News TV seems to be moving away from its Kejriwal fixation
On Friday morning,the allegations were flying as fast as Nilams storm-front but for a change,the newswallahs werent all rising to the bait. The news was not all about the uncomfortably warm welcome accorded to Arvind Kejriwal in Khurshid country,nor about Subramanian Swamys attack on Rahul Gandhi. Except when they broke,these stories did not hold the first lead on any channel. The Hindi channels seemed to have led the change,forging ahead across a broad news-front.
Meanwhile,NDTV India ran a rural compensation story from Jharkhand,about farmers having to give up their land for a law university and technical institutions. Unfortunately,like IBN7,it stopped short of making the editorial point that the human cost of rapid development has to be defrayed by a realistic policy of reparation,which does not yet exist. Even a land acquisition law would assure a subset of the restitutions which have to be guaranteed for development to proceed without serious political opposition.
Aaj Taks bulletin dwelt at length on international news,including a fire in China which no one else seemed to be covering. Good,someone was trying to pop the insular bubble in which news usually lives. And they were not allowing Kejriwal to set the agenda,either. The media has finally stopped being used and wrested the tiller from him,I thought. And just then,a fervid Kejriwal quote scrolled past on Aaj Taks ticker: 2014 tak parties ko sone nahin denge!
Will there be no respite? From Kejriwal,maybe yes. Only Times Now seemed to have given lots of attention to the attack on his supporters in Farrukhabad. Was it such a big deal? There was a bit of pushing and stone-pelting when they ran into some Congress supporters,and a Bharatiya Kisan Union man was shoved into a drain. Arnab Goswami read that as a worrying case of political intimidation but really,its not at all unusual. Much more deserving of attention were the ersatz Gandhi caps out there,reading I am Salman Khurshid. They seemed to be computer printouts stapled together.
But there will clearly be no respite from Kejriwals brand of politics. No one can now make an allegation without being accused of doing a Kejriwal. And everyone who does a Kejriwal will have to deny that he or she is not a hit-and-run artist.
After he struck at Rahul Gandhi,the redoubtable Subramanian Swamy was accused of being insecure ever since Arvind Kejriwal took over the mantle of the leading serial accuser.
That was on Goswamis show,where Swamy faced Congressi blogger Sanjay Jha. Goswami tried to play devils advocate and pose two core questions to Swamy,which went unanswered because neither Jha nor Goswami could challenge him on the law. Which was quite odd,since you only have to read Section 25 of the Income Tax Act to answer one question for yourself: can a not-for-profit company earn profits? And the other question probably needs to be decided in court,not in a TV studio: can a political party lend to a Section 25 company and write off the loan? Unfortunately,Times Now did not have the wherewithal to pursue either matter.
pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com
