The robbery should have taken 10
minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it
was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it's
all true...
That’s the tag line from the movie “Dog day afternoon”, a comic tragedy. Three men decide to rob a bank, one quits
before starting and the other two find out the bank hardly has any money. One
terrible situation follows another as it becomes a circus on Live TV. The
Romans considered the star Sirius to bring about dog day afternoons in summer
when people get edgy, seats are hot and things go haywire. But hey, we can beat
the Romans. Our circus started in the morning on April 17 with two events.
First it was Sanjay Dutt getting a
one-month extension to go to jail, the other was a bomb blast in Bangalore and both happened within
minutes of each other around 10.30am.
While friends and supporters of Sanjay
Dutt (SD) have small reason to cheer, the SC decision to allow him another
month to surrender is a bad precedent and damages the cause of justice. SD was
not an accused when the SC held him guilty on his appeal of the conviction in
the 1993 Bombay blasts, he was already a convict. His lawyer’s argument for
seeking a 6-month extension was purely on “mercy
and humanitarian” grounds and not any legal ground. SD had 20 years of
freedom since his crime (except the 18 months he spent in jail) to travel
anywhere, make all the movies, make all the money. And now he wanted 6 months
to surrender because he has a few unfinished movies, producers have around 300
crores invested in those movies and many would suffer. Absurd! If the SC didn’t find any legal argument it is indeed surprising
why it gave him a one-month extension to surrender. Why he was previously given
four weeks to surrender after the judgement itself is a mystery.
One of the biggest messages that the SC
needed to send out to Bollywood, political parties and corporate bodies was: Do not invest in criminals and convicts.
It failed to do so. It is routine for our media to glorify criminals and
convicts from the super-rich category. The SC decision gives them hope and
belief that the super-rich can get away by hiring the best lawyers. By denying
SD any extension the SC would have sent out a stern message to many that if
they invest in criminals they too will pay the price. It has now opened the
doors for other convicts like Salman Khan who carry huge investments who will
now seek extensions upon extensions because crores are riding on them. There
are other “private citizens” who are
busy writing pardon petitions for them. In short, the Indian justice system is
merciful to the rich and powerful. In contrast, Tiger Woods lost many
sponsorship deals because of his multiple affairs even though there was nothing
illegal and he wasn’t a convict. Let’s not forget, Sanjay Dutt even wanted to
contest elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket. Crime pays in India! Not having found luck then, he had to join
Congress. Naturally!
After the tragic Boston blasts during the Marathon on April 16 when Barack Obama
said “… they will face the full weight
of justice” one can imagine what that really means in American terms. We
also know now what the weight of justice in Indian terms means. We have a
system where convicted terrorists are protected by State resolutions, there are
specialists in mercy petitions and there are State ministers who protest the
sentence. The worst part is there are states who honour convicted killers with
memorials. The circus around Sanjay Dutt was interrupted (luckily for our
media) only because of another event that would lead to a bigger circus on TV,
the Bangalore blasts near the BJP office. The previous night Rajdeep Sardesai was comparing the
American response to the Boston blasts and the reporting of the incident and
was wondering if there could be lessons learnt. In less than 24 hours his own
channel would turn terror into a comic circus. That’s CNN-IBN for you.
The TV channels must have picked up the
Bangalore blast story from Twitter and must have been upset to interrupt the SD
story. All of them started with an “LPG
cylinder blast” in a car. The CNN-IBN reporter first said “no casualties, no one injured”. An hour
later the same channel reported “cause
of blast unknown”. After every channel had spun some stupid theory of the
blast the CNN-IBN anchor (Shreya Dhondiyal) had to directly caution her own
reporter with the advice “please refrain from speculation”. If justice
turned into comedy trust our TV channels to turn even a terror attack into
comedy. Without the slightest confirmation they kept stating an LPG cylinder in
a car had exploded. They had no idea if anyone was injured. They had not even
spoken to any eye-witnesses as they were reported. Welcome to Dog day morning!
Let us not spare the policemen and the
politicians who are always in a great hurry to give out sound-bites as if their
bladders were about to burst. It speaks very poorly of our police when they
start talking to media without clear information. Talking to the media in such
a situation should be the last priority for policemen. It not only adds to
mindless speculation but to the circus on TV. And there’s the junior Home
Minister saying “don’t politicise”
but he doesn’t know his own party too well. His colleague beat him to it by
claiming the blast will benefit the BJP in the upcoming elections since it was
to the BJP office. Before you know it, if any suspects are rounded up, the “Social Genius” will be writing about
how “innocent Muslims” are being harassed by the police. There will be another
round of “Terror has no religion”
nonsense from the politicians from all parties. If this continued through into
Dog day afternoon, can it stop from turning into a major circus during prime
time TV? We are lucky!
The biggest circus in the country surely
has to be on the Arnab Goswami show
on TimesNow. With 10 panellists being used as acrobats and Arnab playing
ringleader it is now the best circus in the country. After every terror attack
there is usually someone from J&K to play victim and protest the conviction
and hanging of Afzal Guru. While lamenting the inaction against terrorism Dr.
Subramanian Swamy suggested bombing of terrorist camps in POK and immediately
the guy from National Conference (some Mr.Baig) immediately protests and says “they are our brothers”. Really? People in terrorist camps are brothers for
the NC? I am starting to believe this Baig is indeed speaking the truth. I’m
sure in some corner of the world the terrorists and their handlers are watching
Arnab’s shows and those on other channels and laughing about how stupid the
response to terrorism is. It’s a lesson
long learned that Media, Politicians and crime-investigation don’t go together.
Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted early morning
on April 17 that he was dipping good old Glucose biscuits in tea for breakfast.
Well, those biscuits do go limp having gone through the heat treatment but
Rajdeep surely must have found a great news-day with Sanjay Dutt and the
Bangalore blast with his channel leading from the front. The biscuits may have
gone limp but the Dog day morning must have more than made up.
PS: The book "Social media as watchdog" is now available. CLICK HERE for details.
