HRD Minister Smriti Irani has often used social media to counter untruths regarding her and her ministry. Earlier this year, she had rebuked Rajdeep Sardesai for his half-baked tweets. And last year, she took on Suhasini Haider and The Hindu. Now it seems it was the turn of Bhupendra Chaubey and his channel, CNN News 18.
It started with some run-of-the-mill news show promotion tweets by CNN News 18 and Bhupendra Chaubey. CNN News 18 later deleted the tweet:
The tweet which CNN News 18 later deleted
The minister chose to reply to CNN News 18’s tweet with this:
@CNNnews18@bhupendrachaube I’m sorry but I have not spoken to Bhupendra Chaubey, kindly don’t edit any statement out of context.
CNN News 18’s original tweet suggested that Smriti Irani had spoken to Bhupendra Chaubey, which probably alarmed the minister because she had not spoken to him at all. At this stage, Bhupendra Chaueby clarified:
only anchoring a program where we carrying a small part of your interview to @virsanghvi. No quoting out of context https://t.co/3WFYTzUzDp
Possibly, soon after this exchange, CNN News 18 deleted the original tweet. Interestingly, Vir Sanghvi makes another point in his tweet, which should be noted. He says Smriti Irani refused to comment on the Government handling of JNU. This flies in the face of Chaubey’s own tweet where he claimed the minister broke her silence on the same issue:
Bhupendra Chaubey’s tweet
Even the snippet of the interview which was telecast confirmed the above. On the question of commenting on this matter, the minister refused to answer saying she cannot comment on a law and order issue which is not her jurisdiction, and which is being deliberated upon in a court of law. While News 18 took down their misleading tweet, Chaubey didn’t.
And after this episode, Chaubey tweeted this:
अगर ट्विटर वासियों का बस चले तो सारे न्यूज़ चैनल्ज़ और पत्रकार बंद हो जाएँ। अरे भाई तो देखते क्यों हो। जीवन का सदुपयोग करो।
Yesterday Kanhaiya Kumar, made a sensationalist allegation that a co-passenger in his flight, whom he called a “strong BJP supporter” had attempted to “strangulate” him in the flight. We had reported how Kanhaiya’s version went against initial police reports on the issue, and also against normal logic.
After we posted the above article, Mumbai police confirmed that their investigation had revealed that Kanhaiya Kumar and his group’s version of the events was untrue:
Whatever has been alleged by his (Kanhaiya Kumar) friend, in our inquiry we’ve found it not to be true: Deven Bharti pic.twitter.com/z2A1HxWAbm
In all the fracas, one issue raised by many was how did Kanhaiya Kumar ascertain that his “attacker” was a “strong BJP supporter”. In fact, later in the day, Kanhaiya went on to allege that this person Manas Deka, was a BJP office bearer:
Kanhaiya’s allegation (this tweet has now been deleted by Kanhaiya)
Following his cue, like good propaganda machines should, pro-AAP news blog Janta Ka Reporter too posted an article that claimed the same. This is the same blog which had spread the fake news of Aamir Khan adopting drought hit villages a few days back.
Now see the timing, Kanhaiya alleges at 5.13 PM, and within 35 minutes Janta Ka Reporter is ready with the report. Also note the language used; Janta Ka Reporter alleges on its own that Manas Deka is a “supplies office bearer”. Later it says, Kanhaiya too has made the same allegation. Hence, this is not a report based on Kanhaiya’s tweet, but where Kanhaiya’s tweet is presented as a “proof” to further “substantiate” what the pro-AAP news blog is claiming.
Screengrab of the report published on the pro-AAP news blog Janta Ka Reporter
This same news, was then run by many small time portals and propaganda sites like newscrunch.in and Milli Gazzete, which had earlier pushed the fake news about Ayush ministry not hiring Muslims as part of government policy.
So was the Manas Deka who allegedly attacked Kanahaiya really a BJP office bearer? Even in our report yesterday, which was published before Kanhaiya could make that allegation, we had introduced our readers to a “rarely” occurring phenomenon where 2 different people have the exact same name.
It doesn’t take much work to find out that the Manas Deka, who is on the BJP site as an office bearer is a completely different from the TCS employee Manas Deka, who is alleged to have assaulted Kanahaiya. It should strike anyone that a full-time employee of a private company, would face great difficulty in acting as a office bearer of a party too.
Now have a look at the Kanhaiya “attacker” Manas Deka:
Man in light blue shirt is Manas Deka, who got in a scuffle with Kanhaiya in a Mumbai-Pune flight.
In fact, on the BJP official site, even the phone number of the BJP functionary Manas Deka has been given. All it takes is a small call to confirm whether he is the same. But Kanhaiya, Janta Ka Reporter and others would not do so, since they would be exposed. And the media is happy to listen to just one side.
