Aiming Zero

Often our responses, or the lack of it, to events around us defines our character, and morality. It also throws ample light on the level of maturity of a person. I also believe that a person of sound character is generally the least hypocritical, and they are invariably honest in both their personal lives and public lives. When one takes positions when it suits him, and prefers to "appear" neutral in the most cases, are precisely the sanctimonious fakes we can live without. They are also the most hypocritical, and hence one must avoid taking such sanctimonious hypocrites a bit too seriously.

On 7th December 2015, the Delhi High Court had vacated the stay on the personal hearing of the accused in the National Herald scam. This effectively meant that the Maatha G and Beta G had to appear before the Trial Court. The mud was on their face now. And the entire political world was suddenly hyper active and started taking sides. Accusations were made. Defences were made. Aggressive statements were made. Abuses followed. They were gunning for the pigsty. They'd eventually reach there.

But amidst all this din and noise, one group showed least possible interest,and it was the Indian Mainstream Media. As the screen grab of a tweet here reflects, it pretty much summed up our Mainstream Media's initial reaction to the entire din. As Niti Central in this article points out, "But for a mildly admonishing editorial from The Hindu all the main newspapers have ensured that their editorials remained blank as far as #NationalHerald case is concerned." 

And then the whole CBI raid on Chief Secretary to Delhi Mayor happened, and what followed was arguably some of the worst abuses hurled by an Indian Politician in the Social Media, and something which he neither regretted nor deleted. When questioned on the choice of words by the CM, his side kick and ex CNN IBN Journalist / Anchor comes out with this gem "Can you get me a better word for what is happening?"

Now, every single Political party has people who come out with various incendiary statements and abuses. No political party is an exception. Some of the most virulent abuses in the recent past ranges from "Maut Ka Saudagar" to "Naxalite" to "Psychopath" to "Liar" to "Impotent". Some of the intended abuses, but presented in ever so sophisticated manner can include "Model-Turned-Actress-Turned-Politician" referring to Smriti Irani, or "Chaiwala" on Modi or "Maunmohan Singh". We can endlessly list such occurrences throughout the day, and we would still have plenty to choose from.

This post isn't about politicians though. It is about one journalist, anchor and author. Rajdeep Sardesai. Upfront, I have to admit that I have enjoyed reading some of his articles, till some four years back, when I started realizing his antipathy towards a certain political establishment. This was continuing to such an extent that he would somehow invoke one particular riot into each of his article. This happened even when discussing some scams or others of the opposite political establishment, as if his articles should be politically correct, and therefore, by invoking that riot, he is doing justice. But you'd find no such reference to the other party's misdemeanors in his article on the "rioting" party. 

Nowadays, my interest in his articles are restricted to check if he has changed.And I can with enough confidence say that he can never change. As usual he takes his holier than thou position, and morally superior position, and starts ranting out his usual nonsense (and some very very sensible statements). But the trouble is, the number of dumb, biased and hypocritical utterances far exceed his smart observations. 

One such article that I saw earlier today was "#KejriwalVsModi: It's a new low for Indian politics and us". Wherein he had spoken at his usual sanctimonious self, about how low the political discourse had fallen, with countless abuses. He concludes his article with rather thought provoking statement 

"Maybe, it's time for the prime minister to take a lead: how about a "Chai Pe Charcha" with all MPs, chief ministers and party leaders on the need to set the rules for political engagement?". 

He has effectively cast the obligation for smooth conduct of everyone on the Prime Minister. Why not say that the respective party leaders should take the initiative? Why no the Delhi CM at his level? No sir. It should only be the duty of Prime Minister.

But in any case, the above is a given, considering who Shri Rajdeep Sardesai is. He cannot change. And one must just accept his political leanings or probably political antipathy. To put it a bit less bluntly, he probably hates BJP more than Congress, and Modi more than Matha G. To each his own. But the point of this post is his sanctimonious sermonizing that is getting on my nerves with each passing day. He creates an impression as if he never abuses. He pretty much holds every other person guilty other than himself. He takes his holy cow posturing to a new level, that it smacks of deceit - holding back facts, and taking pot shots at rivals etc.

Look at the following video. This is from that 'infamous' New York episode last September. Please listen from 0:13. The first word that you can listen isn't comletely audible immediately. Rajdeep was later saying that people there heckled and abused him. Rajdeep was heckled. There are no two ways about it. As Mani Shankar Iyer once put on Charlie Hebdo attacks "They were asking for it". Rajdeep was abused. It was true. But not the complete truth. The "asshole" comment from the "abuser" was in response. To be precise, the response is "You're an assohole, too!". And now you rewind back to hear what Rajdeep said at 0:13, you'd realize our Saint Rajdeep isn't exactly a holy cow, and his moral compass isn't one we should rely upon.

