We are living in the age of countless news outlets. These include newspapers, TV news channels and social media.
We all know how dangerous social media can be. Their power to spread rumours has been repeatedly shown as lethal and explosive, causing riots and lynching.
Sadly, neither newspapers nor TV news channels have been doing much better. It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate truth from falsehood.
Arnab Goswami is the knight in saffron armour. His rant against liberals is actually a clarion call to the faithful to rally round his flag for protecting Hindus – who are merely 80% plus of the country’s population – from the overwhelming 20% minorities.
Goswami is afire because two saffron clad sadhus and their driver were lynched by villagers near Palghar in Maharashtra. The villagers, misled by WhatsApp rumours, mistook the trio for child-lifters. Goswami loses no time in pointing fingers at minorities for conspiring to lynch the three innocent men. He has no proof of any such conspiracy but his allegations are evidence enough!
Amish Devgan of News India 18 and an aspiring Arnab Goswami of Hindi media, jumps into the fray. He dismisses the Maharashtra Home Minister’s statement that the Palghar lynching was triggered by rumours. Amish has no use for such trifling details like the killers were Hindu. That the victims were Hindu was enough for his lurid imagination to take-off.
Of course, there still are some journalists left who go by the old-fashioned facts. Ravish Kumar’s approach is unexciting. He cites the Maharashtra Home Minister to emphasise the lynching’s noncommunal nature. But such facts are bereft of masala. No high decibel targeting of the all-weather enemy; no demonisation of a community. In these days of hyperbolic doublespeak and newspeak, how can a channel afford anchors that use neither spice nor flavour!
By the way, when two Hindu priests in Bulandshar of Uttar Pradesh were murdered in cold blood on a temple’s premises the Goswami-Devgan brand of saffron crusaders heard no evil, saw no evil and spoke no evil. The killer, named Murari, was a known drug addict and a Hindu to boot! Naturally, this left no scope for a polarising diatribe, not even a talk show on the law and order situation in UP, like they did on Maharashtra’s Palghar.
Interestingly, the Goswami surname literally means Lord of Cows aka Lord Krishna who is revered as lover, philosopher and warrior. But Goswami’s desperate attempts at blending polarising journalism with regressive theology and partisan politics has turned him into a dismal failure in his desire to become Indian media’s presiding deity.
Who can forget Goswami’s onscreen reverence for the holy cow? His finger wagging warnings would have been comic, had not the country been going through a period of serious communal divide, with the cow as an explosive factor. Recall the several incidents related to the violence against traditional skinners of dead cows.
Goswami says that the cow is a part of Hindu customs and traditions. But when one sees the pathetic condition of cows dying slow death in the so-called cow shelters, the question naturally arises – where are the gau-rakshaks who are quick to kill in the name of gau-mata? And, pray, how does one solve the problem of stray cattle that has turned into a menace for farmers and others?
Has the Lord of Cows ever prodded the Protectors of Cows aka gau-rakshaks to look after the suffering cattle and improve the conditions in cow shelters? Can he explain to the nation how roadside lynching of innocents on mere suspicion serves the gau-mata?
Arnab Goswami is absolutely innocent of the nation’s need for facts, not biased nonsense, informed opinion, not demagoguery. The nation wants trustworthy media, not foot-soldiers of vested interests.
There was a time when news media was considered a reliable source of information, thanks to persons like Charles Prestwich Scott. A British journalist, publisher and politician, Scott argued in 1921 that a newspaper’s primary role was accurate news reporting where facts were sacred, and comment free. And editorial comment had to be frank but fair. Are the media bosses listening?
It is for us, the people of India, to ensure that facts are not defiled and comments remain free from hate, prejudice and polarisation.
No comments:
Post a Comment