Biryanis Over Dead Soldiers

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

That letter by Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixbey was used as the prologue to the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’. General George C. Marshall, on learning that 3 of 4 siblings of a family were killed in the war with Germany, quotes Lincoln and seeks that Private James Ryan be located, saved and returned home. The order to save one soldier for his family is given to a group after they survive a fierce battle during the Normandy landing. Most members of the search party are killed in saving Ryan, including their leader Captain Miller. Here’s how it ended:

It may seem an irony that so many had to be killed to return one soldier home. But Army heads and political leaders who care for mothers who lose many sons to battle understand not only their pain but the responsibility of finding comfort for them. Back home, our Govt seems to frequently rejoice in the death of soldiers. That may be harsh. No, they don’t actually jump for joy or throw a party but their conduct doesn’t reflect the slightest grief for soldiers lost or for their parents and families. Some of these soldiers have very young children who will grow up without a father.

On January 8, 2013 Pak army-men crossed the LOC and beheaded two Indian soldiers, Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh, and injured a couple more. What did some stupid Indians do two days later? Some Indian media crooks, celebrities and their Paki counterparts held an “Aman Ki Asha” debate in Delhi. Who was the moderator? Congress Minister Shashi Tharoor! How’s that for sensitivity? This, while the govt claimed it will not be ‘business as usual’ with Pak after the incident. Shameless people never learn. Voices condemn such actions but when your actions tend to pooh-pooh these incidents, more will follow.

Early August 6, 2013 five Indian soldiers were killed by intruders who crossed the LOC. Defence Minister AK Antony was quick to claim in parliament that these were terrorists and some “persons dressed in Pak military uniform”. This statement was made with prior knowledge that the Pakistani Border Action Team members, regular Pak army men, were involved in the killing. To cut it short, the GOI through the Defence Minister sought to exonerate Pak Army of any involvement in the killings. They were “innocent” so to say. Which country mocks the death of its soldiers in this fashion? It will be hard to find one.

Although I have quoted from the American Civil war and WWII our own history is rich in great battles and great warriors. From the Ramayana and Mahabharata to heroes like Maharana Pratap, Shivaji and many more, we are blessed with those who laid their lives so we could reach this point in time. Maroof Raza, a former army man and commentator on strategic affairs, made some important points on Times Now on August 7. He mentioned that we aspire to be an economic super-power but we don’t learn any lessons. The US and China have become economic super-powers because their political leadership works with and is aligned closely with their military powers. He cited Japan slowing down as an economic power because post-WWII it reduced the emphasis on a strong military power. No matter what the Chinese do, including incursions into Indian territory, their political leadership backs them strongly. In contrast, stated Raza, the current Congress govt has completely demoralised our armed forces.

The Congress govt at the Centre is neither sensitive about the army or the concerns of the citizens and families of army men. It seems pursuit of a pointless dialogue with Pakistan is far more important than the continuous export of terrorism by Pak and frequent killing of our soldiers. Last night President Obama cancelled his meeting with President Putin merely because Russia provided asylum to Earl Snowden, wanted in the US for leaking classified information. Govts that put the nation first act, Govts that put the nation last lie in parliament and then everyone in the govt distances himself from the lie like cowards. The PMO claimed it wasn’t involved in doctoring Antony’s misleading statement in the Parliament. Imagine, a PM who is supposed to himself make a statement has been silent all this while and even distances himself from his Defence Minister. How much of a limp biscuit can one be?

Maroof Raza spoke for ten minutes on Times Now on August 7 and it was like one of the finest speeches I have heard on Pakistan, terror and the Indian govt’s effete behaviour. He asked why Antony or the PM had to wait for the Army Chief to go to Poonch and await a clarifying statement when there are reliable Commanders on the ground who are more aware of facts. Worse, he accused the minister and the govt of being or playing ignorant of Pak army’s permanent partnership with the Jihadis. I tweeted what I heard of his statements.

Raza then went to note how Indian PM’s have mindlessly pursued a policy of dialogue with Pakistan without ever getting anything in return. He noted US political leaders often visit their troops during battles or during peacetime to stay connected with them. Ever seen Indian political leaders ever bothering? No minister or govt official was even around to receive the coffins of the 5 martyred soldiers. When their bodies were received in a J&K base there was none from the State govt to receive them or salute them. It is natural that former army-men on TV are seething with anger as are ordinary citizens. There is hardly any doubt  that our soldiers are boiling over too.

