Team Anna - The Genie's Back In The Bottle

On the evening of August 2 Team Anna (TA) decided to end their fast and confirmed their option of going political. So on prime time TV all the channels were discussing, debating, kicking and screaming over the decision, the nature and the contours of such a new political party. I have a very simple answer and willing to bet on this: There is going to be no TA political party of any kind. Period! Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption activist, never was and never will be a politician. Not because of some arithmetical outcome but because of his own choice. Throughout his life as an activist Anna has been confronting corruption, corrupt politicians or some social evil and that is the mission he has chosen for himself. This has been mostly as a lone ranger. I doubt he ever wanted a large national stage but yet he found himself in one. Perhaps this wasn’t of his own choice or making. The mystery remains over how he got into this JanLokpal (JLP) mess with a Rag, Tag and Bobtail outfit. Having gotten into it, pulling out was never easy even if one assumes it had crossed his mind sometimes. So whose movement was this really? Who were the real actors? And why were they doing this?

Like everyone else I was supportive of the fight against corruption and applauded TA’s efforts. In April 2011 after the govt blinked I wrote the post “Lokpal Bill: Why The Congress Blinked..”. The April 2011 round of fasts and agitation were followed by another huge one in August 2011 which appeared to be even more successful. But since August 2011 it has been downhill for TA. I had reasoned why in another post “TeamAnna-Goodwill Blunting”. Turns out the bloopers of TA go far beyond their media obsession. This is my final post on the saga of TA.

In a season of scams by the Congress-UPA govt any anti-corruption movement would naturally receive huge public support. Even Subramanian Swamy, who was almost in a political exile, came back to the mainstream with a flurry of court cases and was back in the limelight with a massive following. He is now part of the NDA. But we did have a very unlikely character launching an anti-corruption movement. In March 2010 Baba Ramdev, the yoga guru, launched Bharat Swabhiman. He called it a non-political movement against corruption and black-money. Er.. Totally unacceptable! Guy clad in saffron, strong Hindutva connections and a mass following threatens to take on the govt over corruption. He went on a yatra to many towns with his campaign. Before he got very far he was put down very savagely in June 2011 at Ram Lila by the govt. The media, of course, played their part in the mud-slinging against him as explained in this post. But even before the attack at Ramlila in June 2011 the Genie was popped out of the bottle. In comes Arvind Kejriwal (AK) to organise another anti-corruption movement demanding the JLP and the movement he decided would be headed by brand ‘Anna Hazare’.

Reports suggest Anna Hazare was not AK’s first brand choice. The pic shows a buzz in the Sunday Guardian (December 28, 2011) by Nora Chopra and explains how AK first approached former president APJ Abdul Kalam and then Infosys chief Narayana Murthy. Both seem to have declined. So the choice finally fell on Anna Hazare. The rest (and the unrest), as they tiredly say, is now history. AK wanted a JLP bill different from the one proposed by his former RTI campaign partner, Aruna Roy, through the NAC (Sonia Gandhi’s private club). Well, nobody cared if AK’s proposal was very different from Aruna Roy. But hey, he did offer more drama. Then the motley crew of Kiran Bedi, Manoj Sisodia, Kumar Vishwas, Shazia Ilmi and some more is assembled.  

So in April 2011 Anna Hazare goes on a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to demand a Lokpal Bill. Govt holds talks with his team and agrees to a JLP. That’s when the term ‘TeamAnna’ (TA) was coined. The dais for the agitation was decked with symbols of national pride, patriotic songs were being sung, chants of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata. All very moving! All, except that picture of Bharat Mata as we know. That was communal. Then that Imam Bukhari called for muslims to boycott the movement as it doesn’t give voice for Muslims. Not done! So Kiran Bedi and co. rush to placate the mullah, in vain. Team Anna promised their movement was non-political, no politicians will be entertained, no communal forces would be allowed. Anna Hazare hardly bothered much as long as there was forward movement. Nothing to worry, corrections will be made in the next bout.

The straight-talking, honest Anna Hazare made a deadly mistake though. He praised Narendra Modi and Gujarat. That was that! The secular credentials of the movement were questioned and the world came down on him. Modi immediately even warned him of the consequences of praising him in a personal letter. TA must have advised Anna to make amends. So Anna visits Gujarat and screams “Ghotala hi Ghotala” and there was corruption everywhere in Gujarat; that there were rivers of alcohol and hooch flowing in Gujarat. Okay, credibility restored!

