A Bad Record and the Gutter Press

Predictably, despite all the hype, the Sunday ‘Singh garjana’ cut a jarring, bad record. Delhi CM aspirant Vijay Goel must be really peeved with the muscle-flexing PM-aspirant from Gujarat, whose narcissistic body language suggests that he seems to have already become the elected PM of India. Despite all the channels showing the rally live, as is the ‘media ethics’ norm these days, all the ultra-tech gadgets to showcase Feku across the Delhi landscape, the huge hoardings all across the capital, the hired buses with Sangh Parivar organizers mustering their might, and the propaganda, the rally turned out to be a damp squib. Metaphorically, the dark clouds and thunder showers only suggested perhaps the dark times of the rise of fascism in the country. Besides that, it was a no-show for the BJP, which, in its ritualistically pompous exhibitionism, promised to bring a crowd of five to 10 lakh people.

Even the best of police or media estimates put the crowd at about 100,000 plus, with, of course, the ‘minority appeasement’ vote bank in specially purchased skull caps and burqas almost totally absent. Eventually, the BJP was able to organize only its own cadre and support base from Delhi and the neighbouring states in a city where it has lost the assembly elections for three consecutive terms; 15 years, that’s a long time. In other words, most people of Delhi gave the rally a miss, even while the wannabe PM’s monologue seemed like an insipid action-replay of a loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed, chest-thumping, desperate,
local politico.

Indeed, hardened political observers will tell you that this was a failed rally in every sense of the word. The last ‘Official Left’ rally in Delhi had more people in terms of numbers, and any mainstream political party can gather thousands in hired buses and shoo in cadres, supporters, and unsuspecting spectators looking for a day out in Delhi. Besides, all top leaders of the BJP, like LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, all three  based in Delhi, gave it a miss, and their absence too would have been jarring. As jarring as Advani deliberately looking elsewhere while the wannabe PM tried touching his feet.

Surely, the Japanese Park fiasco will rankle the most, because of the third rate rant of the ring master of this ‘live’ circus which is doing its rounds across the nation. Why most private television channels should show all his speeches ‘live’ even while the parliamentary elections are far away is a question which the Election Commission might want to look at in the days to come

Surely, the Japanese Park fiasco will rankle the most, because of the third-rate rant of the ringmaster of this ‘live’ circus which is doing its rounds across the nation. Why most private television channels should show all his speeches ‘live’ even when the parliamentary elections are far away is a question which the Election Commission might want to look at in the days to come. For us journalists, paid news or not, the story seems as clearly ‘planted’, as all planted stories are — emitting a foul smell and shining like the gutter Press.

In a country where thousands choose to listen with apt attention to Asaram Bapu (thankfully, he has found his final place for nirvana!) or Nirmal Baba selling his salvation recipes of gol guppas and mattar paneer on TV, surely, the ‘pachpan inch ka’ chest-thumper too might find his fanatic eyeballs. However, he is no Nelson Mandela or Angelina Jolie, that all of us should watch him hypnotically and listen to his moronic megalomaniac morbidity day after day. So why are some editors in the media crawling so brazenly when they have not even been asked to bend? Why are the channels showing the ‘Nazi messiah’ ‘live’ day after day? This itself should be a hot media story which any sharp-nosed journalist could crack in the days to come. Besides, the huge amount of cash which the RSS-BJP is spending in selling their brand, raises a pertinent query — where is all this money coming from?

The truth is that the PM-aspirant lacks statesmanship, decency, restraint, or credibility. He compensates his basic illiteracy and lack of finesse by using aggressive, hostile rhetoric. And, like his ‘kutte ke bacche’ crass revelation, his ‘dehati aurat’ comment, combined with overtly xenophobic snide ones like shehzada, and so on, yet again proves how obsessively he is pushing the RSS brand of male chauvinism and hate politics. Surely, neither the urban women of India, nor the hardworking and resilient women of rural India, will appreciate his derogatory reference to ‘dehati women’. Nor would any pluralist and educated citizen find it ‘patriotic’ to denigrate an entire community, many of whom he had so brutally crushed, metaphorically and literally.