And I have to agree again with Raza when he says the govt is treating the army like a ‘fire-brigade’. It seems the army is only meant for internal peace or rescue operations in a tragedy. While their minister faked statements in parliament the Congress members weren’t tired of screaming “don’t politicise, don’t politicise” the killing of soldiers. Who exactly is politicising the incident with doctored statements? And even when it comes to using the army as a fire-brigade in a natural calamity who politicises tragedies? These pics should tell you enough when the Uttarakhand tragedy was taking its toll:

Everything is brought to you by the Congress and the Gandhis. As if the party paid for the food. Having failed in every other area of governance maybe MMS just seeks to somehow make a peace-deal with Pak and create history. Maybe he even hopes to get a Nobel Prize. Who knows! Even AB Vajpayee was guilty of the same mishandling of Pakistan, often inviting Kargil criminal Musharraf for summits. This Musharraf is a great hero for some anti-national media outlets. The only mistake Raza made is in claiming Nehru could have managed such a peace treaty. Wrong! Nehru had the opportunity to permanently settle the Kashmir issue. He did not. The nation’s citizens and its soldiers have been paying a price for it since then.

And while all this continues MMS hopes to have dialogue with his counterpart at the upcoming UN meeting sidelines. It’s now not only tragic, it even looks comic. No matter how much terrorism or killings Pakistan exports our govt keeps hosting them for cricket and unofficial visits. All this for vote-bank appeasement or may be some secret reason. There’s no shortage of Biryanis for officials of a country which has promised a 1000-year holy jihad against India. I hope next time they eat the Biryanis they see the face of dead soldiers in the food.

Also read: “No friendship with Barbarians”.

Chopper Scam & The Credit Squeeze

In about 24 hours most news channels will probably go into another fit of “Gujarat 2002” and “Malnutrition in Gujarat”. February 27 is the date of the Godhra train burning and consequent events. It will be the day out for the Ministry of Apologies. However, there is change happening in the murky underbelly of TV news business. There is at least something to cheer for viewers. There has been, for some time now, a growing rivalry. In the previous post I had mentioned how TM Veeraraghav gloated his channel CNN-IBN was more “mature” in covering the recent Hyderabad blasts. Something’s been bugging both NDTV and CNN-IBN for quite a while. Yes, you guessed it right; it’s Justice Arnab. Call him Arnaboxious or the ‘Dented & Painted’ rapper, Arnab has indeed become a cult. Whether you like his style or not one thing that separates Arnab from the other crooks is that his integrity hasn’t been compromised as far as I know.

In the past year we have heard some gentle whispers and ridicule coming from members of the Colonial Cousins NDTV and CNN-IBN about Times Now but it’s now more pronounced and more open. A few months back Jonathan Shainin’s Caravan magazine was found ‘bitchin’ in the back row’ about Arnab. Now the bigger celebs are joining in. Some do it subtly, some just bitch about it openly. It had to start all over again with the Chopper scam which has been lately in the news. Around March 2012 TimesNow had made a lot of noise about the Chopper scam and brought attention to it. It was then buried by the GOI until it came back like the ghost who walks. Arnab & Co. were naturally claiming TimesNow exposed it first. He started screaming the same claim all over again of having exposed the Chopper scam this month. That seems to have upset some media celebs. The fun gets better.    

One of the measures of how popular a news channel is with people is how few awards it has received. For the establishment circles of Delhi the outrageous Arnab is the son they never wanted. If you look up Arnab’s background and even his present location he doesn’t have the Delhi DNA and that makes him a pariah. It started when I noticed a tweet from Barkha Dutt on February 15 congratulating Manu Pubby of Indian Express for breaking the “big chopper scam story”. Pubby broke that story? It sounded like J. Gopikrishnan breaking the 2G scam story in The Pioneer. But I had never heard about Pubby and the greatest expose I had heard from IE in recent times was Shekhar Gupta’s Raisina Hill story. That one is still probably in the courts with some defamation cases. So how come I missed such a breaking story by a journalist in IE? Mind you, I’m writing this without the slightest intention of robbing any credit from Pubby or his standing as a reporter. He gracefully thanked Barkha for the tweet. As far as I could recall it was still Arnab and Times Now who really brought attention to the Chopper scam story in March 2012. 

So may be Barkha was merely setting the records right, wasn’t she? Of course! So I tweeted the Bhai-Behen duo (remember IE is a vendor for NDTV with the ‘Walk the talk’ shows) was robbing credit from TN for the Chopper scam reports. In all of this Pubby, as it turned out, was quite modest and removed from these battles. But Barkha wasn’t the first to gently do the credit squeeze. We all know all reports, documents, appointments, resignations, parliament bills, purchase orders, faxes and small chits of intelligence papers pass through Arnab before they reach anyone else. And he never fails to flash those documents at all his panellists and viewers. This is what upsets Rajdeep Sardesai too.

