Rushdie Interview - Barkha V Sagarika: Who Won?

Talk about a collision, like a Salman Khan and Aamir Khan movie releasing on the same day. Won’t happen anytime soon! So let’s make do with a smaller version: The Salman Rushdie interviews by Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose. Both aired at the same slot of 10pm on Monday, September 17. I’m sure both NDTV and CNN-IBN will compare notes on TRP ratings by TAM soon. BD and SG must be the only two media celebs in the world who rushed to London to interview Rushdie over his latest book ‘Joseph Anton’. That’s the name he seems to have used while on the run from the Fatwa and it’s his memoirs. The book is about his life, the Fatwa, life in hiding, free speech etc. from what I gather. I’m not a literary type so won’t make any comments on Rushdie’s writings. (Umm .. it’s actually because I haven’t read any of his work).

So some people must have had a little problem on which interview to watch. What if there were an actual direct debate between BD and SG over Rushdie’s new book? Wouldn’t that be a good fight? Both are from St. Stephens, both PGs from foreign universities. Who would win? Comparisons are fun. I always wanted to compare the original ‘Sholay’ with RGV’s ‘Sholay’ and will do that as soon as RGV’s version releases. But in the meantime let’s find out which interview was better; Barkha’s or Sagarika’s. Who won? Want a quick opinion? Well, I don’t have one. So we must measure both on on multiple points. Both had rushed to interview Rushdie for the 96th time but considering this was over his new book let’s see how well they have stuck to the topic and overall presentation.

What we'll do is take different segments and parts of the interviews and their presentation and score them. Of course, relevance of the interview to the topic, which is supposedly over Rushdie’s new book will count.

Round 1: Screen aesthetics – NDTV shows a much clearer visual while CNN-IBN frequently clutters its screen. The annoyance to the viewer cannot be underestimated.

Score: Barkha-1, Sagarika-0.

Round 2: Title of the show (these are also links to the website and video) and how indicative it is to the relevance and focus on the topic:

NDTV:        Full transcript: NDTV’s Exclusive interview with Salman Rushdie.

CNN-IBN:  Rushdie Uncensored: ‘Hindu intolerance as bad as Muslims’

Even though NDTV’s headline is quite ordinary and the interview not really exclusive it does not misrepresent. CNN-IBN on the other hand makes it a communal match between Hindus & Muslims which was hardly relevant to ‘Joseph Anton’ which was the primary reason for the interview. In fact Sagarika twists a Rushdie statement to create a sensational headline from her imagination.

Score: Barkha-1, Sagarika-0. Cumulative: Barkha-2, Sagarika-0.

Round 3: Opening introduction

NDTV opens with Barkha’s introduction from the streets of London where the interview took place and gives a glimpse of the place. CNN-IBN opens with scenes of violence, explosion, and flames as if the chat was about a disastrous communal battle. The scenes were not relevant.

Score: Barkha-1, Sagarika-0. Cumulative: Barkha-3, Sagarika-0.

Round 4: Some key elements in the interview: (One can pick a lot more but these are just a few that could be used as indicators)

a)  The videos last 48.46 and 42.53 minutes respectively. This indicates NDTV has stayed within the   12 minutes per hour limit for commercials while CNN-IBN has violated that rule. CNN-IBN should actually be penalised for this violation. (Barkha-1, Sagarika-0)

b)  The transcript of NDTV has over 5000 words more than CNN-IBN. The difference is amazing. CNN-IBN may like to investigate why such a huge gap. So in a one-hour program NDTV offered more content than CNN-IBN. That is more content value for the hour. (Barkha-1, Sagarika-0)

c)  Islam and Muslims being at the core of Rushdie’s problems and the main reason why he was 'Joseph Anton', Sagarika made more references to those than Barkha. (Barkha-0, Sagarika-1)

d)  Intolerance by religions is important to Rushdie’s situation. Barkha didn’t mention the word at all. Though Sagarika seemed intent on washing sins of Muslim violence by bringing in Hindutva, the question of intolerance is very relevant. (Barkha-0, Sagarika-1)

e)  Negative impact for bringing in irrelevant issues to the interview resulting in “leading questions”. Barkha brings up her pet project of Imran Khan and Sagarika tries to balance Muslim intolerance by bringing in Hindus. (Scores even)

Score: Barkha-2, Sagarika-2. Cumulative: Barkha-5, Sagarika-2.

