I have been waking upto news articles about the Kashmir issue and how our media has responded to it. One one end of the spectrum is the Times now, 9x , zee news among others which have become the face of nationalism. The news peddled by them has been pretty much ultra nationalistic bordering on extreme right i.e loud , brash and trying to portray everything as lack and white with no scope for grey areas. While this would have been nice if we had been in a war where there is no scope for being grey because you are actually fighting for the country. And then one day a fine oxford educated gentleman decides to call out all the pseudo liberals and anti-national elements and without naming them calls them to be prosecuted and media's freedom be gagged. Well to say the least, he didn't realised when govt starts gagging the media they will do do with impunity and even he won't be able to escape the same but then he is the Arnab Goswami.
Then came the repartee from none other than the flag bearer of the pseudo liberals, Ms Barkha Dutt. She went all out blasting Arnab for his diatribe against the liberal media at large.She also went the same way as Arnab Goswami trying to instill fear into the minds of people by saying India should be scared and Arnab doesn't scare her. Well Now step back for a second and imagine what she actually said. That people have to be now scared of journalist is it? Hell no Yes they play a very important role in shaping people's opinion but in no way we are that immature that we will get carried away by some loudmouths on TV extorting us to rise up against the anti-nationals. Barkha dear you are on the wrong side and you just gave a stick to everyone to beat you up with. Is she right? well partly but her approach was wrong.
The problem here is the media has divided itself so sharply that they fail to notice that they have become politicians themselves. They are cat-calling and abusing each other but fail to understand that in any democracy there will be contradicting views and that's a sign of good democracy. Just because the media at different spectrum of the political sides essentially doesn't mean one has to be wrong. And yes reporters like Barkha Dutt or Vir Singvi haven't exactly covered themselves in glory by being involved in facilitating political deals which no matter how much they deny. They were caught and they were not adequately held accountable for the same.
Secondly why this debaye came about , we need to understand that. It is the kashmir issue which started with the killing of terrorist Burhan wani and the narrative slowly changed to use of pellet guns on people and how differently they have been treated by the govt .The narrative was if there is a a protest in Any other part of India there would be less use of force while in Kashmir they are being shot, lathicharged ,blinded by pellet guns and what not while In Delhi well water cannons and maybe lathi charge is used. Just to debunk this particular narrative I would say it depends on the threat perception by the security forces . As a case in point we just need to revisit the mathura 2016 riots sparked by the Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah group whole they were being evicted. People did get killed and the police shot at the protesters. So now that theory is debunked so yes the security forces have been guilty of using excessive forces at times but their fears aren't unfounded since they are the people who have faced bombs, bullets and stones from the protestors.
Now the third point I want to make is is Kasmir problem a home made phenomena? Well the answer isn't as straightforward as Mr Goswami would like us to believe. THe thing is it's not possible to get protesters no matter who finances and supports the movement if there is no local support. Yes the things are planned across the border but there is a underlying simmering discintent which gets lighted every time somebody triggers it. And another thing that we need to observe is these kashmiri protests are pretty much limited to urban areas as compared to the rural areas. It's the educated youth and the older separatists who are driving the movement and of course they are getting support from a third party. let ot be moral support or, weapons or other stuff. So the problem isn't simple as merely stopping the funding flow from across the border but winning over the people which has been the biggest failure of our country's political system.
So in this war between the ultra right and ultra left the lines between politicians and journalists has completely blurred. It has become ugly and the youth of our nation have become so polarised by the media coverage its more like if you are against us we will brand you as a anti-national or something else. And i can safely say our democracy is pretty mature that when the elections come they won't care who is anti-national or leftist or anything. They will give vote to the party which promises them food three times a day, an ability to have a house and living safely.
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