This lie of Manas Deka being a BJP functionary was first started by an ordinary user on Twitter, who later deleted his tweet after realizing he was wrong:
How it started…
This was then put into circulation, with the Arvind Kejriwal-esque “Is it true?” style, by Supreme Court Advocate Sanjay Hegde, who appears on Times Now often attacking BJP. Foul mouthed journalist Swati Chaturvedi too jumped in, as did Marathi journalist Nikhil Wagle, both of whom circulated this as truth:
Deliberate rumour mongering?
And as this rumour kept on floating, it probably reached Kanhaiya Kumar or his handlers, who tried to use it as a saving grace since his allegations had been dismissed by the police. In fact, after Kanhaiya posted the above tweet, alleging a BJP connection, within a few minutes he posted the same link again, this time with a more evasive caption:
Kanhaiya’s backtracking
And later, Kanhaiya altogether deleted the first tweet where he was firmer in his allegation that his attacker was a BJP office bearer. So was Kanhaiya made aware by someone that his first tweet, which is now deleted, was wrong? That the Manas Deka who “attacked” him, was in fact not a BJP member? Did he then draft a second tweet, which was less incriminating, since he can always walk away saying he was only “wondering”?
Furthermore, if Kanhaiya was right that a murderous assault on him had taken place, why did he refuse to undergo a medical test? Remember, in the case of him being assaulted by lawyers, medical tests were done and they corroborated the charges. So why shy away from tests now?
These are the questions most in the media are not asking, because Kanhaiya can’t lie saala…
The Cambridge dictionary, defines the word “strangulate” as:
“to kill someone by pressing their throat so that they cannot breathe; strangle”
So when anyone makes the allegation that someone tried to strangulate him, it is quite a serious matter. Maybe not as serious as hacking to death or chopping of legs or blowing up a school building, but yes an attempt to strangulate is indeed serious. Modi-baiter Kanhaiya Kumar made this allegation on twitter today, and Indian media and media-persons went into a tizzy:
Kanhaiya’s allegations
Leave aside trivialities like how a “poor” student, whose mother earns barely enough to live, was travelling in a plane to Pune from Mumbai, a journey which takes less time by road than by flight, considering all the airport formalities. Or how Kanhaiya’s super detective skills managed to find out that his “strangulator” was a “strong BJP supporter”. The moot question here is Arvind Kejriwal’s favourite line: “Is it true?”
While this has been Kanhaiya’s version, various media reports seems to suggest something else:
The official statement is very short and gives no details of the incident. But as per Hindustan Times, this is the police version, which according to Indian media, when it is convenient, should be considered as gospel truth:
An initial probe carried by police revealed that it was not a case of assault but the two pushed each other over a petty argument.
Till 11.30 am, the Sahar police was waiting outside the airport premises to record statements of Kanhaiya and the other co-passenger.
A police official from Sahar police said, “From the preliminary inquiry we have learnt that the co passenger had a window seat and while taking the seat he bumped into Kanhaiya. They pushed each other. But there was nothing like an assault or a fight. But we can ascertain anything only after they come out and we record statements of flight crew and the two involved in the incident.”
This is eerily similar to the “bindow seat” Yatra ad spoofing Kanhaiya Kumar. It would be highly amusing if this version finally comes out as the truth.
A Maharashtra Times report too alludes to something similar. The report says, Deka, the alleged assaulter had booked a window seat, and as he was moving towards his seat, he bumped (dhakka) into Kanhaiya, who was sitting on the next seat. This led to an argument between the two, and in anger, Deka held the collar of Kanhaiya. After this Kanhaiya complained to the security personnel and consequently both were de-boarded.
An Assistant Editor with The Indian Express too has tweeted something similar:
#KanhaiyaKumar ‘roughed up’: Police sources- Not a case of assault. Argument over seats lead 2 a scuffle between the two @IndianExpress
And the accused, Manas Deka, has also spoken to ABP News now in which he claims that he did not do any such thing. He says, he was sitting on the window seat and he was coming out. Since his leg was injured, he had to come out carefully, and in that movement, his hand hit Kanhaiya, which was then spun by Kanhaiya as “strangulation” in order to get publicity.
Also, one must question the intelligence of this so called “strangulator” who allegedly attempted to choke Kanhaiya to death inside an Aircraft, with zero chances of getting away with such a serious crime. Imagine the “plan”:
Buy a ticket, obtain a boarding pass with genuine ID proof, board the plane, “strangulate” Kanhaiya, since this is the only way to kill someone in a secure aircraft, escape (?) from the aircraft, onto the airport, another highly secure location, and then escape from there into the city!
Either the alleged “strangulator” is mentally deranged, or the accuser. And if this was not a planned attempt, then it was obviously a spur of the moment argument, which most reports are pointing to, unlike Kanhaiya, who chooses to bring in BJP into this.
As of now, investigations are on and it is premature to say which version is correct. But media cheer-leaders and rumour-mongerers seem to have already passed their verdict:
The verdict is out!