Round 5: Individual distractions

There are ground rules about a speech or a presentation: Avoid distractions. I could not find Sagarika with any distractive element. She was attired for the occasion and the weather. On the other hand Barkha after her opening sequence had a large distraction. See the two pics and spot the difference. Her right hand fingers are bare in the left pic while on the right she sports a huge ring which frequently comes up on the screen with distractive hand movements. (If she wanted to draw attention to her prized ring, she succeeded). These things focus attention on things other than the topic at hand. If you want to draw attention to yourself or your jewellery then it's not a good idea to conduct one on one interviews or even debates.

Round 5 Score: Barkha-0, Sagarika-1. Cumulative: Barkha – 5, Sagarika – 3.

Overall Barkha did keep the interview largely to the topic, that of Salman Rushdie's book, his life, his troubles and his future. Sagarika on the other hand was pushing her silly agenda of Hindu V Muslims and balancing intolerance, which was not the main topic of the interview. So there you go. Barkha won the battle 5-3. While this is no professional rating system or game it can surely provide an indicator to the channels on how they are conducting interviews and how they are covering topics. TAM’s TRPs won’t do a similar measurement.   

Whether discussions are being kept relevant to the topic of the program or some hidden agenda is being secretly followed becomes evident by the questions, by references, by introductory images and even by headlines. By those parameters CNN-IBN didn’t do all that well. Read the post “Balancing mindless violence” which is what Sagarika wanted to do. Barkha would do well to avoid bringing up Imran Khan everywhere. Rushdie’s answer to Barkha when she brought up Imran Khan was pretty dismissive: “Not again, please”. Viewers too can evaluate programs for their own understanding with their own measuring sticks. 

Correction: In Round 4 the 'Intro time' got reversed. It's Barkha-1.10 & Sagarika 0.35. Typo is regretted.

Backdoor Sharia

Come election season and the skillfully engineered controversies surface; particularly where it concerns the minority community. It has come to such a pass that people largely do not think of Parsis, Jews, Sikhs or even Christians as minorities. Minority is now consistently understood to mean ‘muslims’. All fake arguments by politicians and media in defining minorities any other way can now be safely flushed down the drain. It practically means muslims! Period! This syndrome is not unique to India but a universal phenomenon wherever the muslim population has steadily increased over the years. Naturally, after the initial announcement of 4.5% quota to muslims in Central jobs, Salman Khurshid was emboldened to announce a 9% quota if Congress was voted to power in UP. Although not stated, it would be naïve to believe Khurshid’s statement doesn’t have the support of his party. Suddenly, in this climate of muslim appeasement comes a fatwa from Deoband. The mullahs want Salman Rushdie banned from entering India to attend a literary festival at Jaipur. A well-timed, well-engineered shot if you like.

So no political party wants to comment on this outrageous fatwa but instead Salman Khurshid and the Rajasthan CM, Ashok Gehlot, advise Salman Rushdie to stay from the event. Gehlot, whose cabinet included murder accused, went on to even state that Rushdie’s visit could create a law and order situation. And the media? Oh well, instead of condemning the fatwa and the govt’s inaction goes into another orgy of debates. Yes, sick and mindless debates on an issue that they should have been strongly protesting. This is neither about Satanic Verses nor about hurting religious sentiments. First and last this is an issue of a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) who was born in Bombay and has the legal right to visit India. This is an individual’s right guaranteed by our laws which our govt is obliged to protect. The govt is failing in that obligation and the media is party to the crime.

Typically, A. Owaisi, the MP from AP had to be on the TV debates. He who recommends all Indians convert to Islam stated: “we are not against criticism but will not tolerate blasphemy”. It would need Einstein to discover how criticism of the Quran will not be treated as blasphemy by a mullah in any country. Such is the nonsense peddled in the media in the garb of debate. And cleverly the queen of Telly trolls Barkha Dutt states in a tweet: “If this nonsense controversy keeps @SalmanRushdie away from Jaipur we should all be ashamed as Indians. The culture of intolerance abhorrent”. Oh really sweetheart?  Instead of directing any protest or anger at the mullahs of Deoband or other intolerant cowards in the Congress she wants ‘Indians’ to be ashamed. Think about it every time these ‘sickulars’ find their friends committing horrors they want ‘Indians’ to be ashamed. That is pretty much like Rahul Gandhi’s silly statement: “I am ashamed to be an Indian” (At Bhatta Parsaul). Of course, any issue concerning freedom of speech for the telly trolls would not be complete without raking up M.F.Hussain. The painter’s works were neither banned, nor was he forced into exile as the media constantly propagates. He was a fugitive of his own choice.

