A Response to the Times (Now)!

Yesterday, I had the misfortune of tuning into TimesNow, which I believe is definitely sponsored by some right-wing, casteistic, anti-people, anti-woman party. It’s one channel, besides of course CNN and NDTV, that strives consistently to remain true to upper-class aspirations. Be it Australian attacks, the Indian cricket team’s deplorable behavior in other countries, or naxalism (latest in their kitty), TimesNow and its journalist Arnab Goswani have shown to the world where their real interests lie, what they want to promote, and whose shoes they lick! All that they care about is just money! And, they go no holds barred to achieve their sinister goals by spreading lies, lies, and lies!

Yesterday’s debate (well, that’s what the channel called it) on naxalism (the new threat to internal security) left me hopping mad! Not only because of the hollowness or the stupidity of the debate, but also in the manner in which a TV channel, claiming to be the media, conducted itself! They just sunk to levels lower than what can be comprehended as the behavior of a demented and deranged mind! It seemed like a circus in which a drunken, illiterate monkey was doing a salsa with its own reflection! Of course, for some funny reason, there were the most radical of the dissendent voices on the debate, but what was undeniable is how the entire debate seemed just like a farce! I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was seeing; why should a clearly pro-establishment, highly regressive news channel appear to have a free and fair debate!

The following quote of Chomsky came to my mind as the actual reason for this farce:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Now to the event that triggered off this great, informed debate that this demented psycho kicked off. Even before the debate can take off, he looks all sad and deep into the camera and clears his throat and goes on and on about how naxals are terrorists and that they have resorted to Taliban style killing; well, I didn’t know the channel hired people who were experts on Taliban; it makes me wonder if Taliban actually trained these people! The point here is a TV channel seems to declare ‘truths’, even without proper investigation of proof! Of course, you can always resort to a tame apology the following day when the world has already been poisoned enough! This brings me to the next question: what does the channel and its monkey actually want! A country that is intolerant to any kind of dissent and people who condone extra judicial killings in cold blood. Isn’t it incumbent upon the media to play the role of a devil’s advocate? Why do the hell do we need a media like this? They are even worse than the state itself! They are already pronouncing judgments even when the cases on people are sub-judice! What do we, as sane people, do? I couldn’t find a more fitting call for all of us; interestingly the call has been sounding for over a century!

Only through the people's highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it (society) be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port.

Rosa Luxemborg.