NDTV’s anchor Ravish Kumar played-off a malicious trick yesterday on his Primetime show.
There is a proposed one day ban looming over NDTV for it’s coverage of the terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in January. It was said that the coverage appeared to be helping terrorists by leaking crucial strategic information to them through their minute, detailed and somewhat revealing live coverage. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu said that "This action of asking a TV (channel) to go off one day is in the interest of the country's safety and security."
Now instead of taking government’s charges head-on and categorically clarifying on NDTV’s stand of not playing an informer to the terrorists, what it’s popular anchor Ravish Kumar did?
In a classic case of self-righteous, chest-thumping melodrama, Ravish claimed that Government of the day is actually scared of Channel’s questionings and is trying to shut it’s voice for good. To support his theatrics, he invited two mime artists to join him on his Primetime exploits and tried to play victim card instead of telling nation that how NDTV had no intention whatsoever to leak crucial informations to terrorists by compromising national security. Contrary, Ravish seemed to take a lot of pride in these charges, quoting an ill-intentioned speech by Indian Express’s editor Rajkamal Jha, “It’s a matter of pride for journalists to be criticized by Government.”
Ironically, it was reminiscent of a fascist Herman Goring’s theatrics during Nuremburg trial, where when asked about the crimes against humanity that were carried under his stewardship during the Nazi regime of Third Reich, he instead of replying, asked back that why Allied Powers are so scared of Greater Germany and why they couldn’t make peace with it’s increasing powers.
By all means, Allied Powers were scared of Greater Germany and were apprehensive of it’s increasing clout, just like, all political dispensations have reservations for inquiries and prefer not to be asked uncomfortable questions. However, it wasn’t the primary context in Nuremburg nor it is in present day situation. The primary context in Nuremburg was that whether Goring was guilty of crimes against humanity or not. The primary context today is whether NDTV compromised national security by leaking information or not. It’s as simple as this.
Noting can be worse than murderers claiming to be martyr and manipulators pretending to be victims. NDTV must come clean on government’s serious charges, instead of wasting time on theatrics and playing to the gallery by doing a mime show on national television during primetime. A mime show, by the way, has been a stock staple of JNU’s so-called protests and street shows over the years and one can’t miss to notice from where Ravish Kumar was getting his misplaced inspiration.
Nice Drama. Only it was no journalism. You must try better, Ravish Kumar. And please don’t keep playing victim card forever. It’s getting boring now.
And those who are so keen to ask questions, must not duck under them when confronted by a set of queries themselves. It’s only good for the democracy to answer them and media is also the part of the whole scheme, not beyond it.
