Archis Mohan, another incompetent journalist posing as an intellectual

Indian journalism has hit a new low with a great number of journalists working relentlessly on a given agenda. The Lutyens’ media consisting of several news traders has set high benchmarks when it comes to incompetence and peddling propaganda. The latest addition to this group of journalists who act as propaganda machines but pose as intellectuals having considerable knowledge on matters of national importance is Archis Mohan. A journalist at the Business Standard, his journalism has been at the heart of several controversies which represent everything that is wrong with a dominant section of India’s mainstream media today.

A bare perusal of his Twitter timeline discloses the kind of propaganda that he peddles. It gives a glimpse of the kind of journalism that he represents. One of the examples of the bizarre and shoddy form of journalism that he practices is his recent tweet about the Twitter team leader being made to wait for two hours by the Parliamentary Committee headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur.

This was highly misleading given the fact that he attempted to blame the Parliamentary Committee even though the Panel had summoned Twitter and never asked the team lead to appear before it. It was Twitter which should have been blamed for its irresponsible attitude rather than shifting the blame on the Parliamentary Panel. Another example of his agenda based journalism is the manner in which he has been constantly trying to push propaganda against the Rafale deal. In one of his tweets, he retweeted a report by The Hindu claiming that the NDA government had excluded certain anti-corruption provisions from the Rafale deal. Archis Mohan also commented, “Abki baar कपटी sarkar”, in a clear dig at the BJP.

Later on, it came to light that the Modi government had only followed the UPA policy on Inter-Governmental Agreements in this deal. Thus, it is amply clear that Archis Mohan’s tweet was based on half-baked journalism. In an even more shameful act of agenda-based journalism, he had tweeted, “Is this the distraction? #RafaleDeal” while retweeting an update about the detection of suspicious movement around an army camp in the sensitive area of Uri, Jammu & Kashmir.

This is an example of sensational journalism based wholly on rumours and speculations without an iota of credibility or truth.

One such instance of Archis Mohan’s incompetent and incredulous brand of journalism surfaced yet again when he asked the BJP president, Amit Shah about the unemployment issue and tried cornering the BJP over this issue. He asked a question to BJP president Amit Shah about the BJP 2014 Lok Sabha polls promise to create jobs. He asked the BJP president that the BJP had promised 2 crore jobs per year in its 2014 poll manifesto. Archis asked this without reading the manifesto even on repeated insistence of Amit Shah.

Archis Mohan then quoted NSSO data to claim that unemployment was on a 45-year high and somewhere the NDA government had failed to create enough jobs. To this, Shah rightly pointed out that a number of people have been self-employed and the government has supported them. And such people must be considered employed. Shah’s answer has its heart in the right place. Actually, the report published by the financial daily on the basis of NSSO’s data and its methodology needs to be taken with pinch of salt. The major problem in the country is lack of high-quality jobs, not jobs. To put it in perspective, if one looks for household help i.e. mechanic, electrician, car washer, delivery boy, one seldom gets it, as they generally charge more than a so-so engineering grad. A battery rickshaw puller in Delhi earns more than an engineering grad, therefore, we need to create more ‘formal high-quality job’.

The manner in which Mohan was schooled by Amit Shah goes on to expose Archis Mohan and his shoddy journalism. Such incompetent journalism is pushing Indian mainstream media to ever falling standards.