NDTV's Wardrobe Malfunction

This had to happen! When the Supreme Court ordered the Zakia Jafri petition against Narendra Modi back to the lower courts in September 2011 it had struck a devastating blow to many media channels and their campaign of lies over Gujarat 2002. I wrote then that “The make-up and mask of Chachi 420 wasn’t meant to last forever”. For long it has been a known fact that NDTV is a crony media channel which exists to support and defend the Congress party no matter what. Several posts on this site, including “Tainted? Have a chat with Barkha” or “NDTV: Evolving the Gandhi” and many more chronicle NDTV’s unacceptable claim of “Independent and honest”. In the latter post I even wondered why NDTV has a Congress panellist at all in debates when the whole channel acts as a panellist for the party. NDTV had also made this claim of “independent and honest” in the case they filed against AC Nielson and the group for TRP ratings claiming a damage of over 1 Bn dollars.  

On March 1 it took a couple of seconds for the wardrobe malfunction and for NDTV to completely stand exposed as a Congress crony. I doubt Barkha Dutt or anyone at NDTV can anymore claim “error of judgement” for Radiagate or any other misdeed. This was a discussion moderated on NDTV Hindi by Nidhi Kulpati. She was the original media celeb when Zee TV burst on to the scene with their Hindi news channel. She later shifted to NDTV. On Nidhi’s panel were Vinod Sharma (Again, why do they need him?), Sambit Patra of BJP, KC Tyagi of JDU, journalists Abhay Kumar and Purnima Joshi. The BJP was having a national meeting in Delhi and the panel was discussing its internal affairs. Out of the blue there is a prompt in Hindi at 30.30 minutes in the video to the anchor or a panellist to “defend for the Congress party”. Well, NDTV were defending and campaigning for and defending the Congress all these years no matter what, so the prompt was surprising. It’s a wardrobe malfunction that bared more than just body parts. It bared the character of NDTV. A very observant Rohit Baranwal captured the moment and put it up on Youtube.

Listen to the video carefully from 55 seconds onward. I have specially increased the volume at that point so it’s not missed. The prompt in Hindi is “Congress ke taraf se defend kar dena”. Brilliant! Many observers of the channel have often been asking the question to BJP leaders why they even appear on this political mouthpiece. This is particularly so for their top leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. A political preference by a channel is not a crime but to go to the extent of fixing debates, as debates have always been fixed on certain channels, is breaking journalistic ethics and character. Then again, NDTV is not the only one. We just have to wait for a wardrobe malfunction from a couple of more channels. 

Ego

I logged on to Twitter early ‘yesterday morning in the night’ and found this funny story going around. This was about some Litfest. No no, not some Literature Fest! This is about a Litigation Fest. And it involved someone threatening some people they’d have to face the law for their tweets slandering a senior BJP leader. Well, who could it be but Barkha Dutt; the champion of defamation threats. Some people are smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. Some people are dumb not to learn even from their own mistakes. What can we do, no? Anyway, let me cut the story short and let you read the whole stuff which is storified here. If you fell off your chair laughing, don’t sue me, I’m not the one who tweeted all that.

Hollywood singer-actor-producer-director star Barbra Streisand has something unique about her. She has not just won an Oscar (for being a ‘Funny Girl’) she has an internet phenomenon named after her. It’s called the ‘Streisand effect’. Briefly: “The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet”. When Streisand attempted to suppress pictures of her mansion being put out, her protests brought about even more attention to her bungalow which otherwise would have been ignored. Isn’t BD just like that? When BD tried to suppress and sue Chaitanya Kunte over his blog titled “Shoddy journalism” about her 26/11 reporting she made him and his blog all the more famous. She also earned the contempt of a huge population on the net for trying to suppress Kunte’s free speech. She initially tried the same with Open Magazine when they broke the Radiatapes but didn’t have the stuff to take any legal action.

Vinod Mehta’s Outlook magazine too had published the tapes. Mehta, therefore, appears to have permanently earned the ire of BD. Er… sort of a “Rift” between two staunch Congress supporters.  Not that VM gives a damn. It all started with a tweet, on February 13, from one @AnkushJain100 (who has since deleted his Twitter account). That tweet took the fancy of Lalit Modi, the former IPL guy, who retweeted it. And that was enough to send Barkha into her black cloak and collar and threaten the people involved of being “liable to a libel case” (liable to libel - rhymes well, doesn’t it?).

