Tuesday, January 24, 2012

NDTV Coverage

Just a few hours ago the purported appearance of an infamous writer on video link at the Jaipur Literary Festival was cancelled. NDTV was reporting it. The mood of the reporting was queer. Banning of the book of the said writer was a government decision - keeping in view the sentiments of a very sizable minority community of India. Once it is a government decision it should be taken as a national decision. But that was not the attitude of the reporters indulging in it. There were talks that there should be police action against the protestors who had turned up at the news of the possible video appearance of the said writer. Now this is playing hide and seek with law with some cheekiness thrown in for good measure. A writer just by avowing to his profession does not stand absolved of all social responsibilities. Just because the people who are on the reporting circle happen to have the same ideology as some of the authors does not give them a right to heap their free speech on the society. This is an eating your cake and having it too type of demand. Trying to play with the sentiments of a community that is very large in numbers is a very strange adamant attitude on part of these people. It is also learned that some of the writers are petitioning to remove the ban on the book. Just because a few people have got hold of their pen how does it prove that they have got God given right, or Satan given right for that matter, to hurt the vast population?