Rahul Kanwal, who has over the years been successful in deceptively making people admire his ‘objective and neutral’ journalism is now facing some tough questions. Kanwal is a Delhi University graduate and has done a programme in International Broadcast Journalism from Cardiff University. He also won a Rory Peck Trust grant for a course in Hostile Environment Journalism. (The kind of hostility he simulated during the fake CRPF counter-insurgency operation).
Rahul Kanwal started his career as a news-anchor cum reporter with Zee News in 1999. He then jumped ship to Aaj Tak and has been associated with the TV Today group ever since. Rahul Kanwal is perhaps the most successful Indian journalist to have transited from the Hindi to the English News Genre, and build himself a reputation in the English news media. He hosts a daily primetime show called Newstrack at 10 pm on India Today.
For all these years, Rahul Kanwal has been attempting to portray himself as an outlier to the usual partisan journalists, like Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami, who are clearly inclined to the Left and the Right respectively.
Further, Kanwal also likes to think of himself as a fearless journalist who is concerned not about gossip but pure facts. Such assumptions, however, have time and again been debunked. In interviews especially, almost anybody sitting opposite to this ‘fierce’ journalist manages to destroy him and his silly questions.
Whether it be Smriti Irani destroying Kanwal or PM Modi himself, he has mastered the art of being scolded by just anyone, much like his senior, Rajdeep Sardesai. To a hypothetical question which Kanwal asked Narendra Modi in 2013 about “What if a Gujarat like situation occurs again, how will you respond this time?”, the then Prime Ministerial candidate did not waste a moment and said, “Will you do something for the nation? I’m asking you, Rahul, will you? Then do this, make reports on the communal violence of 1984 riots, Bhagalpur, 1969 Gujarat, 1992 Mumbai and Gujarat 2002. Compare these in a manner you deem fit. And if in that comparison you feel that the Gujarat 2002 violence was addressed in a better manner, then will you say so to the nation. Will you? You asked a hypothetical question, and so I am asking you to make a comprehensive comparison.”This was perhaps the first time that Rahul Kanwal was left red-faced on national television.
Such similar responses to the flimsy questions of Kanwal have come from many other leaders, mostly from the BJP, as Kanwal’s line and tone of questioning changes with different political parties. The questions are rather subjective in their stupidity, with Kanwal reserving the most stupid questions, only to be destroyed later, for the BJP. As much as he may want to show himself to be a centrist, bereft of any political inclinations whatsoever, Rahul Kanwal has time and again proven that he is nothing more than a wannabe Rajdeep Sardesai. The India Today website describes Rahul in the following manner: “At a time when Indian journalism has become sharply polarised along political, religious and ideological lines, Rahul believes in the need to remain non-aligned and present both sides of the story rather than push only side of the argument.” I’ll let you comprehend this for a moment.
Why do I call Rahul a wannabe Rajdeep? For the simple fact that like Rajdeep, Rahul pretends to be neutral, while he’s not. Despite everyone knowing Sardesai’s ideology, favourite party and godmother from that party, he continues to be the proponent of ‘golden journalism’, which is objective to the core and without any political inclinations. Similarly, as much as Rahul would like to cloud his bias with the shawl of objectivity, it clearly isn’t working.
Indian media has no neutral and objective journalists. This is a crisis in itself. While almost all journalists have chosen to follow a particular ideological line, anyone pretending to not do so, while doing the exact same thing is nothing more than an insidious liar. Like Rajdeep Sardesai, Rahul too decided not to get himself caught in obvious political bias. However, social media and an aware audience have spilt water over Kanwal’s dreams of being perceived as a fearless, neutral and objective journalist. In a few years, Kanwal may even begin enacting Rajdeep.