Hmm! Now, what were these guys talking about? I had no idea at all. There was another retweet from Lalit Modi which linked the problem that started it all. This tweet finally brought me to Vinod Mehta’s memoirs titled “Lucknow Boy”. Although many have said it’s a very sweet book and story about a boy, I had absolutely no plans of reading VM’s book. But trust BD to be stupid enough to force me to read at least one paragraph from that book. That’s the Streisand Effect! And this is the damning paragraph that was at the heart of the problem. This is nothing new and has been on the internet since VM published his book. So what exactly was BD yakking about?

If you read Ankush’s tweet carefully, all he suggests is that Arun Jaitley colluded with Barkha Dutt. It’s a valid allegation, not libel. The self-righteous BD then started chastising Lalit Modi over what she calls “utterly irresponsible and scurrilous attacks on a senior BJP leader”. Haha! Imagine, media celebs often known to make many an irresponsible statement on political leaders, especially of the BJP, are suddenly worried about statements on Arun Jaitley. Ahem! I guess it must be the influence of Valentine season which spreads love and affection all over. I hope Jaitley calls her up and thanks her profusely for rushing to his aid. Anyway, if at all there is really an injured party here it is Arun Jaitley and not BD. 

So why the hell is BD threatening libel cases? And is there really libel or defamation here? Ankush and others were referring to and quoting something VM has written and published. VM is a man with years of experience in the media to know a lot of behind-the-scenes titbits. His book or that paragraph is neither banned nor under any court order. No court has declared it defamatory. There is absolutely nothing wrong in quoting VM. And as long as Jaitley or BD have not denied VM’s story, rejected it or challenged him in a court of law there is no reason to disbelieve what VM has said.

Let’s talk legal. Please do note carefully that VM says BD “pleaded” with Jaitley not to mention the Radia intercepts in his attack on the govt. BD, whose Twitter profile also says “wannabe lawyer”, pleaded with Jaitley. (Oh… some lawyers were also referred to as pleaders, weren’t they?). Why was she pleading with him? Any answers? VM says Jaitley was on the “verge of”. So did Jaitley avoid mentioning the Radia-conversations because of BD’s pleading? If yes, then Jaitley does have a lot to answer for. Consequently, the BJP has a lot to answer for because Jaitley holds a top position in the party and the parliament.

This habit of threatening others, especially those who are helpless, usually comes from arrogant people who do not possess the guts to take on those in power. They suck up to them or fear a backlash and prey on those who cannot hit back or don’t have the time and resources to engage in a legal battle. BD didn’t have the guts to take on those who exposed her in the Radiatapes originally like she first threatened them. She doesn’t have the guts to take on Vinod Mehta. In trouble, she begs and pleads with Arun Jaitley. Why does she get so worked up and riled? It has an explanation in this oldie from Elton John (3.48mins).

There! That’s the reason: Well maybe it was childish, foolish, before-schoolish, immaturish, lose your coolish. Ego!

The Night Of The Scavengers

They were waiting. Waiting to commence their orgy of hate and venom. Nothing said it better than Sreenivasan Jain’s opening lines on NDTV last night: “Let’s quickly run you through the events which led to Balasaheb Thackeray finally breathing his last”. Yeah! You see, the scavengers who were hovering around Matoshree, the residence of BT, and in TV studios finally heaved a sigh of relief. BT finally breathing his last? Hmm! It’s as if for over 2 days the man was threatening to die and kept crying wolf. He finally breathed his last so that our TV anchors who had kept a script ready over the last 2 days could finally release their hatred and venom. Bal Thackeray died around 3.30pm on November 17 and gave the signal to people like Sreenivasan Jain, Rajdeep Sardesai, Shoma Chaudhury to vent their pent up disgust for a long time. Girish Karnad holed up his hatred for Naipaul for 10 years but hard to tell how many years these media crooks had holed up their hatred for BT. They were ready! They were prepared! They even knew who to call. I can’t help recalling this one from Robert De Niro in the landmark ‘Taxi Driver’:

“All the animals come out at night,

Whores, Buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies.

Sick! Venal! Someday, a real rain will come

And wash all this scum off the streets”

 November 17 was the night of the scavengers. They had waited patiently for over 2 days with their claws sharpened and their teeth waiting to bite into their prey. Today is just as special. November 18 marks the 2nd anniversary of Radiagate. It’s the day when the tip of the underbelly of our media was exposed. This time around the media celebs didn’t wonder “Oh God! So now what? What should I tell them? Tell me what should I tell them”? They were prepared with the script. It was being prepared since the evening of November 14.

