Ranting the night away

July 29 was an object lesson in how not to cover an important, powerful, and controversial story – the night many television channel anchors hyper-ventilated with jingoism, displayed the worst possible bad taste, gloated at the prospect of a convicted terrorist going to his death and deliberately invited vicious politicians to wax polemical.  

Yakub Memon’s execution was preceded by a long night of ruthless polarising and side-taking. The final countdown showed a nation split down the middle and the TV debates seemed designed to sharpen this divide all the more. All sides seemed to revel in this poisonous atmosphere, egging one another on, working themselves up into a froth and giving no quarter to opposing views.

Raw emotion, personal views and invective 

On CNN-IBN, anchor Zakka Jacob opened his programme saying ‘some people’ were playing ‘politics’ with Memon’s hanging and told his guests that he was all for the execution. ‘’Our father, mother, sister, brother did not die,’ he told Supreme Court lawyer, Kamini Jaiswal who opposed the death sentence. Jaiswal retorted: “All the more because our mother, father, brother and sister did not die, we can be impartial about this.”

Jacob’s tone was highly personal from the start and only got worse. When the topic turned to ex-RAW head B. Raman’s blog in which he argued that there were mitigating circumstances that warranted a life sentence rather than the gallows for Memon, Jacob demanded to know why  more officials had  not come forward to confirm Raman’s argument that Memon had struck a deal with the authorities.  

When Jaiswal replied that she had no idea and added - ‘If some people have lied...there is a divine justice in the end, they will meet their maker one day and have to answer !’ - Jacob retorted angrily: “You are going from legal argument to philosophical argument…of course you will face your maker, I will face my maker, Yakub Memon will face his maker..”

From 7 pm the headlines started taking on a more definitive stand as it became clear that Memon’s mercy petition would fail. Times Now’s headlines were “Yakub to hang-closure”, “Blasts ‘archer’ to hang”,“Justice for 257 killed” and Arnab Goswami’s Super Prime Time was titled “How can terror get mercy ?”

With a background slug of ‘Yakub Memon to go to the gallows tomorrow!’, guests such as Samay Raut of the Shiv Sena said in tones of smug satisfaction that tonight, Yakub’s family members will know “what  fear is’ like those whose relatives had been killed in the Mumbai blasts.

The triumphant gloating embodied in the shrill personal opinions of the anchors was amplified by the views of the relatives of the Mumbai blast victims who were pushing for the gallows to be erected.   

Over at NDTV, Barkha Dutt was debating the developments with her guests who were being as tetchy as the anchors. When Madhu Trehan tried to interrupt journalist Maseeh Rahman he  replied: ‘I need to answer the anchor’s questions not yours.’

Later, the debate, like many others, wandered off into irrelevance, as when Trehan responded to Rahman’s remark that Memon had been living in a 20 room mansion in Karachi. “What mansion? Just 20 rooms! Even our last emperor was imprisoned in a palace....if you are arguing against the death penalty, then say that but don’t twist facts and try to make it seem like he is innocent.”

Things deteriorated further when the discussion turned to Ajmal Kasab wanting biryani before going to the gallows. A panellist – not the anchor - pointed out that the important points were being lost and that the debate was about the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the riots and the Mumbai blasts. ‘There is a cynical reaction because there has been no justice in the Babri Masjid case to date. So this is selective justice,’ the panellist said.

Sanjay Hegde, who opposed the hanging, noted the gloating tone of anchors on Times Now and urged people not to gloat over a man going to the gallows.

Over at News X, Rahul Srivastava was screaming about how Asaduddin Owaisi had communalised the issue by claiming that Memon was going to hang because he was a Muslim and launched into a long diatribe against ‘sections of the intelligentsia’ for opposing the death sentence.  

On Times Now, Arnab Goswami was enged in a war of words with Tushar Gandhi, Gandhi’s grandson. Neither man pulled his punches and it dragged on, with Goswami accusing Gandhi of saying that no law deterred any kind of crime when in fact Gandhi’s position on all the channels he has spoken on has been simple: abolish the death penalty. Words like ‘opportunism’, ‘utopia’, ‘murdered’, ‘abuse’, ‘vengeful’, ‘evil punishment’ and ‘immoral laws’ were bandied about generously in this calm, reasoned discussion.

Bad taste galore

It was not just the tone of the debates that was shocking. The visuals were also in bad taste. At Aaj Tak, clips  from the Bollywood film ‘Black Friday’ about the blasts were used. Details about the hanging and how the gallows were being prepared were pored over lavishly, with reporters telling viewers excitedly that the hangman would the same one who executed Ajmal Kasab and how he had been doing ‘dry runs’ for three days to do a good job.

IBN7 had the most voyeuristic telecasts. They showed a film on hanging and a black and white film clip which showed the procedures that are followed prior to a hanging in great detail. The title was ‘The hangman’s noose’ and we were told that it can take half an hour for a person to die after a hanging. The headline was ‘Life’s final moments’. Disgracefully, the channel juxtaposed a photo of Memon with a noose dangling near his face.

Tej channel carried a graphic of a ‘time machine’ to crudely denote the countdown to the hanging and the headlines screamed jingoistically: “Yakub Memon ki kaali kahaani to khatam ho rahin hain par Tiger Memon and Dawood tak hum kab pahuchenge..asli shaitan..Tiger Memon hain..”  (Yakub Menon’s dark story is ending but we will catch up with Tiger Memon and Dawood, the real devils.)

Eventually, as the night wore on, the channels all reported that it was the end of the road for Yakub Menon. As night turned into day, the news came in that he had been hanged.

After the hanging, some of the jingoism and shrieking subsided. Siddharth Vardarajan’s comment on NDTV was poignant: “Dr Kalam had been conflicted about the death penalty and just recently he had told the Law Commission that it does not suit a country like India… it is really unfortunate that the country decided to hang Yakub Menon on the day of Abdul Kalam’s funeral. It is very macabre...very sad indeed.”

Very sad indeed was the spectacle of television news pecking away at this story like hungry vultures determined to pick the corpse clean. With channels inviting – egging on rather – their guests to be as polarising and extreme as possible, is it any wonder that politicians’ work is cut out for them? Hyper-sensationalising every major story vitiates public discourse and demeans the participants. But no channel is ready to see this yet. If they continue, they will end up as accessories to politicians in their efforts to sow discord.