In between TA, particularly AK and Kiran Bedi, go on a media-spree mouthing shrill dialogues. They called every politician corrupt, called everyone against TA corrupt. The applause was deafening. This post will deliberately ignore allegations of tax evasion by AK, his Trust being funded by Ford Foundation, fudging and swindling through travel bills by Kiran Bedi and other financial allegations against TA. These are not really relevant in politics, are they? So the govt doesn’t make much progress and there’s another round of fasts in August 2011. This time it’s even bigger with campaigns in various parts of the country. Add to the drama the arrest and immediate release of Anna. Then there was Om Puri’s speech, KB’s Ghoongat dance. Heady cocktail! Of course, gone was the pic of Bharat Mata, now replaced by that of Mahatma Gandhi, all saffron guys were evicted. It was now truly secular. The govt eventually gives in and Anna’s fast ends. This time the juice comes from Dalit and Muslim kids. Secular TA was complete.

Then around October KB and TA come out strongly against the arrest of anti-Modi cop Sanjiv Bhatt. What exactly did TA have to do with the cop? Nothing! But well, more secular points scored. There are more foolish points to score. Carried away with the public adoration both, AK and AH, accept sham awards from NDTV and CNN-IBN. What do they call it… Umm.. Indian of the year awards! You should know you are finished when the media starts giving out awards that are deceptively political in nature. But why complain about more recognition? And in the end even the figment of victory ends in the parliament with the “Fleedom at Midnight” moment on December 29, 2011. The Congress had achieved what it wanted to and TA were left holding the baby… er.. I mean Anna Hazare.

So AK comes up with charge-sheets against 15 ministers, including the PM but excluding Sonia Gandhi. Of course, he had called MPs corrupt, murderers and rapists. A sweeping generalisation by a losing man! And so it came to July 2012 with AK himself leading the charge and going on a fast. He took the opportunity again to condemn Narendra Modi, calling him corrupt and a communalist. Let’s see, Modi has been called a lot of names but surely corrupt has hardly been one of them. Even Wikileaks revealed that a US Diplomat mentioned that Modi is “not only NOT corrupt, but incorruptible”. If AK wanted to score Congress points like a Teesta, Shabnam, Mallika, Sanjiv Bhatt, Harsh Mander or the entire media by abusing Modi, he was a bit too late for that. AK’s political ambitions, though not explicit, were slowly being revealed in bits and pieces by Anna himself.

So after 9 days of fasting in July-August and no end in sight, the stalemate was evident and visible to everyone. The Congress sat happily over the reality that TA had alienated not only their opponents and Congress but also BJP, their own supporters, the media and were left with indecisive crowds at JantarMantar. No way out! Suddenly, on August 2  a letter with 22 signatures pops up requesting TA to end the fast. How these 22 people got together, communicated with each other and how the letter was organised, written and signatures obtained (not in hand) is best left to imagination. But it was a handy exit. The other handy exit, as Congress pointed out, was to announce a full-fledged political party. This move, so that that TA could fight corruption from within the system and not without. Nothing wrong with that! When I hinted at such a happy-ending there were many who pounced on me.

Even the best laid plans can terribly go wrong. AK didn’t provide for that. In his political quest he alienated not just supporters but many of his own team members. This list of bloopers and blunders are too long but here are some lessons:

… In a movement like this the media was already paying enough attention. There was no need for AK or for TA or Anna to constantly be in the media and suck up to them with interviews, sound bites and turning panellists. TA was too naïve to see the media is a puppet there to destroy them. Never accept sham awards from the media.

… Never criticise anyone to merely score silly points. Narendra Modi was all praise for Anna and has never criticised TA or any of their members. Yet turning an anti-corruption movement to also one against Modi is a fatal mistake. TA simply had no idea how many Modi supporters had initially supported them.

… Never lose focus. If it was JLP why turn it into a demand for SIT against some ministers? Never abuse by generalisation like AK and TA did with all MPs and govt workers.

… Never antagonise and side-line your own team members in an individual quest for glory.

… Most of all, the JLP movement never had to be secular or communal. It wasn’t a pre-requisite. It should have been just open to all citizens. By constantly catering to muslims and minorities TA became another Congress party. They forgot that a huge majority of their supporters were actually anti-Congress and anti-Fake-Secularism. Stay away from unrelated cases and issues (like those of Sanjiv Bhatt). You end up being terribly stupid.

Didn’t the Bhagwad Gita say: “Now I am become death..”? TeamAnna, after calling politicians corrupt, murderers, rapists and everything else now want to become a political party. They want to become THEM. Frankly, nobody gives a damn about their political party. It was good fun for the media crooks on TV to discuss a Fourth Front right through the night on August 2. Team Anna must find solace in the fact that they haven’t been defeated or disgraced. They have definitely delivered a greater consciousness to fight corruption among the masses. But it is really too naïve to cloak a political agenda with mighty moral stands.

In the end nobody stunted TA, not the Congress, not the govt but their own team did. Though TA has stated they will seek a referendum from their supporters on forming a political alternative I don’t think that is going to happen. There is going to be no political party by TA, regardless of any silly referendum. I don’t think people were desperate for another political alternative. I cannot say who but I can definitely say there has to be one person or a group or an entity that popped the genie out of the bottle in early 2011. On August 2, 2012 the Genie went back into the bottle and will stay there for a long time. 

