One thing has come very clear – if the journalists, either in print or digital media, have to be alive journalistically, they will have to deal with Arnab Goswami! And I am very conscious while I write the first line. (By the way, I don’t have any ‘bad habits’. Yes, Arnab, you might not be happy with the ban on liquor, but I am!) Since the days of JNU anti-national controversies to the sudden AgustaWestland Scam expose, I have been noticing one thing, which is rather explicit. Like in cricket, where there used to be two class of batsmen – one is ‘all others’ and another Sachin, journalism has also dichotomized itself. One class is Arnab and another class is all ‘from the above to the deep bottom’. Yes, some of those journalists like Arnab Goswami and many of them hate him. The first name I remember is Ravish and all others follow. By the way, I am not writing this piece just to tell you who loves him and who hate him. I have a different purpose. I just read an article entirely devoted to Arnab, like many others are, by a journalist who works with a newspaper of repute – The Hindu. Her name is Anuradha Raman. (Who is she? Yes, I also asked the same question when I first saw her name. But, what to do? Journalists are using the name of Arnab to come and become the table-talk…)
Now, this lesser known journalist came ahead and washed both her hands in the Ganges that was flowing during the legendary JNU ‘anti-national’ event. Like many others in media did, she also used her opportunity and bashed Arnab. However, there remained several problems with her ‘style’ of bashing. Anuradha could not develop her arguments very skillfully; nor could she sustain whatsoever charges she could somehow make. And the biggest problem with the stance she took was that time proved her thoroughly wrong! Like all others who jumped the gun on the fact the videos were fake, after the JNU internal committee has itself banned the ‘young postgraduate student’ Omar Khalid, this lady was also exposed for her gust of sympathy for a culprit. Let us have a look at some of her arguments and I will break those right at their spine.
“He pummelled the young Umer Khalid, a post-graduate student, on his channel 13 days ago, not pausing for a moment to listen to a young, intelligent man in a premier campus where dissent is celebrated, and where the idea of a nation may not conform to a flag-waving, chest-thumping hysterical rant.” (The Hindu)
Look at the rich hysteria of this lady. She is all on an ‘all praise’ mood for the ‘young intelligent man in a premier campus’. The same premier campus scrutinized the activities of this young man and found him guilty and banned him from studying there. Where are you now, Anuradha? Will you please take your keyboard again and write another blog on the Hindu saying that yes Omar Khalid was guilty? Yes, JNU is an institution where dissent is celebrated. Jadavpur University is also a place reaching towards another JNU in making where dissent is so much celebrated that the ‘intelligent young men & women’ break the shoulders of a film-maker just because he came to screen his movie. After all, this is the celebration of dissent! I just hope you could also write something about that… And what to say about the idea of a nation for likes of Omar Khalid? They need ‘Azadi’ in an independent nation. And no doubt, riding on the backs of likes of you, they will always feel like the person in the poem of Alexander Pope who climbs a mountain to touch the sky. Yes, we do believe in flag-waving; we celebrate the national flag; we feel proud standing near it. And yes, they thump their chests (the intelligent young men at JNU) but only on the ‘precious’ loss of Afzal Guru, naxals and Yakubs. They don’t thump their chest when our jawans die on the border or by the hands of naxals. They celebrate the deaths of our military forces. And it was the decency of Arnab Goswami that he only pummelled Khalid. Had it been someone more aggressive and from the family of a revolutionist who has lost his life for Indian freedom, he would have pulverized him!
“For all the intelligence you claim to possess, I am surprised you found nothing wrong in the Education Minister’s ludicrous proposal of installing a flag on public universities as a solution to counter the rising anti-nationalism. By the way, most of the universities fly the National Flag.”
However, I do have doubts about ‘any’ ounce of intellect you possess, Anuradha. Look at her argument – she is opposing the flags at the university campuses and also admitting that most of the universities have the national flag. Now, any man with conscious can ask her the question – then what is the problem by the flag? And my question will go a little specific – what is ludicrous about the proposal of education minister? I guess your humour quotient needs to be checked ‘before and after writing this article’ Anuradha. People like you beat their chest days and night and do everything possible to show our country down with your baseless arguments and ‘dalils’. If you can’t bear the tri-colour at the campus, how could you even imagine in your imagination that people of this country will bear the Pro-Pakistani rants and Afzal’s ‘martyrdom’ celebration at the campuses? You seriously need to get yourself some ‘logic’ to develop better arguments and then come to set the ‘national agenda’.
By the way, did you write something about the ongoing Agusta Chopper Scam? I must think no. You don’t have the time to think about the issues as you must be busy in ‘digging out the issues’ and give them ‘anti-national- colouring. For your information, this time also, like most of the times, Arnab Goswami is the person to set the national agenda!
“I feel very sorry for the people who stoop to such levels just to prove themselves ‘intellectuals’. I can understand their contrivance behind these arguments. I call them and take them nothing more than charlatans busy in developing self-deluding ideas.”
(P.S. The reams that have been written about you (if and only if somebody else has bothered to write), including my tiny contribution here, is testimony to your popularity and also why you must be held accountable for every word you write.)