The ‘Breaking news’ specialist, Bhupendra Chaube of CNN-IBN, stayed late in office on November 14 hoping to break the news. He wasn’t sure it will actually break. But hey, hope is a good thing, isn’t it? Nothing wrong when your boss is an inspiring character. So Chaubeji was taking a cue from his boss, Rajdeep Sardesai, who had to probably stay back even after his goodnight kiss. I wonder why Rajdeep frequently complains life isn’t easy as a journalist. I guess that probably comes from hallucinating that he’s a journalist. I’d have to say he may have been a journalist some 200 years ago, now he’s more of a BT’s caricature that passes for a journalist. And if he whines so much about even imagining he’s a journalist he does have the chance to quit and follow his more respected pursuit of…. you know what. BT will not be counted as the greatest of politicians who ever walked this holy land. Like all politicians he had his good bits and his bad bits. For a long time he was more of a trade union leader than a regular politician.  

That CNN-IBN was desperate to see BT die was reflected in the haste with which they are reported to have flashed his death at 7.12 am on November 15. A very observant viewer caught this flash and tweeted about it. And someone else picked up that flash too. Who could it be! Oh.. the ever-loving Digvijaya Singh indeed. Naturally, at 7.23 am November 15 he tweeted about BT’s demise and expressed condolences. Rajdeep responds to him stating BT is still alive. Although Digvijaya claims some friends informed him the news I have little doubt where he or his friends got that news from. Diggy can be forgiven for the goof up. But the media moron who clarified the facts to him or his channel didn’t carry the slightest bit of apology to viewers for flashing a wrong news item. Where in the world would one see such enthusiasm for death of a person? Only Indian TV news channels I guess. Rajdeep Sardesai, Sreenivasan mostly got the panellists they like and who can be expected to be harsh on BT’s political life. You had the pompous Dileep Padgaonkar (who once thought his job was the 2nd most important after the PM’s as he repeated an earlier TOI editor’s claim) and, of course, the ever foul-mouthed Shoma Chaudhury of some Tabloid. To rephrase the line from a famous song; they stabbed it with their steely knives and hoped to kill the beast.

In contrast to the raucous anchors at NDTV and CNN-IBN the usually noisy Arnab Goswami was quite sedate and sensitive given the occasion. He replayed some of his interviews from the past with BT (2007 and 2011). In both interviews BT made some very valid points:

On why all Muslims were being tarred as terrorists BT responds with the question that if Godse was the killer of Gandhi why houses of many Brahmins were burnt. That’s right! Merely because Godse was a Brahmin; why should other Brahmins be killed? In response to the Bombay riots of 1993 BT raises a very pertinent question: Babri masjid was in UP and was brought down in UP, where was the need to unleash violence in Bombay? And if that happens, BT is typically the person with the party that would retaliate. As recently as August 2012 a Muslim mob carried out acts of violence at Azad Maidan just over fake pics of killings of Muslims in Burma. BT is right! What entitles these people to riot, kill and destroy property in Mumbai for something happening in Burma or in any other corner of the world? This is a constant problem that Indian society faces. The brand of Hindutva that BT practiced was in retaliation to the govt and the spineless media covering up such crimes. But BT wasn’t always a Hindutva guy. I am not a great admirer of BT, his party or their methods but the kind of delightful orgy that some in our media went into over his death only strengthens the belief that these are the really uncouth, uncivilised ones in our drawing rooms.

BT’s politics and methods aren’t those that were ever meant to or will have permanency. These were responses to situations that confront societies or regions frequently and the Hindus too. This is situational politics, just as Arvind Kejriwal’s movement against corruption is not meant to be permanent. Regardless of what brand of politics he practiced it is undeniable that BT had a strong influence on Maharashtra and also national politics. So if not his Bimbo deputy editor, Rajdeep takes it upon himself to ask the stupidest questions in a bad time. He pollutes the airwaves with his ignorance and suggests when Netas die a city doesn’t shut down. Someone pointed out that when YSR died the whole state of AP had shut down. Of course, Rajdeep only talked about Delhi not shutting down. It seems fine with him if instead of shutting down, a Delhi Neta’s death can result in the death of over 3000 people. After all,for the moronery of Rajdeep and his ilk, a savage blood bath is not exactly the ‘shut down’ of a city, is it? People were out in Delhi in 1984 being busy with killing. No? That was a night of scavengers too.

So one hopes the scavengers had their fill and will have a great Sunday. Only one problem! This Sunday also happens to be the second anniversary of the Radiagate expose. How did our media fall to such lows in their discussions, debates and their hatred? Well, quite a few people deserve the credit for that. It is only appropriate that I quote someone who wonders about the same question too. Seriously, I don’t really think the “nuance” is quite lost on people. Reminds me of David Bowie: “Year of the scavenger, season of the bitch... (There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow... They call them the Diamond Dogs”.