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What Goes On Within Four Walls Of NDTV?

Comedian Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central's ‘The Colbert Report’, coined the term "Truthiness" as the notion that truth doesn't lie in books and facts but rather, in your gut. Before his own show Colbert frequently appeared with Jon Stewart on ‘The Daily Show’. Both lampoon the American media and politicians and expose their lies on a daily basis. Neither Stewart nor Colbert interpret news reports. They just quote reports and statements and nail the lies behind them or their funny side. What should be even more amusing is that most US citizens trust satirist Stewart for real news. On another front Bill Adair, the chief editor of Politifact states: “Whether the fact has actually died or is just on its death bed, I think it means it's a great time to be in the fact-checking business”. Yes, that’s right, given the lies that our news channels and papers spread, for many in the social media it’s a great time to be in the ‘fact-checking’ business. And may I add, they are doing a great job of it. Most can sense the absence of ‘Truthiness’ when they watch TV reports, especially where it concerns NDTV and Gujarat riots and Narendra Modi.

There has to be some motivation for NDTV, also other late-joiners like TOI and Indian Express, for the extra-ordinary mud-slinging they have indulged in against Narendra Modi and Gujarat. So much that the SIT closure report which absolves Modi of any wrong doing on the riots is unpalatable for them. And now their entire faith in the prospect of screwing Modi hangs on a tiny fable. It’s a story concocted by Sanjiv Bhatt that he was present in a meeting held by Modi and that the CM had made statements encouraging “Hindus to vent their anger” against Muslims for the Godhra train  horror. The SIT has established, through witnesses, that Sanjiv Bhatt was not present in the meeting of February 27, 2002. Not just witnesses, other evidences – factual and circumstantial including mobile records, clearly establish the lies of Sanjiv Bhatt.

There’s some history to this. It is not just as a channel that NDTV has been campaigning against Modi. It is some of its members who have been in that business long before NDTV came into existence as a separate news channel. Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai were the pioneers in this endeavour even while they were with StarNews. But now it’s the newcomers on the channel who have been delegated that assignment. Which should explain a statement by NidhiRazdan, which she reportedly made, on her show Left,Right,Centre on May 10: "Some would say Hafiz planned 26/11 in the four walls, hence it is not an offence".(Thanks to @ssudhirkumar for reporting this ). Even on a live show that looks like a well prepared and well rehearsed statement. This followed an article on NDTV website “Gujarat riots: Illegal orders within a room no offence, says SIT report on Modi”.

Truthiness in an observer’s gut will explain that the headline itself is mischievous and intended to camouflage the actual explanation of the SIT. The SIT only hypothetically stated that even if the ‘alleged’ statements were made by Modi then such a statement within four walls does not constitute an offence. More importantly, circumstantial evidence and subsequent actions by Modi do not in any manner suggest or imply that he made that statement or carried it out. So the wisegal Nidhi tries to equate the “alleged” statement with possible statements by Hafiz Saeed, the wanted Pakistani terrorist, within four walls with Modi. Make no mistake – the unstated implication is that Modi is as much a terrorist as Hafiz Saeed. I am surprised Nidhi stopped at Hafeez Saeed and did not go on to make a comparison with the ‘Viagral’ adventures of Osamji within four walls.

By Nidhi’s logic Hafiz Saeed would not be guilty of terrorist activities if he plotted them within four walls. “Take that, all you goats who died in 26/11”. It doesn’t matter to NDTV or Nidhi Razdan that Saeed, by subsequent conduct and actions, had carried out whatever he may be accused of plotting within four walls. This is how our news channels compromise our actions against terror. Oh wait, NDTV is the only channel that also broadcasts in Pakistan, to my knowledge. Is that a motivation? I have stated in no uncertain terms earlier that the manner of reporting and lies spread on the Gujarat riots by our news channels may have even inspired many terrorists and terror attacks. Balance and sensitivity has long been lost on NDTV. No wonder Chetanya Kunte after the 26/11 carnage accused them of ‘Shoddy Journalism’.

This is not the first time that NDTV has perpetrated reports lacking in Truthiness. In February 2012, just around the 10^th year of the Godhra horror they pulled out another fairy tale. Not surprising, considering their group editor is frequently obsessed with Alice In Wonderland. They put out this report: ‘2002 Gujarat riots: Former judge says there's audio tape with evidence against Modi’. Both reports are by NDTV reporter Rohit Bhan, but these days anyone can draft any report or even affidavit as a TOI journalist will tell you. The atrocity of this report can be measured by the following content in it:

Justice Suresh says that during his trip to Gujarat, he met Haren Pandya, who was then a minister in Mr Modi's government. Mr  Pandya allegedly said that the chief minister had called a meeting in February, hours after a train was set on fire at the Godhra station. Justice Suresh says that Mr Pandya' conversation with him and retired Supreme Court judge PB Sawant was recorded on an audio tape. But Mr Pandya pleaded with both judges to not attribute this information to him. "He said he will come and meet us provided its kept confidential and his name should not be disclosed ...we agreed on that...only some of us Justice Sawant, myself and one or two others were there ..and then we heard him, recorded his statement but we kept it very confidential," Justice Suresh told NDTV.