Some miscreants on social media also tried to spread the theory that the attacker was a BJP committee member:
And even as we discuss who is guilty and who is not, Left-wing trolls have begun tagging Manas Deka’s personal Facebook profile and are spurring other to attack him and his employers, to take action on him:
Trolling was considered an art on Twitter before it was given a bad name by people who know only abusive or bullying language. If you don’t believe, you need to check out replies by a Twitter user “The-Lying-Lama” to the tweets of celeb journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.
There is no abusive language, there is no threat, and there is no obscenity. It’s all about wit, and some biting sarcasm. While “The-Lying-Lama” has a long list of replies to showcase, we bring to you some of his best ones.
By the way, it seems that the lying lama (or @KyaUkhaadLega per his twitter handle) was blocked by Rajdeep Sardesai (obviously!) but later he unblocked him. Maybe he too appreciates that it’s good trolling!
Apart from having a Twitter account, the ‘Rajdeep replier’ also has a Facebook page, but he doesn’t seem to reply with the same passion for Mr Sardesai on Facebook, yet. 😉
The lying lama’s apart being a master troll on Twitter has a day job as Chief Business officer of India’s top sports website Sportskeeda.
(Editor’s Note: Role of the BJP led government at the center, in government formation and governance in the state of Jammu & Kashmir has often led to intense debates on social media. We believe it would be an interesting thought experiment to put yourself in the shoes of the Prime Minister and come up with some ideas that you think could solve the Kashmir issue from a nationalist perspective. We are not endorsing any suggestions, but just facilitating a discussion. You can put your articles on MyVoice.OpIndia.com and take this debate forward. For now, hear this one out.)
The origin of the word ‘Kashmir’ as per Hindu Puranas have been linked to ‘Kasmira’ which is derived based on the name of Hindu mythical sage Kashyapa. From medieval times Kashmir had been one of the epicenters for the development of Buddhism and Hinduism so much so that a sect of Hinduism is known as Kashmir Shaivism. In the 19th Century, Maharaja Ranjit Singh rescued local Kashmiris from the barbarism of Afghans and Mughals and thus brought significant portion of Kashmir under the Sikh dynasty. During the independence, Kashmir got acceded to India as Raja Hari Singh sided with India and pleaded Lord Mountbatten to assist state of Jammu and Kashmir from the onslaught of Pakistan guerilla warfare and state sponsored terrorism. Indian Army led to the rescue of Maharaja Hari Singh and drove out the Pakistani state sponsored terrorists. This however led to the never ending conflict between India and Pakistan and since then Pakistan fought and lost three wars with India in 1965, 71 and 99. Between these wars, Pakistan continued with its sponsoring of terrorism in J&K.
In the late eighties and early nineties, Pakistan even won a passive war against India as Kashmir witnessed a Holocaust of Hindu Kashmiri Pandits, which had not been witnessed ever since the rule of Afghans and Mughals ended. There were chants through the loudspeakers, which vociferously thundered ‘Agar Kashmir mein rehna hai toh Allahu Akbar kehna hai’, ‘Zalimon O Kafiro, Kashmir Hamara chhodo’. After this, many such atrocities against the Hindus continued in Kashmir and Media and successive Governments continued to ignore the plight of Kashmiri Pandits who till date live as refugees and cannot go back to their homeland. It is now since the current Government has come into power, all these noises have gained attention, be it JNU where anti India slogans are raised and such people are labelled as saviors of freedom of speech or NIT Srinagar where students who chanted pro India slogans and hoisted the Tricolour were lathicharged.
It often amazes me on how these Kashmiris have been brainwashed since generations that they send their children for education (if at all), medical treatment, business, employment to Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities and still spew venom against us. Their State Government salaries are paid by us, we have reignited the tourism industry in the valley, our Indian Army which is stationed there maintains the law and order and rescues them from floods and other natural calamities. Yet there is no credit given to them, in fact during my recent visit to Srinagar, I asked various people on what they will gain if at all Kashmir becomes part of Pakistan (although it is never going to happen), they were clueless on what to answer. Maybe they can graduate from being professional stone pelters to being recruited for various banned organizations (no need to name them).
But somewhere I feel we are also to be blamed for ignorance of Kashmiris as they do not have a sense of belongingness to India. Few questions come to my mind while I think about state of affairs in Kashmir –
Who is ruling J&K – It’s the BJP-PDP Government.
Who is ruling the Centre – It’s the BJP Government.
Forget about previous Congress Governments at the Center and State as least is expected from them but what is BJP’s USP – A nationalist political party with core principles of non-appeasement and finally who heads BJP Government – Shri Narendra Modi, a nationalist, a leader known for his aggression with a no nonsense attitude who himself hoisted the tricolor at Srinagar in 90s. Then why is Shri Narendra Modi silent on this issue? Why is the situation of Kashmir not changing? Or is it that this is a deliberate attempt by Central Government to bring our state of affairs in front of everyone which media continued to ignore until two years back.
