How Arnab Goswami won it

Is Arnab Goswami a bhakt? Lol! If anyone has listened …and I am guessing 99% of people on social media have…to Arnab breathing fire at the BJP from the imaginary Lalitgate to some attention seeking Muslim woman who got into the news for a failed apartment search, the answer can only be …ROFL. But among  English language news, Arnab Goswami stood tall with his “dissent” against the liberal consensus that stood with Commie anti-nationals at JNU.

So, what did Arnab do so differently?? Few days back, I wrote about how the Opposition in India has a new sinister feel to it. The Opposition, the liberal media no longer feel like mere opponents, they appear more like foreign enemies. Under Sonia Gandhi, the Congress and its Mameluks became so implacably anti-Hindu that they are barely recognizable as Indians today. When you see the guys with the characteristic terrorist neckerchiefs covering their faces, marching on parliament raising slogans of “bandook ke dum par azaadi”, you cannot tell whether they are Indians or Lashkar recruits. All Arnab had to do was stay Indian. And that’s all he did. In the sinister liberal consensus of today, he appeared as some kind of right wing loony fringe..

You don’t have to be a BJP supporter to be an Indian. You can despise the RSS and still be Indian. But to be an Indian, you have to be …well…you have to be an Indian! And if you are Indian, there should be ways in which you are distinguishable from India’s enemies.

Here are some easy tests:

For instance, if you are releasing a book giving clean chit to Pakistan and blaming 26/11 on BJP/RSS, you might not be an Indian.

If you have been crying tears for the dead terrorists at Batla House but not for Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, you might not be an Indian.

If you have managed to convince yourself that Modi sent the Gujarat police all the way to Mumbai to pick up one random Muslim girl and kill her, you might not be an Indian.

If you believe that the Indian Coast Guard/Navy killed “innocent” smugglers on the terror boat, you might not be an Indian.

Indian liberals have failed every single one of these tests.

As the Americans say, if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. If you sound like a Pakistani, think like a Pakistani and act like a Pakistani, don’t complain when people assume that you are a Pakistani.

Again, you don’t have to support the BJP. You just have to be an Indian. And that’s all Arnab Goswami did. And here is the result:

Latest viewership data of @BARCIndia between 9 to 11 pm: Times Now 82 % CNN-IBN 4 % NDTV 3 % India Today 4 % NewsX 7 %. Hate won't get TRPs.

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) February 20, 2016

So dear Barkha and Rajdeep, you can march to Parliament or Madison Square Garden, but if you want to regain your lost credibility, you will have to be Indians first. Oh…and publishing articles with headlines like “I am anti-national”  won’t help.

Let me wake you guys up. A sarcastic article like that would work only if people at large actually were sure that you support India.  Let me tell you that the public is no longer sure.  You guys don’t know what you don’t know. You can dismiss the angry lawyers at Patiala House Court as hooligans paid by BJP, but even you know this is extremely unlikely. The more likely situation is that old media like you are facing a popular revolt. Ordinary people are sick and tired of being told about the greatness of Afzal Guru and 1000 reasons why we should be crying over Batla House terrorists and why Ishrat Jahan was an “innocent moon faced teenager”. If you really believe that people haven’t figured you guys out after 2 decades of anti-India reporting, you carry on…good luck.

So, dear Barkha, dear Rajdeep…I understand that you hate this government. That’s fine. I actually believe in economic freedom, so I don’t even object to paid media. Go ahead, create a thousand fake controversies if you want. Please defame Modi as much as you like, but let’s keep it among ourselves, can we? Go ahead, find 10000 reasons why Rahul Gandhi is a great man. But, let’s keep it among us Indians, can we? I guess the question I am asking is: has Indian secularism/liberalism gone so bankrupt today that it can only survive on being anti-national?