Now, this judge was specially interviewed by NDTV in February 2012. Interesting how after Haren Pandya’s death the judge claims an audio tape that for “confidential” reasons cannot be disclosed or aired. Even if Haren Pandya did make a statement to these judges, they claim to have already discussed it with the SIT. So what NDTV was trying to imply by this report and the interview is for you to figure out. But hey, it helps to add any fuel to the fire started by NDTV.

If Politifact were to assess NDTV’s reportage over the years I am quite certain that they would have scored “Pants on Fire” on a number of occasions. Facts established by special investigating bodies do not seem to count with NDTV. So what exactly is NDTV’s motive behind such a long witch-hunt? So much that there is a sharp and militant unwillingness to accept even the SIT’s report. Looks like they will not be happy unless and until some kangaroo court of their own choice pronounces Modi guilty and sentences him to death. Of course, they aren’t alone but they are the most voluble in this campaign. Far from justice for any riot victim or justice for the sake of supremacy of law, the motives surely have to be something else and somewhere else.

The most apparent motive is obviously the decimation of BJP as a political party through their anti-Modi campaign. This becomes even more obvious with elections in Gujarat around the corner and general elections in 2014. The increasing noises about Modi as PM candidate is probably also sending chills down their spine. The most disturbing aspect for me is that there might be very powerful forces behind NDTV’s campaign. The blatant violations and disregard for routine norms of ethics in journalism suggest a “larger” (A term Nidhi Razdan would love) conspiracy that only time will tell. The involvement of many Indian journalists and their being beneficiaries of Ghulam Nabi Fai must be borne in mind. One never knows how many such Fais are lurking around the shadows and feeding our journalists and media outlets.

There’s only one question that hasn’t been answered for a long time. How does NDTV, a channel which has constantly lost share value, consistently made losses still manage to stay afloat? Well, Deep Throat did say “Follow the money” and I hope someone will. Only that will finally reveal whose war is being fought by NDTV and what goes on within their four walls. Going by Indian media ethics it won’t be another journalist or media outlet that will bring the truth home. It will be probably be some comedian who has a gut feel for Truthiness.

SIT: Nero Never Fiddled

The Mahatma Gandhi memorial at Rajghat, Delhi has the epitaph “Hē Ram”, the words he spoke just before he died after being shot. Thousands pay their respects to Gandhi here every day. Every one of them reads the epitaph and the Mahatma’s last words have been taught to us in schools and history books. But did he really say those? No one has compelling evidence that Gandhi did say ‘Hē Ram’ and none has ever been presented. He could well have said anything else or maybe even nothing at all. This is how myths work. It starts with somebody’s imagination or hallucination, somebody influential. Then it creeps into history books and the media dishes out propaganda. Before long the myth becomes the established and accepted truth.But not forever.

Closer to present day, for years some in the Indian media have reported that the Supreme Court had rapped the Gujarat govt over the 2002 riots with: “Neros were looking elsewhere when Gujarat was burning". Did the SC actually say that? Let’s assume they did. But Arjun Modhwadia, Congress leader in Gujarat has promised to prove the SC statement is true in the Gujarat Assembly. He is struggling to establish this though. He is searching for evidence and so am I. Whether Modhwadia presents the evidence in the Gujarat assembly or not, over the last decade many celebrity media anchors have used the supposed statement of the SC to equate Narendra Modi with Nero. Story is that the Roman emperor was famously fiddling while Rome was burning so he could make a palatial complex out of the ruins. So much was invested in painting Modi as a murderer and looking the other way during Gujarat 2002 that the SIT Closure report must have come as a shock to a huge industry of liars. The SIT investigation is neatly summarised by Offstumped and to cut a long story short I am just quoting his summary here:

... the thrust of CM’s speech everywhere was that the incident was heinous, organised and that the culprits would be brought to strictest punishment.. . . .it is not the case that the Chief Minister made any assertion concerning- the obligation of any religious community to do such acts, as are likely to cause disharmony. He did not make any appeal to Hindus or Muslims to take up arms against each other.’it is reasonably concluded that no utterances on part of Shri Narendra Modi could ‘be attributed suggestive to any intended promotion of hatred ill-will etc.. amongst religious groups…