I often ask myself what could I have done if I were Modi under these circumstances. What often comes to my mind is that in 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. As the summer capital, Shimla hosted many important political meetings including the Simla Accord of 1914 and the Simla Conference of 1945. The British empire took the trouble of moving the administration twice a year between Calcutta and this separate center over 1,000 miles away, despite the fact that it was difficult to reach. During the “Hot Weather”, Shimla was also the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, India, the head of the British Indian Army and many Departments of the Government.
When the British empire can have their Summer Capital as Simla in those times, why can’t we have Srinagar as the Summer capital of India, even if it is for a period of at least 3 months in a year. In this era of technology, internet etc. where people can ‘Work from home’, do Skype calls and do video conference for conduct of business, why can’t Government office work be conducted by leveraging this technology? and why not? Which leader values and uses technology like our tech savvy Prime Minister. I can’t think of many.
Or is security the reason for not doing it? No, I don’t think so as majority of our Army is already stationed in the Valley and the only security personnel that may have to be moved would be personal commandos & NSG, which I think is a non-issue. Now the important point is, what we as Indians will achieve by doing this – Won’t India achieve in making Kashmir an integral part of India in the ‘True sense’? The positives of such a move could benefit the state and the country as follows:
Srinagar being the Capital of India will enhance its prominence and visibility globally as it would be called the ‘Summer Capital’ of India, implying its very much an integral part of the country and valued;
With Central Government machinery in Srinagar there would be development of Infrastructure;
Development of Infrastructure would definitely attract investments / FDI’s and also help in achieving the ‘Make in India’ mission;
Aren’t the Diplomatic area, Shanti path, 7 RCRs and the Rashtrapati bhavan etc. the cleanest part of our National capital? So will Srinagar be and that will be a big step towards achieving the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission;
Tourism will get a further boost. Tourists both national & international will feel more safe and secure if they know that the PM himself operates from the Valley;
All of the above, it will generate jobs in the Valley. Majority of youth of Kashmir who are getting wasted and are becoming ‘Professional stone pelters’ would be employed in respectable jobs. This will create a sense of belongingness and loyalty towards India, which is largely missing at present;
And this will also position BJP as a party with a ‘Difference’ having a clear strategy for the Valley, which many including BJP supporters doubt at times.
But for all this, a debate followed by revocation of Article 370 will be required. Can this Government show its might? well only time will tell!
And last but not the least, the obvious benefits of the above will be the real strong message India would send to the world and especially to Pakistan when the Prime Minister of India delivers the Independence day speech on the 15th of August from Lal Chowk, the Summer Capital of India, Srinagar and the President of India delivers the Republic day speech on the 26th January from Lal Qila, New Delhi the National Capital of India followed by the Republic Day parade.
This will ensure that our Tricolour, our beloved Tiranga, our national flag would be unfurled from Lal Qila to Lal Chowk.
April 23rd is celebrated as the World Book Day. An important area where many Indians lack access to published word is the post Independence period – the contemporary period – because our text book histories stop with the country being free from the British. This “… and they lived happily ever after..” approach to understanding the events around us needs to be discarded. There needs to be a greater emphasis on critically assessing what went on in the terms of policy making and politics, impacting our own lives and of our generations to come.
In this context, the World Book Day is a good time to reflect on events which shaped us as a country and learn about how the country has been governed in the modern era.
One Life Is Not Enough by K. Natwar Singh
Natwar Singh spent many years in the Indian Foreign Service and later joined the Congress party, assuming many senior ministerial positions in the government. His closeness to the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has controlled the Congress party and the Indian government for most part since Indian independence is well known and well documented – including by Natwar Singh himself. This book is an intriguing account of the way Delhi functions – from someone who had a great view of the process. This is an ideal autobiography – he attempts to hide nothing or no one. His likes and dislikes are made public and so are his own qualities and shortcomings.
Singh covers how the bureaucrats stand to benefit by being close to powerful politicians. And conversely how things can go wrong when these relationships fall by the way. Singh gives frank opinions on key personalities who he worked with. Pandit Nehru is lauded as the leader who brought India together after Independence but fell from his high pedestal in the later part of the tenure. On Indira Gandhi with whom Singh worked the closest, the book covers the qualities – power and authority and the flip side of the same qualities – carte blanche and dictatorial ways of operating in a democracy. The husband-wife duo of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are examined through the lens of reluctant politicians becoming omnipotent. The author presents a not so charitable view of PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh who are described as weak but opportunist individuals who made the most of political windfalls.
Singh gives as many details as one possibly can from such a long and connected career. He ends with covering the “Oil for Food” program in Iraq sketchily which caused his own downfall. The links to the eventual beneficiaries aren’t spelt out, but Singh ends his story describing two closed door Manmohan Singh – Paul Walker meetings and Walker’s later role as the UN committee head for “Oil for Food” probe. The reader is left with unspoken words and events to be pieced together.
