her lies. Yet the media insults the public’s intelligence by hosting her frequently. That, dear Barkha, does anger people. NDTV frequently hosts Teesta Setalvad who has been exposed for fake affidavits. That, dear Barkha, does anger people. When Radiagate broke the first response of Barkha Dutt was not “argue your case”… it was a threat, probably of legal action. Barkha also forgets, that it’s the social networks that brought pressure on the MSM to discuss her Radiagate episode when her Hammam friend and others tried desperately to bury it. The media has gone overboard with the case of Bhushan. The same media didn’t find time to discuss the death of a woman called Rajbala who was a peaceful protester and following police atrocity was paralysed and later died. I suppose Rajbala’s death falls within liberal tolerance for the likes of Barkha Dutt.

While Barkha complains about online ghosts and calls them trolls she forgets that like Vicky (Bachchan in the movie Sharabi who has chamchas “wah-wahing” his stupid Shayari) she too has her followers who wah-wah everything she does. Be grateful for that and stop sermonising the trolls. Some of her fans even cite the awards she has won. Well, I did point out the case of Janet Cooke who was awarded a Pulitzer for a fake story. Media awards in India are more of scratching backs than anything else. As far as I am concerned Barkha Dutt is just a Telly troll… who trolls a lot more than any of those online ones she constantly complains of. She is, on TV, the queen of trolls!