The Telegraph National Debate is apparently an annual affair but this was the first time I had heard of it. And that too only because a video of actor Anupam Kher whose vigorous speech for the motion “Tolerance is the new Intolerance” went viral across social media platforms as soon as it was uploaded on Twitter. That speech has been discussed here. Soon after this I found a few of my friends sharing Ms Barkha Dutt’s speech delivered at the same event. Dutt spoke against the motion alongside a panel that consisted also of Congress party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and Justice Ashok Ganguly. Her speech was described by my friend who first shared it on Facebook as “brilliant, dispassionately neutral and to the point.” But he also implored us to forget that the speaker was Barkha Dutt of Radiagate ‘fame’ and asked us to focus on the content of the speech. I’m writing this post to try and do exactly that.

Dutt begins by asking the audience to step away from the histrionics and theatrics of the debate and ask, “How did this become about Modi and the Congress?” The air of incredulousness with which she asked that question struck me. I thought to myself “What a fine actor?” TV journalists started the trend of reducing every issue into a Modi/BJP versus the Congress and given NDTV and their anchors were the first to bring an opposition spokesperson to respond instead of doing the hard job of countering lies with facts, the blame lies with TV media as symbolized by Dutt. Arnab Goswami only took it to an extreme reality TV form. I once had a twitter spat with Dutt where, when she had no logical counter left, she finally told me to change the channel if I didn't like what I saw on NDTV. To her everlasting dismay, most of India seems to have followed her advice.

She goes on to speak about how a reductionist narrative that the media peddles is dumbing down our political discourse into one where nuance has no place and everything is black or white. And I agree with her completely, the only problem is that she seems to be laying the entire blame for this sorry state of affairs at Arnab Goswami’s door. The framing of the JNU incident as a National vs Anti National debate is once again a media creation. The “proud to be anti national” nonsense was started off by the likes of Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai soon after Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested. She then talks about issuing certificates of nationalism. This bit took the cake. A whole ideology and counter point of view has been consistently dismissed by her ilk using the words Bhakt, Internet Hindu and now pseudo patriots.

She spoke about the lack of documentary evidence against Kanhaiya Kumar. Oh the hypocrisy! Her ilk ran a decade long propaganda campaign to malign Narendra Modi without ever demanding the same standard of evidence that she says we must ask for in the case of Kanhaiya Kumar. Sanjeev Bhatt, Teesta  Setalvad, Ishrat Jahan; the list of smear artists and cover ups that the media represented by Dutt propped up, is too long. She goes of on a long rant citing cases where the governments on Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir have seemingly pleaded for terrorists without being labeled as anti-national. It’s a very good sleight of hand. Those raising slogans at JNU are anti-nationals because they raised slogans calling for the destruction of the Indian state. Nevertheless it was a good attempt at shifting goal posts.

The false binary of the current political discourse is the creation of the media. When you unequivocally condemn Akhlaq's murder (rightly so) but talk about context and nuance in Prashant Pujari's murder; when you stand up for Kanhaiya's Freedom of Expression but let Kamlesh Tiwari rot in jail; when you lionize a Dalit Rohith after his suicide but ignore another Dalit Sawan's (who?) murder because it does not fit a narrative; when you ignore a Malda or Azad Maidan but highlight the atrocious yet irrelevant posters of every 2 bit Purvanchal Sena or Hindu Mahasabha you are deliberately reducing every debate into an Idea of India that you think is right versus anything else which is definitely wrong. Dutt’s grouse about media ethics, which she highlighted, is against Arnab's style of journalism. This is likely less about ethics and more about professional jealousy. She doesn't address the double standards that she helped create. She was never apologetic about it. There was no mea culpa. In the absence of that, her words, however eloquent, are just that-Hollow Words.

I believe we should have the freedom to live how we want, eat what we want and sleep with whom we want as long as it's consensual. I believe that Government should be minimally intrusive and I do I believe this government has more than often flattered to deceive on that count. But I don't believe any previous governments were holier than the NDA2. In fact, given the positioning and political posturing of all the parties involved, the NDA2 is less hypocritical.

So for the media to say that we've suddenly become more intolerant is plain disingenuous. To cry Fascism and Emergency every other day is deliberately misleading and bordering on propaganda and Dutt is very much a part of it. So she can't all of a sudden claim to be a neutral observer or concerned citizen. That would be, what was the word she used, hypocrisy!