1965 Turning The Tide – How India Won The War by Nitin Gokhale
The title of the book itself provides a big hint on what the author – veteran journalist and defense expert – Nitin Gokhale brings out in the detailed account. The 1965 Indo-Pak war has been the least celebrated of the four Indian victories in the battlefield (though some authors describe 1948 and 1999 as localized skirmishes, not full blown wars like 1965 and 1971). The popular accounts in the media and on television commonly describe 1965 as a tie or a stalemate.
Gokhale narrates the war not as a monolith but takes a battle by battle, theatre by theatre approach, looking at every engagement between the two armies in isolation. Every such event is then analyzed for impact on the war as a whole. The research is meticulous and the reconstruction very real. The detailing is authentic covering everything including locations, directions, terrains, troop positions, troop movements, and the actual battles. The author has taken several first hand inputs and going through this account is almost reliving the events of 1965.
The book clearly establishes that India had a net advantage in this war – a statement which hasn’t been categorically made very often in media or in TV studios. This book fills a big void in the Indian military history writing.
Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer by Yashwant Sinha
Yashwant Sinha, a bureaucrat turned politician, served in key ministerial positions with two Prime Ministers – Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihar Vajapayee. This book, styled as an autobiography, but with greater emphasis on his professional life as a politician, is an excellent account of not just Sinha’s contributions to Indian politics and policies but also serves as a precise summary of the tough operating conditions for the country through the 1990s.
Sinha can be called the architect of the first wave of economic reforms in 1990-91 when he was the Finance Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government. His iconic 1991 budget document was never presented in its entirety with Congress pulling its outside support to the government. But this document formed the basis for the changes which Rao – Manmohan combine pushed vigorously in the later part of 1991.
Sinha also talks about the immense difficulties through which the Vajpayee government completed its term. The government faced hostility not just from opposition, but from NGOs, bureaucracy, interest groups, and from its own allies at times. Sinha, who served as the Finance Minister for part of the term, describes how the government still pushed reforms in the areas of Agriculture, Banking, Taxation, Electricity, Telecom, and Disinvestment with a strong will.
Reading this book is like imagining riding a roller coaster while being in charge of the controls of the apparatus – it is a great account of the context in which the Vajpayee government worked and eventually lost in 2004.
Ayodhya – The Finale by Koenraad Elst
This book on the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi movement recaps “science versus secularism in the excavations debate” as the tagline mentions. Koenraad Elst laments why with modern techniques available, the debate on the disputed Ayodhya site continues. Elst also explains how science fell prey to the sociologists in this matter and how the procedures and assumptions involved in the Ayodhya excavations followed a path guided by historians and not by scientific methods.
The book covers the events from 2002-2003, when the Supreme Court had ordered the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to determine if there was any extant structure underneath the disputed Ayodhya site. The radar based underground imaging studies conducted in this period had revealed the existence of “something” under the ground. The ASI then had to build up on these studies via excavations.
The author explains how the ASI could have inferred nothing else but the presence of a temple under the demolished Babri Masjid. Evidence after evidence pointed to the presence of a structure which could have been nothing else but a Hindu place of worship. But as the details continued to emerge and leaked, various groups of sociologists and historians continued to put pressure on the ASI and kept presenting alternative histories like they have done since 1950.
In this short book, Elst rubbishes these alternative versions and bats for using proper scientific methods to prove what should be obvious.
The Sanjay Story by Vinod Mehta
Vinod Mehta wrote this book soon after the Emergency was lifted and a beeline of authors came forward to write on the life and times of the worst period of Indian democracy ever. Mehta does not talk about the Emergency much, but focuses on the life of Sanjay Gandhi, who was the main protagonist of the Indian politics in the 70s.
This book is actually quite an average one – it has basic research, sweeping statements, conflation of events with no sense of proportion, and sketchy details fill the book. It is a collection of hearsays with several author made inferences on what may or may not have gone behind scenes. And the best part is the author himself accepts that in the course of the book.
Yet, the book provides an account of Sanjay Gandhi’s life, personality, style of thinking, friendships or lack thereof, and ambitions in one single account. Mehta does bring out the total control Sanjay had over the Congress party starting in 1976 and how his schemes actually brought the worst face of Emergency closer to the voting masses.
It is worth going through this account not so much to learn about a rather ordinary individual who had his place in the sun given his surname, but to understand the backdrop of how a country was run by a family over several years as its personal fiefdom.
Happy Reading!
(The author had written a similar piece last year too, recommending 5 other books)
Buoyed by the bravery of those we find ourselves in the midst of, sometimes we take safety for granted. The same happened with me, as I accompanied and followed Sadanandan Master when in Kuthuparamba, Kannur.
I heard of Sadanandan Master a little over a month ago. By then, Kannur had already captured my attention. In February this year, a young man Sujith was brutally hacked to death in front of his parents. There was no clear case of provocation, only the fact that this village do-gooder had accompanied a group of people to sort out a neighbourly dispute between two school-going teenagers.
