The Newshour or the Rant-hour?
Arnab Goswami plumbed new depths in a discussion over the Greenpeace activist stopped from going to London.
AMRIT DHILLON watched, appalled, as he yelled at the top of his lungs and sneered.
Most of us know that Arnab Goswami’s Newshour on Times Now is not about news or an exchange of views. Its purpose is neither to inform nor educate. Its purpose is to entertain viewers by laying on a rambunctious, raucous spectacle with Goswami as the master of ceremonies.
The role he has cast for himself is the people’s champion, skewering glib politicians, puncturing the pompous and bayoneting the bigoted. He takes a stand on an issue and proceeds to harangue his guests if they fail to agree with him. The formula is to throw out something outrageous or provocative and let the panelists fight and scrabble.
All well and good as far as it goes, if you like that kind of thing. I’d stopped watching long ago because the shrieking had become too much. It was only bearable with the remote on mute and even then the gesticulating and angry expressions were disturbing.
For some reason I watched last night’s (February 17) episode on the government blocking Greenpeace India activist Priya Pillai from travelling to London to brief British members of parliament about coal-mining activities in tribal areas and I was appalled.
Goswami has become a grotesque parody of himself, a stentorian anchor shouting down his guests, browbeating them, endlessly declaiming the same question like a hammer. His tone throughout towards women’s rights activist Kavita Krishnan and Greenpeace campaigner Vinuta Gopal was contemptuous.
Having refused to let Gopal finish a single sentence, he prefaced his later remarks to her with patronizing sarcasm. (What follows is the gist as I didn’t take notes). “I want you to answer my question without the help of that little piece of paper you’ve got in front of you” and, after Krishnan had intervened to back Gopal’s position, he sneered “Let’s see if you can defend yourself without the help of another panelist.”
When he refused to let Krishnan finish her point (because he knew it demolished his whole argument), she kept on speaking but he made sure she was drowned out by two male guests.
One of them, Major General G.D. Bakshi, snarled (I don’t mean this metaphorically, he actually pulled back his lips and bared his teeth, as in the dictionary definition) while R. S. N. Singh, a former RAW officer (God help us if this is the calibre of RAW staff), bellowed and ranted so hard I thought his lungs would collapse. Both of them kept addressing them mockingly as “madam”.
These two epic ranters were allowed to make their points uninterrupted even though Bakshi blathered on about how shameful it was that Pillai had taken her cause to the nefarious British who were responsible for the Bengal famine and the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre. By that logic, every Indian government that has accepted aid for decades from wicked Albion should be denounced, not just Pillai.
A frustrated Krishnan kept trying to speak amid the din and as she did so, Goswami became insulting. “Have some self respect Miss Krishnan, have some self-respect please”; “There are limits to bad behavior”; “Control yourself”; “Relax”; “You must learn how to behave”; “You clearly don’t know Indian history”.
You could argue that I am wasting my breath. No one expects a reasonable debate on The Newshour though I have to say that I used to harbour a sneaking admiration for Goswami on some occasions when he used to give vacuous, ridiculous politicians a rough time.
But last night’s programme sank to a new low because it went beyond his normal hectoring. He was downright insulting and offensive. As to Bakshi and Singh, he should have firmly told them to speak politely. Instead, Goswami had the nerve to tell another guest, John Dayal, Secretary, All India Christian Council, who muttered “filthy” when Colonel Bakshi was wagging his finger and foaming at the mouth, to watch his language.
I felt ashamed watching it. Had the cameras given us a close-up, I’m sure we would have seen Bakshi and Singh’s lips flecked with spittle, they were so apoplectic and undignified.
I am astounded that Krishnan and Gopal did not get up and walk out. They would have been perfectly justified. To be invited to give your views and then not be allowed to speak, and on top of that, be roundly insulted, was reason enough.
Last night, the Newshour descended from spectacle to grand guignol. I’m wondering when people will start declining invitations to appear on the show. The first two should be Krishnan and Gopal. Only masochism surely could make them subject themselves again to another round of derision.
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