No, I don’t watch his news channel. In fact, I don’t watch any news channel for a long time now, prompted by my survival instinct. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain calm while ‘watching’ the news and hearing little, if anything. The questions posed by anchors often sent my blood pressure soaring; and the conclusions drawn by them sometimes threatened to give me a stroke. It was safer to keep them at arm’s length for my own health.
But Arnab Goswami being Arnab Goswami, the Pope of the idiot box, it is difficult to shut out his voice completely. There are friends and acquaintances who swear by him and there are colleagues who say they have to watch his News Hour for purely professional interest. One of them informed that Goswami had declared the 2G judgment given by the CBI Special Court acquitting all the accused partly ‘illegal’.
While Goswami is clearly not alone in believing that there is something ‘fishy’ with the judgment ( I chanced upon a tweet by the redoubtable Madhu Kishwar in which she said that her information is that Rs 500 Crore were spent to secure acquittal of the accused), Goswami’s reach and iconic status in rabid right-wing circles make him a far more dangerous mischief monger. People, I hope, still Take Madhu Kishwar’s statements with a pinch of salt. But I know many who continue to take Goswami seriously despite his terrible track record.
For those who still believe allocation of 2G was a scam, let me explain why ‘Justice’ Goswami’s instant judgment on the 2G acquittal is entirely misplaced and why the CBI Special Court deserves to be congratulated for standing up to appalling stupidity that the political class and the media in this country are clearly capable of. That is why the facts of the case were never presented clearly; the right questions were never asked and people like Kapil Sibal who tried to explain that there was actually no loss were ridiculed and made to look like idiots.
That of course does not mean that nobody made money. In any business dealing involving Crores of Rupees and the Government, it would be a miracle indeed if no money changes hands and some people don’t make money.
But rather than strengthen institutions like the CBI and the courts and point out steps to plug loopholes, what Justice Goswami and TV channels have done is to weaken them immeasurably; so much so that people today do not trust any institution. Some people may still trust Justice Goswami and TV channels but their number is getting smaller and that is a pity.
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