Contrast this with the United Kingdom where Rushdie lived when the fatwa on his life was issued after Satanic Verses was released. His adopted country went all out to protect him and provided him complete security from would be killers willing to act on the fatwa on his life. That was in the late 80’s. Things have changed since then in the UK too. Since then the UK has also fallen into the trap of appeasement through failed multiculturalism. Since then there are now over 85 Sharia courts in the UK. Since then, over 50 churches have been converted to mosques in the UK by real-estate purchases. Living conditions and habits of the other residents were forced to be changed due to such pandering to muslims. There are muslim ghettos where other residents do not venture often. As for home-grown Islamic terror in UK, that is another topic altogether.

Three years ago the UK denied entry to Dutch MP Geert Wilders to screen his movie FITNA in the UK. Fitna is a short documentary on the Quran made by Wilders quoting verses he claims spread hatred and violence and for which the Quran should be banned in the Netherlands. He advocated that if Mein Kampf by Hitler is banned then the Quran should be banned as well. Now, Wilders wasn’t invited to UK for a private literary festival. He was invited by members of the House of Lords to screen his documentary in the upper house of the British parliament. Yet he was denied entry and later allowed only after a court allowed him to proceed. All signs of an increasingly Sharia-compliant democratic Britain. Imagine, this is the UK with a much more liberal freedom of speech and expression which has plumbed to such depths in appeasement of muslims. That’s a far cry from the days when Rushdie’s freedom was so strongly protected by the UK.  Geert Wilders was also prosecuted in his home-country of Netherlands for hate-speech and spreading hatred against muslims but later acquitted. Ring a bell? Well, closer home there is an attempt to prosecute Dr. Subramanian Swamy for a strong article against Islamic terrorism. Swamy’s courses that he taught at Harvard were also cancelled owing to petitions by vested interests. Oh, should I say Sharia-compliant lobbies? Once again, instead of strongly standing behind Swamy’s freedom of speech the Indian media was thoroughly delighted and announced “Harvard snubs Swamy”. It is increasingly clear that the Indian media doesn’t stand for freedom of speech or expression but for the ideologies they pursue. Does Indian news media really stand for freedom of speech? Bluntly, most of them qualify to be in the harem of some Arab prince with his Persian gloves on.

Okay! Suddenly we have Vinay Rai, a new crusader for protecting religious sentiments and other mental cavities. He is a journalist with some remote Urdu publication called ‘Akbari’and covers politics. He has filed a petition in a Delhi court against Google and Facebook. Let me quote him from WSJ: “The content I have submitted to the court deeply offends several religions including Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. It involves pages and groups where users have mocked Hindu gods and goddesses, Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ. Such content can create communal riots across the country. These are just a few examples…My intention is to ensure that the sentiments of any religion or community are not hurt”. Well, religions of the world must be so frail and fallible that it takes the Vinay Rais of the world to protect them and people’s sensitivities. In response to his petition the Delhi court even told the ISPs: “…if immediate steps were not taken, the websites would be blocked the way it happened in China”. We're used to a lot of Chinese goods, now our courts will deliver China-style bans too. Of course, our freedom loving UPA has approved the prosecution of Google and Facebook. And yes, it calls for another round of TV debates.

This time around you have Vinod Sharma of Hindustan Times referring to some video of Pakistan PM Gilani and Sherry Rehman on Youtube which according to him is tasteless and abusive. Well, maybe tasteless to him but it’s a silly incident, maybe unintentional, but the video has been viewed by over 2.5 million people. I guess all of those people must be idiots according to our media. People, out of curiosity, watch content and move on and not crib like politicians or journalists. And the panelists recommend a concept called “Self-censorship”. Laugh if you will, but that’s true. Why self-censorship for putting up stuff on the internet? People are smart enough to know what to access on the net and that freedom to choose is also self-regulation. I have serious doubts if Vinay Rai gives a damn about Hindu or Christian sentiments and the nature of his journal suggests he might have received mostly complaints from muslims, if any at all. And in cases like these there are usually far bigger powers that seek to score a larger political goal as censorship. Why wouldn't Sibal be willing? 

Slowly but surely the govt seems bent on making everything sharia compliant. The sheer size of abuse our media hurls on Hindus and Hinduism is testimony to the fact that Hindus don’t get offended too easily. The only ones that do are muslims and appeasing them by being sharia compliant is the best way for the Congress and much of our news media. Sharia is already practiced in Kashmir but there is backdoor sharia through the Congress and media in the rest of India as well.