Even before the above abuse, he was making some philosophical observations about "Money and Class". That sounds like a general observation. And you are still okay with it. Every body is entitled to an opinion and a view, and as "champion" of freedom of expression, he surely can make such statements. Any neutral person would actually support it, since the statement reflects the reality. You can find that in the following link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F1XP9I49Fw

But Rajdeep being Rajdeep, didn't make that statement in a general sense. He pretty much used the above, in my view, to abuse the people around him. But before that he was in fact abusing the people accusing them of having money but no class. Now, this is abuse. He can rant out his usual philosophical song routine and claim it as an observation on humanity as such. It was a verbal abuse, insulting certain Indian Americans waiting outside eagerly to get a glimpse of the Indian Prime Minister.

He isn't the only one in his family to abuse people, in public or on the social media. His wife isn't far behind. The trouble is that he doesn't see any of these things, when arguing. As a husband, it is absolutely fine to stand by one's wife. As a media person, one who constantly takes positions, and sermonizes a lot, he should be looking at himself, and the conduct of his near and dear, and his own responses before calling others crooks or abusers. Who can ever forget that rather infamous "Live" interview of "Art of Living Founder", Sri Sri Ravishankar, where in her wisdom she thought that the watching general public can be fooled by asking the question live, and playing a recorded video, and make the other person look dumb? And she had the audacity to lie further by stating that it was a technical glitch. Which dumb moron would ever believe such bully-whip?

And with all these around him, and Rajdeep Sardesai had the gumption to make an observation in the said article, somewhere in the middle -

"Why blame the netas when journalism encourages a high decibel, low level engagement rather than a conscious desire to raise the bar with gritty story telling?"

It doesn't require an IQ of 150 to know who he is alluding to, thanks to whom, Rajdeep Sardesai, is practically out of business. And this potshot, one has to consider as an indictment from the Sanctimonious on the Motor Mouth. In any case he wasn't good at anchoring any program. I never found him to be either smart, or witty or quick tongued at all. In terms of ability as an anchor, he is closer to Rahul Gandhi, than to Einstein. As a writer, he is definitely on the other extreme, despite his personal biases. But as an anchor, he tries all too much to please the other person, play coy, and get some "Sound Bite", as he calls. Some kind of "Breaking News" or "Exclusive" junk, to take that one point lead over his rival.

He is anything but morally upright and reliable. His own personal biases and prejudices have often been exposed on the social media. He probably cannot accept the fact that there are far more knowledgeable and qualified people around the globe, who may not be sold on his antics. People don't consider him a journalist, since he tries to create opinion and direct them, rather than give the message, and leave it for interpretation. His news anchoring business is practically sunk, and I don't think he can ever recover. 

I have a feeling that he is trying to reach out to lot of people by writing in relatively independent news media, irrespective of their popularity or reach, probably realizing that people around him have stopped taking him seriously. If this reaches to an extent, where his book sales are affected, he cannot call himself an author as well. In any case, he is not all that sanctimonious. I just wish he is a bit more honest, and objective in his writings. His leanings and biases are all too evident. Nothing wrong. He just shouldn't respond with an artificially / manufactured indignation if someone points it out. Frequent responses of that kind would mean only one thing - in the eyes of general public, his book reader, he is aiming for a place farther from Einstein and farther from Pappu. He is aiming for Zero.


PS: As some one who talks about tyranny of distance, he was among the last of the mainstream mediamen to cover the Chennai floods. As usual, couple of days before turned up at Chennai, he had his sanctimonious post in the form of a video blog -

I find two things odd. He didn't find the "tyranny of distance" when traveling to Motenegro, couple of continents and some 10000 Plus kilometres away, to interview Lalit Modi sometime in June 2015. He suddenly realized it when covering Chennai floods, and realized that they have failed. 


Two, he did this entire video blog, just before he started for Chennai, and after the entire Indian Mainstream Media was caught napping and covering the Delhi Political Soap Opera, and didn't care for the India that exists South of the Vindhyas. I found this entire blog to be apologetic and to counter any accusation on the field of being lax and indifferent to the Southern India. He can once again play the holy cow, stating that he has already apologized or the usual nonsense. And he infact did this theatre, when RJ Balaji gave him the bulb of his life time.