By Indranil Banerjea
There should be red faces on the NDTV 24×7 editorial set up. But there will not be because of the attitude, “O we are right all the time, we know everything”. The Channel’s reputation took a toss after a recent “Indian of the Year” award to Arvind Kejriwal of the Anna Hazare group which embarrassed all decent Indians.
Arvind Kejriwal, an Anna aide was a government employee when he discovered that being an NGO could be more lucrative. Taking leave from his post, he spent time with his organization, forgot he owed something to his former employees. Then he found that riding piggyback on a new saint of the Indian horizon, Anna Hazare and being part of a civil society would bring more TV publicity which acted as a heady wine.
Along with Anna, the NDTV 24×7 Channel chose him as “Indian of the Year”. Never had the Indian media been so blind to facts of life and the need for probity.
People protested, eminent men who had been associated with the Crusade Against Corruption came out with the startling fact that out of the huge donations to Anna’s anti- corruption fund, nearly Rs. 80 lakhs had been siphoned off to the “Public Causes Research Foundation” run by Kejriwal and his cronies. The gushing anchors of NDTV 24×7 kept quiet.
Since the Income Tax department had been sending notices to Kejriwal for the Rs. 9 lakhs he owed to the government, the UPA and the Congress became his prime enemies and ignoring Annas directive to keep away from party politics, he campaigned against the Congress in the Hisar Lok Sabha by election. This was not what was expected of an Indian of the Year.
Charges of such financial manipulations were levelled not by any rag- tag team of trouble makers but by eminent social workers. Former member of the Anna Hazare Core Team, Swami Agnivesh, who had an enviable record in public life, having launched successful campaigns against the hated system of bonded labour in Haryana and other northern states, spoke out. Other members of the Anna team including retired judge, Santosh Hegde, regretted the machinations of some of the Civil Society members and their direct involvement in party politics. But for our English TV news channels the Anna team could do no wrong. Their anchors, mainly elitist and highly westernized had to discover and pamper Knights in Shining Armour tilting their spears at corruption dragons, real or imaginary former police officer, Kiran Bedi was tailor- made for this role. Her major plus point was that even as a cop, she spent more time with TV channels, discussing any topic under the sun. Jumping at the opportunity to garner more publicity by joining the Anna movement, she delighted her friendly TV anchors doing obscene dancing to make fun of politicians, MP’s and Parliament. To those TV anchors who regarded Indian democracy a huge joke, Kiran’s tantrums were a godsend. Then the bubble burst with the Indian Express, exposing her large-scale fudging of travel bills and siphoning off huge amounts to (you got it!) her NGO unit.
Our Kiran shamelessly hit back that the money was not for her personal use. This was how all crooks defended their actions.
We thought that the media would learn a lesson and keep away from the likes of Bedi. But none of that. In the very next edition of “We the people” talk show (Where Kiran was a constant factor), she was perched jauntily and behaved as though nothing had happened , claiming the attack on her was instigated by the opponents of the Jana Lok Pal Bill. The Bill was everything, other things did not count, Bedi thundered. If any minister, bureaucrat or business executive had tried to fudge travel bills like Bedi, he would have been sacked on the spot. But on NDTV 24×7, she was in good company, that of anchor, Barkha Dutt who had been singed by the Radia tapes expose.
Unlike senior journalist Vir Sanghvi ( also mentioned in the Radia tapes) who gracefully withdrew his highly popular political column in The Hindustan Times Barkha Dutt continued merrily and at a post- mortem of the Radia affair conducted by her own channel, snarled, outshouted and outscreamed her own colleague who was the moderator. Perhaps the Channel bosses were too scared to take any further action.
Why did TV channels and sections of the media go berserk when politicians were singled out for corruption? Remember the Volcker committee report over the payment of kickbacks to members of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein family for purchasing crude at a discount? The Indian media pounced on poor former minister Natwar Singh, who had recommended his son’s friend for the favour and had to resign.
Today, anyone who exposed scandals of the Civil Society members is labelled “Gang of Four”. Somebody must be briefing Anna Hazare on this term! Did the “Gang of Four” in this case include Shekhar Gupta of The Indian Express and columnist Tavleen Singh who had exposed the racketeering by the Anna team? Known for its investigative reporting, The Express wrote how some members of the Anna team had bought farm houses dead cheap from an illegal, discretionary quota of the Mayawati government.
Kejriwal exceeded his leave period from his government job, dishonoured his government bond and shouted hoarse when the government demanded what was due to it.
Can the same logic or the lack of it apply to A. Raja, Kanimozhi and others connected with the 2G scam so that they could walk out of jail? Indian TV news channels’ selective critical approach was not new. Some years back, when former British prime minister Tony Blair was interviewed on NDTV 24×7 by an Indian “Youth” audience, all questions were soft and had nothing to do with his lying, cheating of his own people, fudging of intelligence reports on the Iraqi war and playing the poodle to George Bush in the killing of thousands of Iraqi people.
Kiran Bedi’s “Robin Hood” defence of robbing the rich to give it to the poor did not convince outspoken columnist Tavleen Singh. Why did government employees did not spot any flaws in the system so long they were part of it, but condemned it once they were out and got sucked into heavily funded trusts and NGOs, asked Tavleen. INAV