Now Rajdeep, who runs the unofficial Ministry Of Apologies, is usually too busy with seeking apologies from people and probably has no time to look at documents. So he was alarmed that someone was using the documents which were already in the public domain being claimed as “exclusive”. See, documents in public domain can’t be claimed as exclusive, but Salman Rushdie interview appearing simultaneously on NDTV and CNN-IBN can be exclusive. Those are rules from the Ministry of Apologies. So what annoyed Rajdeep? I guess it’s that he just about laid his hands on some telephone conversations between the CBI lawyer and a 2G accused and was showing it as the “Biggest expose of the year” when the Chopper scam broke again. In less than 24 hours Rajdeep’s biggest expose was a distant memory and Arnab was screaming and shoving papers down people’s throats with the Chopper scam all over again. And yes, Arnab continued to claim TN had exposed it first.

Here’s an important question for Rajdeep. If all the documents were in the public domain why didn’t he make any noise about the Chopper scam all this time? In my previous post I mentioned about 800 terror cells operating in this country. Even that is in the public domain. Why isn’t Rajdeep making any noise about that? Okay, let’s forget these. There was this enormous land related issue with Robert Vadra and Rajdeep was largely defending him when Arvind Kejriwal made a lot of noise about it. Actually, the Vadra land dealings were in the news months ago in Economic Times. Why didn’t Rajdeep scream about it? I will you what Rajdeep, since the Cash4Votes burial nobody even expects CNN-IBN to expose anything. People expect CNN-IBN to expose as much as they expect Poonam Pandey to cover. Despite genuine efforts of Bhupendra Chaubey to frequently break news or new grounds CNN-IBN has mostly been just a parrot, just like its colonial cousin NDTV.

So since Barkha and Rajdeep tweeted I looked up the whole story and Manu Pubby had also provided some links to the “breaking Chopper scam story” that Barkha congratulated him for. In response to his tweet I had mentioned that merely reporting events do not amount to an expose. What indeed was reported by IE was that the Italian authorities had opened up an inquiry in the whole deal in February 2012. This wasn’t an investigative report or breaking story of any sort. It was just a report of some event in Italy relating to the Chopper deal. What should be extremely alarming to Rajdeep and Barkha is that they were silent then. Defence Minister AK Antony even ordered an inquiry into VVIP Chopper on February 25, 2012. This was reported as a consequence of the report by IE. (Antony orders probe into VVIP copter deal). So where were NDTV and CNN-IBN on this inquiry? Where was Times Now on this inquiry? Where was GOI on this inquiry? All of them quietly buried it! No one even mentions whether Antony had actually ordered an inquiry or if it was just hogwash. If Antony had ordered an inquiry in February 2012 why didn’t IE, NDTV and CNN-IBN follow up on that inquiry? Any answers Rajdeep? Was that not in the public domain? The answer is simple, the parrots just don’t care.

After my exchanges with Manu Pubby he put up a message for me elsewhere. He was humble enough to admit he never claimed credit for any scam-breaking or expose. In fact all the news channels FAILED in their job. They didn’t ask AK Antony even once what happened to the inquiry he ordered in February last year. It’s only now when the CEO of Finmeccanica was arrested in Italy that the GOI is again chanting “no one will be spared, inquiry….” Blah blah. That’s how your news channels fail you over and over again. And then the petty ones are worried about credits. That Arnab and Times Now have been No.1 for five years and still at the top is upsetting both CNN-IBN and NDTV. So every once in a while the celebs from both channels make some petty ‘jilted-lover’ comments.

Akash Banerjee was with Headlines Today till recently before he quit the TV business and joined radio. In response to the bitchy Caravan article this is what he wrote in December 2012:

What the Caravan’s profile misses out totally is the phenomenal rise of Times Now to the numero uno position from what was considered to be a joke of a channel when it launched. Not only was the mix of news / views / business / entertainment programming a disaster in waiting, the inordinate delay in getting satellite unlinking rights made Times Now a laughing stock in journalistic and political circuits. Times When? Times Then? Times Never? were the daily jibes we cub reporters had to face. When Times Now finally launched (with a massive thud) a NDTV reporter mocked me, ‘This is the channel you hatch after nine months of pregnancy!’ he said. (Ironically both the reporter and the channel in question are not doing so well now)

Akash Banerjee should know. He was with TN before he joined Headlines Today. TN may not be right in claiming exclusives or the Chopper scam specialists. But the contempt coming from NDTV or CNN-IBN is neither surprising nor new. Arnab is now the new legend. He is mimicked in Comedy Central promos, there are video mash ups about him, “dented and painted” have been turned into rap songs. I doubt trying to squeeze credits out of Arnab would do any good for Rajdeep or Barkha. Even the GOI trusts the social media more than their channels.