Asad Ashraf,
There has been plenty of buzz around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interview with celebrated News Anchor Arnab Goswami. The interview given to Times Now was trending within hours on social networking sites. It drew heaps of criticism as well as applauds from different sections of the professional fraternity. But something that surprised everyone was the mellowed down approach of the news anchor who is known for his aggressive style of interviewing on his show, he was flapping while throwing not so uncomfortable questions at the Prime Minister.
His body language was not the same and tone was absolutely mellowed down, this is not the Arnab we have known so far. And above all, what intrigued everyone was why the Prime Minister is being so generous to Arnab in particular. Why did he choose to give two interviews to the same anchor, once before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, and after becoming the Prime Minister?
However, media organizations gave prominent coverage to this interview while some going with live updates with what the Prime Minster had to say.
Arnab who would usually shout at his guests for not toing his line was seen going gaga throwing praises at the Prime Minister and which is probably why he was chosen for the interview. He did pretend to ask some difficult questions but those were followed by very diplomatic replies, and no counter questioning and pronouncement of judgments by Arnab, who would otherwise show no hesitation in shouting down at his guests in the studio and at times going to the extent of calling them a cover for terror organizations. It was indeed anyone but the Arnab we know.
Rather than pointing at the failure of Modi’s foreign policy at different levels, the recent one being China and other countries blocking India’s entry in to the NSG, Mr. Goswami showered praises upon his guest for proactively engaging with China and the Prime Minister had nothing to say except nodding his head in agreement with the start studded journalist.
On India’s relationship with Pakistan, Arnab did remind the Prime Minister about the position taken by him on his 8th May, 2014 interview but if only he had reminded him of the u-turn the government took on the policy towards Pakistan since then; it would have made some sense and have called for a two-way conversation. All he asked was if we are going soft on Pakistan in the light of terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir?
On the question of fringe elements, Arnab did not show the guts to question Modi face to face, he simply asked about those who are making extreme comments, and almost declared rather than asked whether there was no politics in the name of religion as opposed to giving Mr. Prime Minister a chance to come out with clarifications on it. However, he did and all he said was that media should ignore such comments, indeed what he meant was: let the people propagate hate and we’ll talk about development. Arnab, very politely replied, in complete agreement, self-styled spokeperson they are. He did not feel the necessity to make the Prime Minister accountable for such hate speeches, being the head of the state. And those making these speeches are in some or other-way related to BJP.
The economy was on Arnab’s list of questions too, but not how one would expect Arnab to have asked, had the guest been a representative of the erstwhile congress government. He did not bother to ask any difficult question on creeping inflation, black money and failure of the government to act upon its “ Chunawi Jumla” , that is crediting everyone’s bank account with Rs 15 lakh . He, however, did compliment the government by asking this,
“Social agenda appears to be the core of your economic philosophy? You’ve managed to grow the economy at 7.5 % despite weak economic outlook…food inflation is not coming down. People have high hopes in you. Food inflation has reached 7.5%. Does it create perceptional issue for you? Or is it just seasonal?”
In all this, one could sense that journalism has stooped down to another level in this country, where big wig journalists are working as campaigners, Arnab Goswami has once again let the profession down by missing an opportunity to grill the Prime Minister and hold him accountable to all that has been happening in the country, be it the hate speeches directed towards a particular community, economic failures, scams like Vyapam, ministers of the ruling party helping the likes of Vijay Malaya and Lalit Modi escape the country, the corruption in Delhi District Cricket Association.
This clearly was an interesting spectacle to watch, a self-proclaimed watch-dog of the media industry turning into a pracharak of sorts, but ultimately the loser again was journalism and journalists.
(Asad Ashraf is a Delhi based journalist , he currently works with Tehelka and can be contacted on [email protected])
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