Sitting in Delhi, I skimmed through channels to find visuals and debates and interviews of another young man, Kanhaiya. There was one news item of his being roughed up outside the court house that generated justifiable outrage. Kanhaiya walked away from that surrounded by police.
But in my mind, a parallel timeline of events was playing out. That of Sujith’s death; the fact that he was pulled out of his home at night by CPM cadre, that a plank of wood with nails on it was one of the weapons used to tear his skin from the back of his neck down before killing him, were not mentioned or commented on, or even acknowledged in the media or debate.
They echoed in my head, in my imagination. The only escape from him was to let in the living – his mother with her broken arm from when she had rushed to save him, a woman I would subsequently meet.
The author with Sujith’s mother
I was haunted. Sujith’s mother is a small woman, no more than five feet one inches tall, maybe 35 kilos. I embraced her two days ago and only felt bones rattling against my body as she cried. Amma I called her, the word for mother in Kerala, it only made her cry more, and I felt as if I had wronged her as well.
Amidst this, Sadanandan Master became hope for me. I have never visited a political party’s office, let alone supported a candidate. But with Sadanandan Master, all of those considerations became incidental.
Here was a man who had his legs taken away from him by an act of such barbaric cruelty that my sanitised world of imagination and urban outrage was demolished to the rubble of well-meaning thoughts and comment that it was.
I don’t know who I expected to meet when I first met him. We had already spoken on the phone. He was always pleasant. I had seen his photographs and watched an old YouTube video. They reflected a man of quiet dignity and of a compassionate temperament.
But would there be bitterness? I was to find none. By now, I had heard the stories, of his attack when returning from distributing wedding cards for his sister’s wedding, to the aftermath. I met his friend who accompanied him to the hospital in an old battered ambulance, as he drifted in and out of consciousness, losing blood, losing hope.
His friend carried his amputated legs, they were no good, having been dragged on the ground by his assailants and tossed aside. But his friend carried them to the hospital anyway, hoisting them on his shoulders. Why? So no one could say that Sadanandan Master never had legs in the first place and no crime had been committed.
This was 1994 and as it is today, the RSS had no access to political power in Kerala, a dangerous situation in a state where every institution is politicised. Where even police associations have elections and candidates are backed by political parties and the victories are recorded in newspapers.
As the rest of the country conjectures about RSS’s presumed unchecked power, Kerala is a time warp, it tells you what it was like for this organization for most of its years of existence. Here, Sadanandan Master had picked the losing side.
What followed after his attack, were months of depression. I met the man whose wife used to force feed him, because he refused to eat, sitting in his hospital bed all day staring at the walls. Even his beloved books gave him no company. At almost thirty, this young man who once stood at six feet had lost his two limbs and the will to carry on.
He had also been in love, with a co-student, pushing the marriage till his responsibilities were settled. He now told her to carry on with her life and not waste it on a handicapped man who would only be a burden. She refused.
Sadanandan Master
When I meet him, he laughs about her, she is very determined. “Your soul mate?” I ask. “Yes”, he blushes, “you can call her that”. Together they had a child, a daughter. Together, they built a home, away from Kannur. Together, they restored his dignity. Together, he has learnt to laugh.
His students make him laugh. They treat him a lot better than other colleagues beleaguered by the constant battling of wits with precocious teens. They keep an eye out for Mashe’s (an endearment for Master in Kerala) car, modified to suit his special needs. They rush to open the door and carry his books. They give him little trouble. His story is known to all.
But to hear him tell it. He doesn’t blame his assailants, the CPM men who came to him later to ask for forgiveness. They are forgiven. He blames the masters that sanction this violence, cocooned in their world of privilege, their children in the safe embrace of foreign lands, far away from the killing fields of Kannur.
Moved by his story, I had rushed to garner support, requested people to canvas for him, be his legs.
Many volunteered. I went there ahead of them, on a recon as it is called in the world of cinema, to see if it was safe, to tell more people his story. I hoped the Prime Minister, a popular man, would go to Kannur.
His itinerary leaves it out. One reason could be security concerns. It is difficult to sanitise this area for even the most powerful person in the country. Crude bombs are built in homes and lobbed at passing vehicles. We drive through areas, unguarded, vulnerable; I can taste the tension in the hot breeze.
Lutyen’s Delhi and its strutting masters with security that covers the entire alphabet from A to Z, fill me with a new distaste for something that I have grown accustomed to. The ink attacks and the shoe hurling that finds air-time, and the maimed and dead bodies that pass without comment.
I see it all as I sit to write. Changed, humbled, saddened and all too aware of my own insignificance and that of any platform which will give me space to write of this cruelty in the face of dehumanising ambition and agenda. But I write anyway. What else is there to do when in the presence of staggering courage and the lurking inevitability of violence?
Sadanandan Master’s car was attacked yesterday. He had left it a few moments before the attack. I spoke to him after, he seemed surprised. “It is unexpected, isn’t it?” he asked me. And I realised that he is misled by his own courage.
