There are principles of propaganda that Joseph Goebbels had laid out. Not sure if they were in an organised
form but there is a writer, Leonard Doob, who has organised and listed
Goebbels’ principles of propaganda very neatly. One can Google it and find those
anywhere. There are at least two that Rajdeep
Sardesai (RS) and his Hammam practice regularly and religiously:
Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.
Who’s the enemy? Well, once again in the case of the spurious loan of
90 Crores by AICC to Associated Journals Ltd. (National Herald) it is clearly Subramanian Swamy. Here, he is the
enemy of the Congress and the Gandhis. So Swamy’s own charges must be
used to target and tarnish him to support the propagandist’s objective. Who’s
the propagandist? That’s not hard to tell is it?
Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.
Bluff-master, muckraker, anarchist, fascist; you have all these titles
and many more for Swamy from the Congress and the job of the propagandist is to
further the agenda. Simple; eh? This is exactly what RS did on November 1 on
his nightly show on CNN-IBN. He made a brilliant attempt at using charges made
against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi (RG) by Swamy to tarnish Swamy rather than
making an attempt to understand or explain the case for the viewers. Read the
first principle of the propagandist I quoted above again. The very opening
tagline of the show “Where is the fraud”
gives the game away. The video of the discussion is available on Youtube (10.37)
Let’s hear Rajdeep’s mindless rant:
2.09: These are mere
allegations; no quid pro quo has been shown.
Wilful ignorance doesn’t have a remedy. Young Indian is a company in
which 76% shares are held by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Who benefits by transfer
of National Herald to Young India?
4.05: RS claims having
spoken to “sources” close to the Gandhi family who stated they are
restructuring the entire National Herald company.
Really? Restructuring to what? First the Congress and the media touted
the nonsense that Young India hopes to revive the National Herald newspaper.
Then there was a clear statement by RG that there was no plan to revive the
newspaper. Either RS must be blind or, once again, wilfully ignorant. The
nonsense of RS goes on in that vein right through the show. But here’s the
first clincher:
6.10 RS says the acquisition
took place in April 2012 and it’s now November and that Swamy should have taken
the case to the courts instead of making allegations.
That, for you, is stupidity personified. Consider this: It took the PM
over two years to sack A. Raja and took
him over 3 years to even reply to Swamy’s letter on 2G. ET article on Robert Vadra was in March 2011 but the
news channels didn’t pick it up till there was an outrage in October 2012. And
Rajdeep would have everyone believe that six months are too long for Swamy to
wait to go to the courts. Where in the world will you find such a media
propagandist?
Firstly, it’s Swamy’s business whether he wants to go to court or not.
Secondly, RS completely ignores the fact that SS has written to both the
Election Commission and the PM for action on this fraudulent donation of
90Crores by a political party to a regular company. SS is on record stating
that if he doesn’t get a reply or action he will indeed go to court. I guess only
misadventure enthusiasts like RS pick up documents and rush to court without
exploring normal procedures of seeking action or inquiry. Whatever else RS can
justify for his propaganda, not once does he bring up the question of a
political party, which gets income tax
exemptions, loaning 90 crores to a company. In all of this that issue is
the crux of the whole argument of Swamy. So, SS is the guilty party for making
the allegations, with documents that seriously need attention, and not going to
courts. He is kicking up dust in the wind. See the propaganda principle number
two that I stated at the beginning. Tarnish the enemy to protect your party.
Now, even the Congress first dismissed all of Swamy’s charges as
baseless, motivated and utter rubbish. But by late evening on November 1, a
somewhat agitated Janardhan Dwivedi,
their spokesman, helplessly admitted that the AICC had indeed made a 90crore
interest-free loan to National Herald. It doesn’t matter whether it was
interest-free or if it was unsecured. Question
remains; do political parties make such donations which they receive from the
people? Are they lawfully allowed to? Out of 90 crores it is safe to say
27crores can be assessed as IT exemptions that the party has already received
and that is public money that the party has used for the illegitimate loan to a
company. None of these serious questions figured on Rajdeep’s show. Well,
obviously the purpose of the show was to protect and serve. Then RS comes up
with further nonsense of RahulG threatening defamation case against Swamy. If
RS truly believed RahulG then he is clearly more gullible than I thought he was;
hardly fit to be the “newsman” that he calls himself. Even ordinary folks didn’t
believe RahulG’s silly threats.
What RS should have stated at the beginning of the segment he states at
the end. He had asked Congress men to appear on the show and they refused. That
says everything. Rajdeep doesn’t like his integrity being questioned. Nobody
does! But I have to remind him again that he’s in a profession that has been
acknowledged as dishonest long before he was even born; long before TV was
invented. John Swinton, Chief of Staff of New
York Times, was called the ‘Dean of his profession’ by the industry. This
is a speech he made to the New York Press Club in the US in 1880:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as
an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who
dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that
it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions
out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries
for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest
opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my
honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my
occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the
truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and
to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what
folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of
the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings
and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property
of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes”.
At the feet of Mammon! Even
if Mammon represents greed, I could easily replace Mammon with another word. Rajdeep
once used to have a segment called “Crossfire”
on his shows. It used to be a full-fledged show on IBN’s US partner CNN. Once called on Crossfire, Jon Stewart, the satirist, blasted the
hosts for their divisive program and said: "Now,
don’t you think that, for people watching at home, that’s kind of a drag; that
you’re literally walking to a place called deception lane”? Following
the beating that the CNN hosts took on that episode ‘Crossfire’ was permanently
pulled off the air. It was dumped. Rajdeep may not face the same fate for his
spin but there is no doubt he knows quite well which direction he’s headed when
he walks that Deception Lane.
