My gut
feeling says nobody in India gives a damn about elections in Pakistan except
for a general knowledge of the final outcome. Some party that Nawaz Sharif
heads won the elections and he will be sworn in PM. There are exceptions
though. The only ones who care about what happens in Pakistan are in the GOI,
the track2 establishment, some power-mongers in our news media, the Scotch
circuit and Bollywood. And then there is the “Evoluter” Barkha Dutt. She is a specialist in “evolving” leaders
and personalities. I’m sure readers of this blog remember her “Evolution of Rahul Gandhi”. She has tried very hard with the “evolution of Imran Khan” too and failed again.
So it’s not
just Barkha Dutt (BD) but Rajdeep Sardesai (RS) also wants us to
learn lessons from Pakistan. I would rather you read the book ‘Leadership
secrets of Attila the Hun’ but never mind. So both RS and BD turn to the mother-ship
of their ‘Unholy Trinity’, Hindustan Times, to write on the lessons to be
learnt from Pak elections. RS calls it “Bowling
a dot ball” and BD simply calls it “Lessons
from Pakistan”. Considering RS is a Cricket lover his title is natural and
considering BD is a Pakistan lover her title is natural too. But when you look
at the content, both are deceptively identical. That’s their talent – deception. What both are trying to do
is to draw lessons from Imran Khan’s failure to win and equate it to another
forceful personality in Indian politics. Do you really want me to name that
Indian personality? I don’t think so and these two propagandists don’t name him
or anyone directly either.
But on an
overall assessment Rajdeep does make a lot more sense than Barkha. It’s merely
because when he is off TV RS puts a lot
of thought behind what he writes or says and I have said this often. Here’s
something critical that RS writes in his piece:
“Imran’s cheerleaders genuinely believed that the youth of the
country was fully behind him. The social media campaigns were seen to be a
critical element of this age group’s desire for change. Imran was able to
harness social media effectively and draw new faces into his political party,
but when it came to the crunch it became clear the ‘youth’ factor was a little
exaggerated as was the appeal of a twitter and facebook generation. The social
network universe will always be lesser than the political universe. In the heat
and dust of the countryside, it doesn’t really matter how many followers you
have on twitter. These followers can create an echo effect across media
platforms; what they cannot do is influence voting patterns across a diverse
population”.
Fair enough!
But who in hell ever told RS or any MSM person that SM claimed it would
influence elections? Nobody did, except
the fakes in the MSM. Secondly, the lesson that RS draws is truly
applicable to Arvind Kejriwal &
his party rather than the “other person”
that RS is targeting. The other person that RS targets with his comments has
worked his way up from scratch and has proven electoral success against the
severest propaganda, vilification and witch-hunt by RS & Co. In contrast,
Imran Khan has received tremendous bootlicking from the media, including Indian
media. That’s a major difference. So it has nothing to do with SM. The awful
truth is that anything that TV and MSM hype falls flat on the ground. But RS
has been largely fair in his assessment. So let’s get to BD for whom Pakistan
is second home as it is for her channel, NDTV. Take a look at these pics. They
are all from all the interviews she has held with Imran Khan in the last two
years, at least 4 of them.
These are
four of them and there could be other interviews that I may have missed. Then
just before the elections when Imran was injured BD found a substitute in his
sister Aleema and interviewed her in the hospital that treated Imran. The first
pic (with BD in green) is where Barkha mentioned the “evolution of Imran Khan”. I’m not joking you can hear it on Youtube. This is when she was
talking about his autobiography and so enamoured was she that she was even
discussing his hairstyle. Is that all? No! After her September 2012 interview
with Imran, NDTV headlined that he would like to borrow from Bihar CM Nitish
Kumar. Ah yes, Nitish the “secular messiah”.
