The hanging as prime time fodder
Television channels led the charge, some wearing their bias on their sleeve.
NUPUR BASU’s run down on some of the debates that filled the air.
Long after the dust has settled over the grave of Afzal Guru in Tihar Jail, the jury will continue to be out on whether what the Indian government did or did not do was right or wrong.
The same is true of the Indian media’s take on the subject – did it show independence of spirit in assessing the hanging? Or did it just do partisan reporting/commenting depending on which side of the ideological barrier they were coming from on the issue of capital punishment and terror attacks?
Television channels led the charge as they were provided the natural advantage of breaking the story (as the hanging was carried out in the morning) and analysing it all day and into the evening and night, well before the next day’s papers came .
Arnab Goswami of Times Now , as always, wore his editorial bias on his sleeve : “Those who are saying that this all a conspiracy to frame an innocent man are totally wrong!” he thundered. “Times Now does not put S A R Geelani on air”...he proclaimed like a true patriot. From then on whoever said anything in Afzal Guru’s defence, were greeted with statements and rebuttals from him to the effect: “ This is the rarest of the rare case and don’t try to outsmart me!” That is what he said to his guest, Shabnam Lone, well known lawyer .
Smriti Irani of the Bharatiya Janata Party added ammunition to Goswami’s case against “those like Lone” and said “ It is shocking and disgusting and unacceptable that people like Ms Lone defend Afzal Guru” . This resulted in a noisy verbal duel between Ms Irani and Ms Lone where no one could be heard. Also for some funny reason Irani kept calling Majid Memon..”Mr Menon” repeatedly making Goswami say “MEMON” loudly. Goswami pushed Shabnam Lone further: “Would you like to correct yourself from your earlier position?”
Lone was unmoved: “We are not talking here about the Supreme Court judgement but the Clemency 72 and the separation of powers”.
In one of the discussions on Times Now with Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari where Goswami was grilling him on the interview that Omar Abdullah gave NDTV and CNN-IBN saying that Guru’s execution will hasten the alienation of Kashmiris, Tewari warned the Times Now Editor-in chief: “Please be careful as taking such a hard position on this you may be encouraging the militant factions in Kashmir”. Just for one second, Goswami fell silent.
Goswami’s hard line persisted through his programmes: “However exalted the President’s position may be Pratibha Patil must make a public disclosure why she sat on Afzal Guru’s file for so long...it is a slow dance which we sit and watch ! This is the reality we have condemned ourselves to!!” To be fair to Goswami, he pilloried both the BJP and the Congress for “playing politics with death row victims” and asked :”Should the powers be taken away from the government on these matters?”
Rajdeep Sardesai ,Editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, on the other hand, struck a sombre note on the day of the hanging: “ This is not a day of truimphalism but one of deep introspection”. He repeatedly warned against making this an issue of political expediency and clearly took an editorial position critiquing the secrecy with which the hanging was conducted and how the family was not informed. Abhishekh Manu Singhvi did himself no credit when he said on Sardesai’s programme when asked if the government regretted how the entire hanging had been conducted: “We are not in the business of apologising”!
Sagarika Ghose on CNN-IBN’s Face the Nation in a programme whose slug said: ‘Will the Afzal Guru hanging affect the Kashmiri psyche?’ brought in a multiplicity of voices from the Valley under siege. She described as a ‘macabre farce’ the entire fiasco about the speed post sent by the Home Ministry to the family which reached two days after the hanging was over.”Will the execution plunge Kashmir into chaos ? How can we stop that?” she asked of her panellists .
“Kashmir had just begun to come around since 2010 , and now this huge setback with the curfew all across “ said Shameem Meeraj, Editor, Kashmir Monitor. He also pointed out that there had been no problems in J&K when Kasab had been hanged despite apprehensions to that effect. Earlier the anchor had listed the gains in recent months like- 1) business leaders had gone in a delegation to Kashmir and met university students, 2) for the first time a Kashmiri cricketer had entered the national team 3) for the first time a Kashmiri youth had topped the civil service exam etc. Gul Wani of Kashmir University said: “It has happened at the wrong time and Indian civil society too is saying that too.”
Siddique Wahid, from Kashmir University said: ”Kashmir is very raw at the moment ..even while the integration debate was going on, this happened..someone in Delhi has miscalculated hugely- who is advising Delhi? Why did they decide to do this ? The answer is: ‘We just do not care!’”
Ghose quoted a cynical commentator who had recently said :”There are only 6 MPs from J&K so they just don’t care..” “The face of India has come out hostile and prejudiced” said the anchor. She also asked the Kashmiri panellists whether “Kashmir should shed its victimhood image and stop flirting with enemies of India across the border?”.Siddique Wahid’s reply came thick and fast:”We are not in a position to flirt with anyone- we are all locked up right now! Kashmiris are always being put on the backfoot – we are barely recovering from the shock treatment we have just been given”.