… the Learned Amicus Curiae has agreed with the various recommendations made by the SIT on the different issues inquired into /investigated by the SIT. However, the Ld. Amicus Curiae is of the view that, at this prima facie stage offences u/s 153A(I )(a)& (b), 1536 (I 166 and 505 (2) IPC are made out against Shri Narendra regarding the statement made by him in the meeting. In this connection, as discussed, above SIT is of the view that the offences under the aforesaid, sections of law are not made out against Shri Narendra Modi. In the light of the aforesaid facts, a closure report is being submitted for favour of perusal and orders…

Since the SIT closure report did not suit their taste the media typically hung on grimly to the utterances of the Amicus Curae (AC) and kept suggesting Modi could be prosecuted based on the AC’s report. The AC has offered his opinion which does not constitute evidence. His opinion has also been considered and reported upon by the SIT. Let us do a roll-call of the vicious actors in the decade long campaign against Modi – Teesta Setalvad, Shabnam Hashmi, Arundhati Roy, Harsh Mandar, Sanjiv Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt, Mallika Sarabhai … where do I stop? It’s too long. And then there’s another list from the media. Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Arnab Goswami, Vinod Sharma, Vir Sanghvi…. Again too long a list. All of these characters should hang their heads in shame and should actually apologise for the untruths they spread about Modi and Gujarat. In their Hate-Modi campaign they have even scoffed at the development of Gujarat and the progress the state has made under him. Such a campaign cannot be anything but ‘motivated’ and requires huge funding to sustain.

SIT makes the biggest bonfire of media lies 

The lies, the half-truths have all come to haunt the biggest personalities in the media. It is even unfortunate that some of them, also involved in other scandals, continue in their jobs. Many members of the Congress party have also wilfully indulged in encouraging the lies about Gujarat. After the SIT report, the next investigation has to be into the funding of NGOs like those of Teesta, Shabnam and the activities of Sanjiv Bhatt and many others. And what do we do with all the fake reports by the media over the decade? I have a modest suggestion! Put them all together and burn them in the biggest bonfire in your neighbourhood. The other lesson people should have learned by now: Never trust one word of what the news media says except for the bare news they report. They have lost all credibility and if they wish to regain it, the 5-star criminals must resign. The SIT has burned their lies and deceit. And let the bonfire of their reports and vanities be as hot as the fires of Rome.

Of the gang of crooks in the news media there are a few who still have people’s respect. One of them, Ravish Kumar of NDTV (Hindi) recently tweeted and I translate his statement: “Government’s lie and the media turns those lies into truth”. That’s the modern media’s daily job. In all of this the activists and media crooks have even forgotten that if ever a case were to be indeed brought against Narendra Modi he has every right to legal defence. Whether Modi will ever need it is a matter of conjecture but no man in Indian history has been so held guilty by suspicion, accusation and propaganda as he has been. Even known and convicted terrorists in our prisons have got better deals. Narendra Modi was and remains an innocent man in the eyes of the law as of now. From CMs to PMs there have been instances of negligence during agitations and communal riots. That may be true for Modi as well but the myth of him being an instigator, conspirator or supporter of the 2002 riot ends here. This particular myth, like the ‘Hē Ram’ of Gandhi, will not go on to become gospel truth.

And yes, what about the liars in the media and NGOs? There has to be a law by which such campaigners should be prosecuted and brought to justice. What about the supposed statement of SC comparing Nero fiddling while Rome burned to Gujarat or Narendra Modi? Although I doubt SC actually made that statement even learned judges can sometimes use myths as an expression. There were many fires in Rome during the period of Nero’s rule. The famous fire in which he fiddled was during the year 64 in the first century. Awful truth is: Violins weren’t invented till over 1000 years after Nero’s death. Oh well! Since that was a myth the historians suggested he must have played a stringed instrument called the ‘Lyre’ but even that turned out a hoax. Rome didn’t have an SIT then. If there had been one, the SIT would have established the Truth: Nero Never Fiddled!

April 10 - The Day News Media Died

Never has there been a prolonged campaign of calumny against a single individual as the one carried out by our media and certain sponsored activists. All of that came to an end on April 10. The report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) finally established there was no evidence that Narendra Modi was involved in the Gujarat riots of 2002. The decade long campaign of evil finally died a gruesome death. Some of the most prominent names in the media also died a symbolic death. We remember those names and many more and pray that in the death of the news media there will be newer ones who will find their conscience. In ever loving memory of the conscience and careers of:

Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Teesta Setalvad, Shabnam Hashmi, Harsh Mandar, Mallika Sarabhai, Mukul Sinha, Sanjeev Bhatt, Nidhi Rasdan, Sagarika Ghose, Praful Bidwai, Javed Anand, Javed Akhtar, Manish Tewari, Prannoy Roy, Vir Sanghvi, Vinod Sharma, Cedric Prakash, Hosbet Suresh, Arnab Goswami, Dipak Parasher, Ashutosh, Nikhil Wagle, Kumar Ketkar, Rahul Sharma, Sreekumar, Karan Thapar, Shoma Chaudhary, Ashish Khetan, John Dayal.. And Many More Nameless Faces

In Fond Memory of The News Media

In his book 'The Death of Media' writer Danny Schechter states that “We can’t fix America without fixing the media” The Death of Media shows why the fight to change our media is bigger than any political fight yet. It's not true for just the American media but equally true for the Indian media. We can't fix our political struggles without cleaning up our media first. A good part of our media died on April 10, 2012. Let's celebrate the death of evil.

