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Social media has been on fire the last couple of days after news broke of an alleged scuffle between noted TV anchor and Consulting Editor of Headlines Today Rajdeep Sardesai and pro-Modi supporters outside Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday. While news agencies initially reported based on Sardesai’s tweet that he was heckled and manhandled, numerous videos, first person accounts and tweets that followed seem to suggest that even the facts, let alone the truth, lurk in the grey zone.
Let’s consider the facts. While this may be the first time that Rajdeep has faced the ire of pro-Modi supporters face-to-face, a look at his Twitter timeline clearly shows that he has been the target of pro-Modi netizens in the run-up to the general elections. So it’s safe to assume that provocation is not new for a man who has built a solid journalistic career over more than two decades.
But times have changed. Conventional media is no longer the final frontier for facts in a breaking news event. While supporters as well as present and former colleagues of Sardesai jumped to his defense castigating the hecklers as part of an organised mob to muscle the media into submission, a video showing him as throwing the first punch went viral. The video has done more damage to Sardesai than he could have imagined, as a serious lapse of judgement due to severe provocation (that reportedly included name calling, slogans and vile abuse) has had several fence sitters on this issue questioning why a senior editor had to resort to fisticuffs.
We can’t say if Sardesai will express regret for his action, but the larger question is if he should. Common sense and the video suggest that he should. After all, for years, Sardesai has anchored prime time news shows demanding exemplary behaviour of public figures and exhorting politicians in somewhat similar situations to apologise for their acts of violence, however minor. If there was ever a chance for him to acknowledge an honest lapse of judgement, it is now. And expressing regret will not be a sign of weakness but of strength, a signal that he can be self-critical, and not just of others, and that this incident is an unfortunate aberration for someone who has always held the high moral ground.
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The worrying aspect of the incident, though, is the nature of the mob that he confronted. Since the videos went viral, several people have accused Sardesai of asking provocative questions and courting trouble, as it were, at a time when the Indian-American community was celebrating the presence of Modi’s maiden visit to the US. But no one has said what exactly was provocative. It is as if there is an imaginary rule book prescribed by the ministry of broadcasting that describes go and no-go areas for a journalist while reporting on the Prime Minister.
Let’s take a look at some of the questions that Sardesai asked.
· ‘’What do you want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to say in his address?’
· ‘Can one man (Narendra Modi) change India?’
· ’Did you pay your way for a ticket to Madison square garden?’
· Has the media been unfair to Narendra Modi?
And after considerable heckling that interrupted his broadcast, this exasperated one:
· Did Narendra Modi teach you to behave badly?
Coming close on the heels of a spectacular BJP victory in May this year in which many Indian Americans played their part either through donations or active volunteering, there was widespread anticipation over what he would have to say to his fans in the US. Expectations were high, and Sardesai was only echoing what everyone already had on their minds.
Modi’s rise to the Prime Ministership, too, has been spectacular, much like Indira Gandhi’s ascension to power had been. What’s more, like Obama who was also an outsider to a nation’s cronyist capital and who now lives in the White House, Modi too came to power on a promise of changing the ‘system’, an endeavor that has felled others before him, including Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. To ask if Modi is up to the task is something on the minds of all Modi-watchers, even his fans. That question was directed to the perfect focus group, if there ever was one – a set of mostly youngsters who left India in search of better opportunities and defined the frustrations of a modern and young India.
As for asking if they had paid to come watch Modi, as happens in any high profile event, tickets often change multiple hands. If at all, Sardesai was likely trying to gauge the craze for getting entry to the event. After all 40,000 people had queued up for 18000 tickets, we are told.
One of the core grouses of the PM’s supporters has been the alleged anti-Modi bias of the Indian media, going back to the 2002 Gujarat riots. Contrary to his usual line of questioning, Sardesai this time stopped short of mentioning the riots. One of the supporters named Mahender who is seen in the video being pushed by Sardesai has written a blog post (Read here) to say that he called Sardesai 'News Trader No. 1'. That he had no business to enter a live discussion unsolicited and call a journalist a ‘News trader’ -- a term first used by Modi in a different interview to describe journalists – is lost on those expressing outrage on part of the mob. In fact, when Sardesai directed the same question to some US Republican Party members later, their answers were hugely in favour of Modi and were received with loud clapping from Indian Americans standing nearby.
As for the one about Modi teaching them to be rude, this was probably unnecessary. But to be fair to him, it comes after repeated heckling and sloganeering of 'Sardesai murdabad’.
People are, of course, free to draw their own conclusions after seeing the videos and reviewing these questions. But one can’t deny that a journalist cannot be bound by rules of a faceless mob while reporting at an event. After all, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not asked for public support to shut down adversarial journalists. His approach has been of silently ignoring his detractors. Maybe these so-called self-styled defenders of brand Modi need to take a cue from their leader and leave journalists to do their job.