(Advaita Kala is an award winning screenwriter and author. You can contact her on Twitter here)
The Indian media loves bad news and that is making everyone negative – this is what well-known cricket columnist and commentator Harsha Bhogle thinks.
Harsha had been in news lately after being dropped from the panel of commentators for the ongoing season of IPL. Many in the mainstream media had linked his removal to “rising intolerance” alleging that he was dropped because he was not someone who’d say “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
How some in the Indian media reported Harsha’s exit from the IPL commentary team.
Your average celebrity will milk such a situation and play along with the media, trying to be in the thick of such controversial and negative news for as long as possible, but Harsha Bhogle believes otherwise. He believes in being positive and making others feel positive in the process, and wishes the Indian media could also feel that way.
Recounting his visit to Mussoorie on Wednesday for a corporate speaking program, Harsha Bhogle said that he could see “immense positivity” in the corporate India.
“People are planning big things because they believe they can be achieved.” Harsha shared his observations on his Facebook page.
“And yet the media is still telling me how wrong things are. Maybe it is the people they invite; people who need to say things are bad. Maybe they should invite hard working Indians and ask them if they are positive about India,” he further argued.
“I am not asking for a saccharine view of things but a perspective from people who are doing remarkable things too,” Harsha clarified, but reiterated that “Twelve people screaming simultaneously from caged windows isn’t the only picture of India.”
This is not for the first time that Harsha has come up with such observation. In December last year too, in another Facebook post, he had pointed out that many journalists were obsessed with negativity and confrontational approach.
Harsha’s observations are important because a large section of media is indeed hell bent upon portraying an image of India where nothing is going right.
While it’s the duty of media to report and highlight shortcomings of the society and the government, we’ve seen that often they are resorting to half truths or plain lies to push a particular narrative. Our media lies list is where you can find plenty of such examples.
Aamir Khan has been working hard towards solving the drought issue in Maharashtra. His Paani Foundation has collaborated with the Maharashtra Government to ease an enduring water crisis in the state. He has inspired many from the film world like Nana Patekar and Akshay Kumar to join him in lending a hand. Recently he even launched a Water Cup in Maharashtra, to promote water conservation.
A few days back, a news story broke out that Aamir Khan had now gone one step further and had adopted a 2 drought-hit villages in Maharashtra. A search shows that this story was first tweeted by the Pro-AAP news blog Janta Ka Reporter:
The tweet was sent on 18th April at 8.38 pm and the story was also published on the same day. Today, Janta ka Reporter even went on to claim credit for breaking this news story:
This story was then picked up by almost every media outlet. The story was widely shared, and it seemed some people, were interested in settling political scores by raising the anti-national issue etc, rather than appreciating the move.
The tone of the tweets floating around
Now it turns out this entire story by Janta ka Reporter was fabricated. This has emerged after the tweets of a journalist who claims to have spoken to the actor’s agency:
So where did a small outfit like Janta Ka Reporter, which usually only curates posts, which has very little geographical reach, get their exclusive, first-hand, breaking information? Did they actually manage to have a reporter on the ground at the place where Aamir Khan had “announced” his action? If one reads the story broken by Janta ka Reporter, it appears their only source was a tweet. Yes, a solitary tweet is quoted by Janta Ka Reporter in its story:
Shahryar is a journalist with a site covering Bollywood news. He later wrote a piece on his site, titled “How ‘Anti-National’ Aamir Khan shames ultra-nationalists”.
But even before Shahryar, there is another mention of this “adoption” that never happened. A Twitter account by the name Aakib Sayyad, who claims to be staying in Mumbai (as per his bio) tweeted out on 17th April itself that Aamir had adopted “2 villages” (see update below) of Tal and Koregaon:
Amazingly, the tweets of both Shahryar the journalist and Sayyad use the exact same photo of the function where Aamir allegedly announced this. The exact same photo from the same angle of the exact same moment. And the journalist tweeted the image almost 24 hours after Sayyad tweeted the picture. So it is highly possible that Shahryar was not even present at the venue and basically believed this story from a tweet he saw, that of Sayyad.
But what could be the source of Sayyad you may ask? He tweeted out the entire “breaking news”, and the last tweet in the series probably reveals his very credible source:
So it appears that a random person got a message on WhatsApp, which he tweeted out, which was picked by some random journalist, which was blindly trusted by a media portal like Janta ka Reporter, which was further picked by almost every National media house, and possibly even some International media houses! One Whatsapp message, and a breaking news story!
And now as the chickens have come to roost, the journalist Shahryrar has tweeted a clarification:
What does this show? Indian media reporting standards are at rock-bottom. A WhatsApp message can become a national news without as much as a simple clarification from the person about whom the news is. Media houses in their race and hunger to feed breaking news, especially politically loaded news, have forgotten to do the basics right: Confirm a damned news story!