Gujarat Riots - Game Over For Media

And so the Godhra 10th anniversary came and passed. I had predicted a “Hang-Modi” weekend in the media. I am pleasantly surprised the extended weekend wasn’t as bad as I expected. While the cacophony over the 10th anniversary of Godhra and the Gujarat riots was all over the media, the anti-Modi, anti-Gujarat hate engineers clearly appear to have lost momentum. This is not so much because they have had a change of heart but somewhere there seems to be a realisation that people on the ground in Gujarat are fighting for a different cause. Rajdeep Sardesai was first off the block with a Ground Zero special on Godhra and after on CNN-IBN, next was Barkha Dutt on NDTV and, of course, Arnab Goswami followed up late on Monday, February 27. As Howard Beale would tell you: “TV is not the truth, it’s an amusement park....We lie like hell”. The Oscar awards show happened the same day taking away a lot of precious time from the Gujarat campaign and that should have upset some of the media crooks.

First, has Gujarat moved on? Have the victims of violence moved on? Yes, Gujarat has certainly moved on but it will take much longer for the victims to move on. For anyone who has lost family members and friends to violence life doesn’t stop but it does take a long time to move on. It took a long time for families to move on from the tragedies of Partition. Some may still have bad memories. In much the same way a decade is too short a period to get over deaths and tragedies from mass violence. The Sikhs of the 1984 genocide are still seeking closure. The victims of Gujarat riots too are seeking closure. Maybe it will take another generation to completely move on from individual tragedies.

There are killers from every tragedy who are still roaming free. Be it the 1984 Sikh massacre, be it the Kashmir ethnic cleansing, be it many other communal riots or be it Gujarat. I believe if one could talk to some of these killers they would probably wonder if they would indulge in such wanton killing as a normal individual. Ask them when sober if they would now do again what they did then, they will probably regret their act. But mob killings are just that. It is like a drunk who isn’t totally aware of his acts. The media and certain NGOs made an industry of the justice campaign. Most of this campaign was based on lies. The only objective of this gang was to get Narendra Modi to resign, be sentenced to death or prison and if all that didn’t work out to somehow apologise. The lies have slowly but surely come undone and most of the hate engineers stand exposed.

Rajdeep Sardesai’s poor display of raw emotion and tears to make an emotionally appealing documentary is a good indicator of muddling facts and reason. His programme wasn’t live and could have been edited to take out the emotional bursts. But hey, who wants to delete good theatre? To his credit Rajdeep consciously avoided even mentioning Modi too often in his show or demonising him as he has done in the past. As an after-thought, CNN-IBN later carried stories about a famous restaurant, Chandra Vilas on the riot-prone Gandhi Road (where Gandhi and Sardar have dined) which was destroyed during the riots and is now back to normal. To balance that there was a muslim shopkeeper who stated he has moved on and 2002 is well buried. And for the first time Rajdeep also featured families of the Godhra train victims.

The worst programme on the anniversary was quite definitely Arnab Goswami’s Newshour. With time, Arnab appears to more ill-behaved, more foul-mouthed and more incoherent than any of the panelists that appear on his show. I dare say he is starting to be India’s own Howard Beale, the deranged TV anchor of ‘Network’. To make matters worse he hosted two discredited liars on his show - Sanjiv Bhatt and Shabnam Hashmi. The motives of these two individuals have long been established and chronicled. In contrast Barkha Dutt was far more subdued. One panelist on her show let out that she had agreed she would not make it a political discussion. That should tell us something about her past programmes on Gujarat. Even so, she had Javed Anand (husband of Teesta Setalvad) who drew parallels with Hitler’s Jewish massacre and so on. Barkha’s question was: Is reconciliation possible without justice? We will come to that later.

In the meantime the usual suspects, including Javed Anand, like Ashutosh of IBN7, Nikhil Wagle of Lokmat were there to rank Modi as Hitler and equate the Gujarat riots to the holocaust. Not that this needs any rebuttal but it reflects the vile campaign that these gentlemen have carried on for years. It is too much to expect of these motivated activists and so called journalists to understand that Hitler’s campaign was one of racial superiority. The systematic killing of Jews, because they were more successful economically and racially inferior, was Hitler’s main cause. And the Jews weren’t exactly burning train-loads of Christian Germans. Was Hitler the only one to persecute Jews? For 2000 years Jews were slaughtered by Christians and Muslims. Surprisingly, none of these hacks would want to talk of the Islamic killing of Jews. It doesn’t fit their agenda. Even today there are Islamic leaders who have sworn to wipe Israel off the world map. Nikhil Wagle and Ashutosh are some of the scumbags who thrive on lies. Ashutosh and Wagle do not possess the polish of a Barkha or Rajdeep but they do not lag in anyway in the skills of lie-mongering. Like Rajdeep and Barkha they too need wardrobe managers to dress up their lies.

