A group of MSM journalists took to the streets of New Delhi today, protesting the alleged manhandling of some others of their ilk. Some of the prominent faces in this rally were Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghosh and Barkha Dutt.
Some media person was physically assaulted, and it is condemnable. Whether they colluded with anti-national elements, shouted seditious slogans, provoked other people, there are laws set in place to tackle miscreants. It isn’t anyone’s job to take law unto their own hands. And if it is true that Delhi Police personnel stood there watching, it is condemnable as well.
The problem is that this is the same 2002/intolerance/Radia Tapes mainstream media. For most people, it has been reduced to an institution that entertains or peddles lies. Therefore, whenever they report something or cry foul, most people tend to look at it with a suspecting eye. This time is no different.
The fact of the matter is that the prominent people at this rally were highly apologetic when they expressed themselves regarding the seditionists at JNU. This was no way to treat students, according to them. Leave alone the fact that these students are adults, studying at one of the country’s prominent universities, and that the state covered their costs of two and half lack rupees per head per year using taxpayers’ money. Forget the seditionist angle for a moment, they seemed to think that the government shouldn’t enforce laws! Their rather weird stance ensured they were subject to a lot of hate and ridicule on social media. So for many, this protest march comes across as a display of vulnerability or a pathetic attempt at playing the victim.
Let us digress for a moment and look at the carnage that took place on social media. Some of the wittiest answers these MSM journalists got were thought provoking and deserve to be shared. MSM Journalists who whined about how anything that doesn’t please the current dispensation was considered anti-national, were told about how something known as ‘laws’ existed in the country. They were exposed for being the ones who actually give a political undertone to events.
https://twitter.com/tufailelif/status/698011840379359232
Other MSM journalists who mocked the state and wondered if it was so weak that it could not handle a bunch of seditionist students, were given befitting replies. One was reminded about a lawsuit she filed against a blogger who wasn’t nice to her. Another was told that the poor students weren’t as subtle as him when it came to spreading anti-India sentiments. This is a genuine concern that many have. Some people who make up the Indian mainstream very subtly propagate an anti-national undertone. This is dangerous for they have the power to mold public opinion. They are considered to be ‘the enemy within’.
https://twitter.com/IdeaofEmergency/status/698552198972596225
.@sardesairajdeep sadly he was too explicit. Now everyone can't be as subtle and indrect like you when it comes to spreading hate, right ?
— The Lying Lama 2.0 (@KyaUkhaadLega) February 12, 2016
Maybe these MSM journalists had to vent out their frustration somewhere because nobody made sense of their stance. Maybe they were trying to salvage their reputations by playing the victim. Or maybe they are against the present dispensation, and wanted to embarrass it the moment it took a nationalist stance which has gone down well with people. Whatever it is, nobody is buying this display of empathy.
Two years ago, a journalist was burnt alive in Uttar Pradesh. The man suspected to be behind this murder was a minster in the Akhilesh Yadav cabinet. There was no outrage. There was no protest march. Times Now did carry the story for some days, but then it disappeared into oblivion. Whether this is because of political ends or because it happened in an unknown town in Uttar Pradesh, the hypocrisy isn’t lost on anyone.
This is the same brigade of journalists that tried to propagate that there existed an atmosphere of intolerance in India. Though they were exposed several times over this, yet another incident has come to the fore. An RSS functionary in Kerala was hacked to death yesterday by people with Communist affiliations. Forget parliament being stalled or awards being returned, the mainstream media which descended like vultures on Dadri and Hyderabad has not bothered to even report about this. This is exactly what happened with Prashanth Poojari, Sawan Rathod, the Malda riots and the horrific rape in West Bengal. The message has been regulated, it has always been a means to a political end. Once again, the hypocrisy isn’t lost on anyone.
It is in this light that the genuineness of the protest march of the MSM journalists is questioned. It is in this light that we remain skeptical. From experience, something or the other always brews under this garb of neutrality. The mainstream media’s credibility has been in shambles, and plummets further with every passing day. So about this march, we remain highly unconvinced.