Update:
As a reader points out, the first tweet on this issue, that by Sayyad says “two villages of Tal. Koregaon”. This is to be read as 2 villages from the Taluka Koregaon, and not as MSM reported saying 2 villages named Tal and Koregaon!
Times Now has obtained the Ishrat Jahan file through an RTI query and the documents prove that Chidambaram had in fact signed the first affidavit that admitted Ms. Jahan was indeed an LeT operative.
What is the significance of this?
Chidambaram has all along maintained that the first affidavit was filed without his approval. Now these documents bust that claim. In other words, in August 2009 he accepted the fact that Ishrat was a terrorist.
Chidambaram has never had a problem owning up to the 2nd affidavit. (Of course, he wants G K Pillai also to own up to the affidavit. Pillai for obvious reasons is distancing himself from it.) What necessitated the 2nd version? The first one, in his view, was erroneous as it rested solely on inputs from intelligence ifnormation. ‘Intelligence information is not a conclusive proof, it is for the investigative agency to gather evidence and present it before a court,’ said the former cabinet minister in justification of the 2nd version. And to make it more robust, he got the 2nd affidavit vetted by the then Advocate General. All these sound very convincing and reasonable, don’t they?
Now comes the twist.
All these documents are missing. According to the home ministry the following documents are missing:
Office copy of the letter and enclosures sent by GK Pillai to the then attorney general GE Vahanvati on September 18, 2009
Draft note of second affidavit which was vetted by then AG
The letter written by Pillai, along with its enclosures, to the AG again on September 23, 2009
The draft of final affidavit amended by the former home minister PChidambaram.
What would these documents, if traced, prove?
The list of missing documents as above traces the movement of documents between MHA and AG’s office before the 2nd affidavit was finalised. It would be easy to discern the changes/ improvements made at each stage.
Chidambaram has famously claimed that he made only ‘minor editorial changes’—‘a comma here and there or strike out a word.’
The 2nd affidavit, as all of us know, drops the reference to Ishrat having been an LeT operative.
From all the above it will be clear that the missing documents hold the key to who made what changes and whether those were indeed minor editorial ones. Who will benefit from the disappearance of these documents? To answer this question, one needs to look at what happened after CBI explained to the Supreme Court the movement of the draft status report in the coal scandal between PMO, Coal Ministry, AG’s office and Law Ministry and the nature of changes made to the draft by PMO officials, Law Minister, Coal Ministry officials and AG. It cost Ashwani Kumar, the then Law Minister, his job.
If, in spite of all these, Chidambaram asks somewhat righteously, ‘To whose advantage has the vetted draft gone missing?’ it is nothing but bravado.
Is it the first time papers on a controversy relating to Chidambaram go missing?
No. Two years ago Ram Jethmalani wrote a scathing letter to Chidambaram accusing him of harassing an honest income tax officer who was probing alleged financial irregularities at a prominent TV channel and Chidambaram’s role in the same. It is not the purpose of this article to go into the merits or otherwise of the allegation. Activist Madhu Kishwar, journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and others have written about it. My purpose is to focus on a reference to some missing documents in Jethmalani’s letter.
The annexure to Jethmalani’s letter narrates a curious story of how 12 pages in a finance ministry file went missing and how they were ‘replaced’ by papers from a different file. Now some background before we proceed with the details of the missing documents.
SK Srivastav is an income tax officer whose case Jethmalani was espousing in his letter to Chidambaram. Srivastav, it seems, applied to the ministry of finance under RTI for copies of files and papers purporting to contain incriminating details on Chidambaram. One of these documents was a file bearing reference number F. No. DGIT(V) /NZ/Com/113/06. And when he got the documents, Srivastav got the shock of his life. According to Jethmalani, the first 12 pages of the said file were replaced by the 12 pages from another file bearing reference number File No F.No DGIT(VIG.)/NZ/Com./36/06(Part).
Jethmalani elaborates further: ‘After the pages 1-12 substituted, the file F.No. DGIT(V)/NZ/Com/113/06–marked “Secret” continues from page 13 onwards;
‘Result, the first 12 pages is marked as F.No DGIT (VIG.) /NZ/Com./36/06(Part) without the word “Secret” [File 36/06] and rest of pages is F.No. DGIT(V)/NZ/Com/113/06 [File 113/06] marked “Secret”–something extraordinary and unprecedented.’
Of course, this is not a simple of case of missing documents. It is a planned operation wherein incriminating documents were removed and replaced by other irrelevant papers.
While Chidambaram replied to Ram Jethmalani within a fortnight, his reply did not offer any explanation on the alleged switching of documents.
My point is to highlight a pattern that emerges from most of the scams/ controversies of UPA: A scam/ controversy breaks out. UPA, its ministers and allies defend by making false claims. When facts to the contrary emerge, papers/ files/ documents that would fix responsibility on UPA heavyweights go missing. Apart from the above, the following cases strengthen my argument further:
Crucial documents relating to 2G case went missing.