And so to that question – Is reconciliation possible without justice? Let’s take murder cases. There are many murder cases that are yet to be solved. These cases have leads, there are possible suspects, even forensic evidence but they remain unsolved. And the victim or the family doesn’t get justice. In mass violence by mobs mostly made up of many unknown faces it is impossible that every offender is brought to justice. Hitler’s killers lived all over the world escaping justice. Simon Wiesenthal fought till the end to bring each of Hitler’s men to justice. Some are dead, others unknown. H.K.L. Bhagat, the man many hold responsible for the Sikh killings of 1984 died. Would he have been brought to justice if he were alive? Nobody knows. There are others like Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar who are accused by victims but are still free. What about the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir? Hardly any investigation was even made into the killings of the Pandits. And I have doubts anyone will ever be brought to justice for those killings. Where mob violence and civil wars are concerned it is nearly impossible to bring justice to every incident. However, there can be reconciliation.

Reconciliation, of course, needs truth to be established and expressed. That is where the media and the NGOs have worked to make it impossible. They have removed Truth so far from the Gujarat riots story that it makes reconciliation that much more difficult. But reconciliation will happen. The clamour for justice for victims of Gujarat riots would have been fair. But that wasn’t what the media celebs and activists wanted. Their single point agenda was Modi and Modi alone. They are guilty of turning the riots into a political battle. The victims of the riots, as with a terror attack or an unsolved murder case, have no option but to move on with or without justice. Justice might reinforce faith in the system but does not help moving on easily. That takes decades or generations to bury the wounds. Moving on needs finding life and happiness in the present and the future and the opportunities it brings. The jews haven’t forgotten and never will but they have moved on.

There is a very disturbing trend in this media madness though. For the first time they did manage to get some victims of the Sabarmati Express in their programmes. However, there are two events in the Gujarat case – One is Godhra and the other is post-Godhra. If one watched all the programmes over the last decade they would lead you to believe that not a single Hindu died post-Godhra. 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus died in the post Godhra riots. Yet, anyone watching the media and the activists would believe only muslims were killed. Not one, I repeat not one, family of the 254 Hindu victims were ever covered by the media. They probably don't even know where these families are. Which is the reason media and the activists failed in their political agenda. Their entire focus was to somehow implicate and nail Modi. 

Sanjiv Bhatt even mentions somewhere that he might even join politics. I wonder what he means by that. He IS already in politics, just like Teesta, Shabnam, Mallika, Rajdeep, Barkha, Arnab and the others in the ‘Anti-Modi cottage industry’ are. Most of these people have enriched themselves in their quest for justice for Modi over the past decade while the victims struggle. But that miserable enemy of media called truth sooner or later turned up somewhere. There will be a few noises that will still continue but for a large part their game is well and truly over.

The 'Hang-Modi' Weekend

Yes, it’s that time of the year. This year it’s even more special because it’s the 10th Anniversary of Godhra and the Gujarat riots. Throughout Monday, February 27, you can expect newspapers with specials and TV news channels to carry on endless debates on Gujarat and Narendra Modi. Expect to see sepia toned images of violence, deaths, burnt train compartments. Expect to see special documentaries on the plight, anger and anxiety in certain pockets of Gujarat. Expect to see how muslims from adults to school kids to new-born are systematically being discriminated against in Gujarat. Mind you, some of these stories aren’t unique to Gujarat but exist in pockets of many states in India. But once again, you will be reminded that it’s only in Gujarat alone that sufferings are magnified and state-sponsored. For the record, some of the lies about the Gujarat riots spread through the last decade have been exposed enough for the propaganda to change course. This is particularly the number of people killed, fake rape and torture cases and fake affidavits.

Let’s go back to September 12, 2011 when the Supreme Court returned the Zakia Jafri case to the lower court. Here’s how one politician still holding Modi criminally responsible for the riots responded: Sitaram Yechury of CPM stated that it does not absolve Modi of the “communal ri…” and then he paused, thought for a second and said “communal pogrom”. That is one of the major lies that was being spread. 790 muslims and 254 hindus were killed in the riots; far from features you would associate with a pogrom. The communal riots were terrible but creating a political agenda out of them is just as bad. The second big lie were the numbers themselves. All the reporters and political activists like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vir Sanghvi, Teesta Setalvad, Shabnam Hashmi, Sanjiv Bhatt, Arundhati Roy, Harsh Mandar and many more have consistently fabricated the numbers killed between 2000-3000. Some still and will continue to do so.

