Ravish Kumar is the emblem of victimhood as a virtue. He has written a long article attacking MJ Akbar for….. I think for being a member of BJP. It’s an incoherent rant that is as low on facts as it is high in attempts at sarcasm. He writes, “मैं ट्वविटर के ट्रोल की तरह गुजरात सहित भारत के तमाम दंगों पर लिखे आपके लेख का ज़िक्र नहीं करना चाहता।”
Dear Ravish Kumar you just did what you said is a mark of a twitter troll. What was your point again?
Anyways, his main complaint is that people are calling him out for being biased. He reminisces the times when he used to do similarly biased reporting about BJP but they offered him sweets. No one has physically attacked him, but being criticized in Twitter makes him so so so upset. Poor guy. Poor little elite who is now forced to hear the feedback that earlier was hidden from him.
I have said this several times and I will say this again. This is a great time for communication. Best ever. The era of mass media brought a selection of voices (selected by whom?) to masses. Any right wing voice in that bouquet automatically became a target for the rest. Like Fox News in USA. Fox trashy, but so is everyone else. Fox is logically inconsistent but I can point that out in so many other US media outlets. The reason it is hated the most by US media elites is that it is conservative, and especially because it is popular.
The anguish of Ravish Kumar, and his assumed self-importance is partly due to his relative unpopularity. As he says,” मैं शून्य टीआरपी वाला एंकर हूं। टीआरपी मीटर बताता है कि मुझे कोई नहीं देखता।” This is not, as it appears, a self-deprecating statement. This is the typical false modesty of someone trying to say that TRP doesn’t matter, because I’m more intellectual. This is another typical stance of the self-proclaimed elite: I know no one watches me, but that’s because I’m too highfalutin for them.
It just may be that we are sick and tired of your ideological bias. It comes out crudely at times. And you act as if you have never called someone anything as bad as a दलाल in your life. You haven’t done that in print, or on TV, sure. But nor have these trolls that you claim to be so traumatized by. They do it on social media. Social media, unfortunately for your breed, is not another megaphone, not another extension of journalism, but a public square. You may have a louder voice because of your privilege as an establishment journalist, but everyone has a voice. The people, you are realizing, are not as much with you as you imagined. And the language on social media is the same as that on a public square. Deal with it, you have been called worse by your friends if you have any real friends. And no social media mob has ever physically attacked a journalist. Ravish Kumar, Don’t be a cry baby because someone called you a name. It happens to everyone.
Yes, everyone. I am part of a right wing social media platform. Do you think we are not abused on a daily basis? Do you think the ladies on our platform are not called the worst epithets? We just happen not to be cry-babies. Imagine is Smritiji was an AAP member how much mileage you would generate on the misogyny of the right wing? Yet no one talks about her trolling. Media even does it themselves. You acknowledge, reluctantly, that ” हालांकि अब जवाब में उन्हें भी दलाल और न जाने क्या क्या गाली देने वाली जमात आ गई है। यह वही जमात है जो स्मृति ईरानी को ट्रोल करती है।” Wow. The ones abusing the right wing are just replying. No one ever abused the right before the right started abusing. Which world do you come from, Ravish Kumar? Yes, the self-centred world of the self-proclaimed elites.
These comments, and your predictions of an AAP wave in UP in 2014, and your prediction of a Kejriwal victory in Varanasi, and much more of your “journalism” marks you as an ideologue, if not utterly dishonest. In other words Ravish Kumar, either you have been biased, or are lying. The twitterati don’t necessarily want to dissect your exactly flaws. They just want to vent their anger at your inaccurate reporting. They don’t care whether you are biased, dishonest, or plain incompetent. They just see someone seeming smug talking down to them and doing that without facts on his side. They know you guys are rich. They don’t understand why someone would pay you money for being incompetent, so they assume dishonesty. Are they totally illogical?
Or are you illogical Ravish Kumar, for expecting people to take your biased reporting as gospel truth?