The only Kashmiri Pandit on the panel, Rahul Pandita, author of Our moon has blood clots, described the Afzal Guru hanging as a “political decision taken by North Block”. “It is bizarre the way they arrested Iftikhar Gilani and locked up his children in the bedroom..someone in New Delhi is messing up!” said Pandita. He however emphasised the need for truth and reconciliation in Kashmir between the Muslims and the ousted Pandit community.” Do they want to be part of secular India? Kashmiri Muslims need to confront these demons...”the author said.
Gul Wani of Kashmir University said, : “We have to work hard in India and Pakistan. Kashmiris have abandoned violence-- it has never been their orientation. Kashmiris feel empowered in the peace process”. The anchor closed the programme saying the ‘onus was on the Indian state” to ensure that it does not adopt a militaristic position in dealing with the post Afzal Guru hanging crisis in J&K but ensure that the integration, though patchy, continued.
Like Sagarika Ghose, Ravish Kumar on NDTV India too had a measured and nuanced debate. In response to one of his panelists saying “we are Bharatiya first”, he responded, “Nandita Haksar is also an bhartaiya ”. The anchor said there was undoubtedly vote bank politics going on on this matter: “Neither our viewers, nor our people are so naive. This is not a fair trial. There should not have been a media trial – they handcuffed him and brought him to a press conference- we ended up having a media trial.”
Nandita said “I became a lawyer because women do not get any justice in this country”..“Bharat to na-insafi ka ek aisa desh hain”...let’s talk about this subject urged Ravish. “Please listen properly- do not divide it between patriots and traitors and make life simple for yourself” Ravish Kumar told his viewers.
Nandita Haksar pointed out how 80 witnesses came, but they cross- examined only 3 or 4 witnesses. “Once they are dispensed off at this stage, the witnesses will not come to the Supreme Court..so it remains confined to four witnesses only...the Investigating Officer (IO) who is very important was not asked”.
An accusation from Justice Dhingra, that people like Nandita Haksar and others on the defence committee were ‘busy managing the media’ had Nandita cry foul and retort: ”This is absolutely defamatory..people like Surendra Mohan, Rajani Kothari, Arundhuti Roy, Aruna Roy, etc. were on the defence committee!”
“Please control your emotions and think logically with your head” the anchor appealed to his viewers in the end.
On Zee TV a slug played saying “Deshdrohi” . The call was for ‘strong action’ against Yasin Malik who had shared a dais with 26/11. mastermind Hafeez Sayeed-- “The Indian government should take firm action – just impounding his passport is not enough”. The Zee TV anchor also took pains to tell us that their channel had taken an editorial decision not to re-telecast the phono with Yasin Malik. “So we will not show it again”,said the anchor.
On Aaj Tak, anchor Punya Prasun Vajpyee was interviewing Yasin Mailk where Malik was equating himself to Subhash Chandra Bose !
Times Now ran a soundbite by Yasin Malik which said “ I went for a meeting and so did he.. come like hundreds of people..where is the question of meeting him?’ The screaming headline seconds later said: ‘ First he attends a meeting... and now he says he did not meet anyone..” Talk about the twist in the tale.
Karan Thapar on his programme Last Word with the headline slug that read Guru family denied rights? Govt wanted to avoid review ? extracted an interesting bit of information from Nandita Haksar. When asked by Thapar whether Afzal Guru’s family had a moral right to be informed by the government , Nandita Haksar said there was a precedence in Afzal Guru’s own case of giving a notice.
Karan Thapar persisted: “So it was deliberate that it was not given?”
Sheshadri Chari piped in saying :‘But all legal options were exhausted...’ Only to be robustly refuted by Thapar who thundered: “No , no forgive me, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins have taken precisely that recourse..they had four weeks to plead and they did ! I know I am right..let us not quarrel on that.”
Reacting to Omar Abdullah’s statement that Afzal Guru’s family had a right to meet him before his hanging, advocate Kamini Jaiswal said: “The govt was inhuman, negligent and disregarding of their human rights-- it was the duty of the government to inform the family.”
Karan Thapar : “So this is really a black mark on the government..?
Kamini Jaiswal: “There are many black marks..”
Nandini Haksar interjected: “It is just a very simple gesture that the govt could have arranged instead of eliminating Kashmiris.
Karan Thapar: “In the case of Punjab in the 80s it was possible...
National Conference politician Mirza M Beg said “It was mandatory that government should have arranged”.
Thapar then suddenly managed a coup of sorts. He turned to Seshadri Chari whom he had snubbed earlier and popped the question directly to him :“Has the Indian state given up all basic human decency?” A completely browbeaten Chari nodded and said: “It appears so-- they could have done so more humanely!!!”. The same Chari who on Times Now had thundered about how “terrorists” had no right to demand any rights, was seen doing a flip-flop on Karan’s programme saying it was inhumane not to allow the family to meet him one last time.
Kamini Jaiswal hammered the last nail in the coffin of the Indian Republic: “We talk so much about rule of law but we have come out as a banana republic--I am ashamed.”