What to expect? Well, one of the reporters who was instrumental in spreading untruths about the riots, Rajdeep Sardesai, is already off the block with a blogpost “Modi's 'Sadbhavana' and the horror of 2002” on February 24 and he wonders if there’s closure and if Gujarat has moved on. Rajdeep continues the same refrain from the past of how muslims have become second class citizens in Gujarat. There is a major change though. In his post he doesn’t use the word “Guilty” for Modi and he doesn’t use the term “mass murderer” which he had frequently borrowed from his HT colleague Vir Sanghvi. But well, old habits die hard so Rajdeep does start his post with a lie: “Has Gujarat really moved on ten years after the terrible violence of 2002? The answer depends on who the question is asked to. Chief minister Narendra Modi, for example, claims to have moved on to the point where he refuses to take questions on the past”. Well, during the Sadbhavna mission in September 2011 Modi did speak to a lot of reporters including on the topic of the riots. T.M. Veeraraghav of Rajdeep’s CNN-IBN also got an interview with Modi. So you can expect Rajdeep to use newer, different lies to promote his sentimental clap-trap.

Fast off the block from Hindustan Times (whose former editor could have been in jail for slandering Modi as a “mass-murderer”) is another opinion from Shiv Vishwanathan. Like Rajdeep, he too, starts off with a bang and it’s pretty easy to miss his gentle twist. He states: “In recent times, we had a Special Investigation Team report into the Gujarat riots that claimed that Narendra Modi was not guilty of the riots. If the media were to be believed, the way is now clear for the BJP to anoint him unofficially as prime minister”. This when the SIT report is not even officially released. But that is not the point. The wording of Shiv’s line is “SIT CLAIMED”. Haha! SIT claimed? One should remember that the SIT is an investigative body appointed by the SC and they don’t make claims. They just submit reports on whether they have found evidence to prosecute someone. Claims are usually made by opinionated columnists or TV panelists. For them, unless some legal body or court finds Modi guilty everything is just a “claim”. And then Shiv goes on to wonder whether Modi will fit the bill as PM or not.

Isn’t it amazing? From calling him a criminal, mass-murderer, pogrom manager, Hitler, Nazi, fascist almost everyone in the media is now discussing whether Modi will make it as PM or not. Haha! During the last state elections in Gujarat these very people were wondering if he should even continue as CM. Now they don’t even have the remotest doubt if he will win another state election this year. The fake opinion polls for Gujarat election won’t be published anymore. They would be horrified if they looked in the mirror and noticed that Modi has silently led them up a path where they would be discussing his PM candidature.

Hindustan Times also published the transcripts of Modi’s deposition with the SIT in March 2010. That document contains all the responses of Modi to the questions raised by the SIT. None of the MSM appears to want to discuss or debate that. TV channels have been quiet on that front. The reason is pretty obvious. The answers contain many facts which were so far conveniently hidden from the public. That Modi had appointed Congress leaders to watchdog committees after the riots must come as revelation to the public. The number of times he had appealed for peace and called for the army in time is all facts that were twisted by the media. Having failed to politically or legally hang Modi the media crooks started a weird campaign seeking an apology.

What to expect? Well, I think one can also expect a special bout of ‘We the poodles’ by Barkha Dutt with the usual peddlers of the drug called ‘untruth’ on Sunday, February 26 or a special programme of some kind. After all, she and Rajdeep were the ones who fuelled the spectacular anti-Modi campaign which provided refuge for all kinds of liars. Arundhati Roy has more or less disappeared from her campaign of lies. Teesta and Sanjiv Bhatt are struggling to keep untruths alive. Vir Sanghvi has been mass-murdered by Radia. Barkha has been tainted by Radiagate, Barkhagate, Barkhabarks, shoddy 26/11. Barkha has now been reduced to a sorry mouthpiece of the Congress party and the Hurriyat (As Swapan Dasgupta jokes). To her credit she did manage to improve her wardrobe during this time though. Rajdeep, apart from Cash4Votes also got trashed for the fraudulent telecast of Sri Sri debate by his wife. Rajdeep has already announced a programme ‘Revisiting Gujarat and If Gujarat has moved on’ on CNN-IBN for the weekend. Expect another round of selective story-telling by him. And yes, Rajdeep will actually CRY!

They say truth is the first casualty of the war. Our media claimed Gujarat was different because it was the first time riots were on camera and on TV. That is only half the truth. The other half is that this is the first time a great campaign of lies and untruths was carried out by the media for political ends and sustained for the better part of a decade. Now the lies and the liars are falling apart. But brace yourselves – the ‘Hang-Modi’ weekend has just started and expect some new concoction to be served.

Also read:  1) Gujarat riots - The true story   2) SC exposes media's clean shit.