I get a
feeling Nitish Kumar might get a scare if he finds out Imran borrowed
from him and failed. And she claims Pak media pays him too much attention. And
after all the swooning over him BD writes:
“As the eventual outcome shows one man (Imran) had overstated his performance without a trace
of self-doubt; the other (Sharif) ended up being so cautious that the scale of
his victory came as a surprise even to him…. Imran Khan's innings are proof
that media googlies aren't enough to bowl out an old-style veteran of politics.
The media in Pakistan had virtually anointed Khan as victor before the votes
could be cast or counted”. Really? But does the media anywhere learn any
lessons? Has Barkha learnt any lessons from her evolution of the Gandhi prior
to UP elections? It doesn’t seem so. Why else would she and her channel be so
heavily addicted to Imran Khan? And all these googlies were only from Pak media
and not from her? Laugh till you die!
Now let’s
see what she concludes and then what Rajdeep concludes. It makes quite
interesting reading:
BD: For us in the media there is also a message in what happens
when you script a complex political battle as a clash of personalities. It's a
global news instinct and one that makes for better copy. But at the same time
it often defies the arithmetic of what makes a party win in a parliamentary
democracy. Elections in our part of the world are not a contest between
personality cults. The face-off between the Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi
camps, online and offline, may have precious little to do with the reasons for
victory and defeat in 2014.
RS: Finally, Imran’s mixed results in these elections reveal the
limitation of charisma in sub-continental politics. Yes, there have been film
stars who have achieved some success in electoral politics. MGR and NTR truly
stand out in this context, cinematic legends who were able to transfer their
celluloid power onto the political stage in spectacular fashion. But MGR in
particular had a strong AIADMK network to assist him; his folk hero image was a
bonus. Other ‘star’ politicians have realised that politics is more than just
dialogue delivery and good looks.
I cannot
help believing that these two people never look in the mirror. Who scripted the
Rahul-Modi combat? No one except the media! As far as I know and even genuinely
honest observers will admit Rahul is a total non-performer, has shown no
accountability and his utterances are so full of stupidity that any comparison
to Modi is even comic. But the media does this to protect the queen, Sonia Gandhi as I have said repeatedly.
The media is willing to make RahulG the sacrificial goat against Modi while
making sure they keep all the weaknesses, drawbacks and incompetence of Sonia
Gandhi cloaked from exposure. 2014 is not a battle between Rahul and Modi as
our media morons keep repeating deceptively like a parrot. It’s a battle
between Modi and SoniaG. I would say even Imran Khan is a better political leader
than RahulG any single day. He has proven leadership at least in some
endeavour.
Lastly, both
RS and BD peddle this atrocious fallacy in their articles in different words. Let
me use BD’s words: “Finally, in the absolute decimation
of the party that the Bhuttos built is a message that lineage and ancestry only
carry you so far in politics and no further. Misgovernance, inefficiency and
corruption will be punished by voters, no matter how glamorous or brave one's
pedigree is. Assumptions based on privilege; charm and charisma; media
endorsements - none of these are accurate clues to the mind of the voter. So
beware all those who claim to know what will happen in 2014”.
Both RS and
BD demonstrate a fear that the Gandhis, that they have so faithfully served all
these years, may meet the same fate as the Bhuttos. But they mislead when they
say that lineage and ancestry carry you only so far. Coming from a slave media
that is the worst untruth you will hear. Nehru, Gandhi, Gandhi, Gandhi and
again another Gandhi is what has ailed India all this while. A mature media
should have been instrumental in getting the people out of the clutches of
slavery to lineage and ancestry. In contrast, both RS and BD have the deepest
contempt for the guy who rose even when he doesn’t have such lineage and
ancestry and started life as a “Chaiwalla”. So both these media celebs continue
their proven hypocrisy.
It is not
Indians who need to learn a lesson from Pakistan but Barkha who seriously needs
to do so. She must learn that all her propaganda has failed electorally. She
failed to evolve Rahul Gandhi and she failed to evolve Imran Khan. Does she
have it in her to learn and change tracks and serve the cause of genuine
reporting? Evolution awaits her!
