Times of India’s role, Chetan bhagat, Empowerment and Women

Times of  India’s role, Chetan bhagat, Empowerment and Women

There are colloquial expressions either single word/phrase /idiom in every langue which express experiences so well that you cannot translate it in other languages  as they are without giving detailed explanations or some circumlocution to bring out the full or complete meaning. One such expression is Tamil is as transliterated ‘vettu perungaya dabba’ meaning ‘empty asafetida box[usually in olden days it used to be in paper boxes unlike the present day plastic one]. It refers to a box which when you open and kept in a room will give you the same impressions in terms of smell/odor/flavor/stink whatever you wish to call it as but when you really approach to take the box presuming that it contains asafetida you will be surprised to find that it has not even a dust /particle of asafetida totally devoid any content that you were expecting.

Two things in the past week happened like that one is the much hyped but unpaid and unfixed [unlike NDTV Burka Dutt] interview of Rahul Gandhi with Arnab Goswami and yesterday Chetan Bhagat’s article in Times Of India about that interview. While trying to ridicule Rahul Gandhi, this did a mess as he did not have either enough humor, even copied references or did not have enough guts and ended up writing about women wherein he mostly meant or tried to mean feminism or feminist liberation and their empowerment. The beauty is he did not do any justice to the two issues nor propose anything to the two namely  empowerment and feminism in alphabetical order much less connect the two in any way . As I got a chance to read the Sunday central page very late at night I thought I would request Times Of India not to promote authors because of their brand or at least do not insult by publishing it in the same page where such good writings/columns like those of M.J.Akbar appears.

Let me add Chetanji, do some home work because  you are given the privilege of writing narrative and descriptive article, unlike the mundane news reporting, it is a privilege because you can evaluate, explain, opinionate, quote examples of rural women empowerment [ from Gujarath for which the whole media seems to have an in built bias] etc. So when you are given a detailed  atlas just do not show the oceans that too without names but  try to learn the names of countries and in this case  try to give some original opinions so that even if you do not have the qualities of asafetida at least act as a substitute and not be an ‘empty asafetida [paper] box’.

For your benefit some years back Times Of India itself carried a series of wonderful articles from experts, scholars, successful people from various fields like Mr. A.J.Abdul kalam, Wipro Chairman Mr.Aziz Premji, Biocon chairman Ms.Muzumdar etc on empowerment. I am equally worried about  Times of India’s standards?

Here are two links for your benefit on those two topics, on which I have with my little knowledge, attempted to write something. In fact the one on empowerment was my response to the articles on empowerment by TOI and another my response to some article of feminist rights in Youth Ki Awaaz’

1] http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/07/empowerment-review-and-reflection.html

2] http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/01/feminism-and-feminists.html

3] also see for good articles on Empowerment http://www.selfgrowth.com/empower_articles.html

Journalists' methods

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/kejriwals-aap-is-the-item-girl-of-politics-chetan-bhagat-1353099.html 

1] Chetan has his own share of corrupt practices which has promoted him as a big writer while better writers are yet to get a publisher. For info I can tell you , you can write any crap , get it published at your cost or find a publisher , then pay a hefty sum to IBD they will ensure only your works are displayed in the front rows,prominently or all over depending on how much you pay and how well you are connected in all the airport stalls, railway station stalls, major book houses across all metros. This is a huge mafia. India today and Outlook pushed aside Sunday and week only through this method. All those who ever ran a magazine know this, as I was one of the editors of an International Magazine which had 6 Nobel laureates also as editors and had tie up with NASA to use their latest photos etc but we had to close the magazine after 2 years struggling to even break even and later on some of the editors who were business wise wiser brought it back in a new poor avatar after a gap of 6 years. so chetan has an audience and of course some of his short articles in news papers are sometimes good not anywhere near the class and content of M.J.Akbar or depth or research of Arun Shourie or language of Arun Puri etc

2] He is trying his level best to be anti Modi, though he would love to openly support congress , he fears that it would spoil his readership now, so in his anti Modi enthusiasm he was trying to grab the straw called AAP which when on land will be blown away by wind and on water will sink anytime and when it stands in a dilemma not knowing whether to live on land or on water it will be eaten up by the bulls of congress around. he is one of those typical modern writers who use thesaurus as a drilling machine to bore into any subject [and bore others too] and depending on the person, issue , their prejudice, their understanding or lack of it , use different types of chucks and drill bits and spindles and use sometimes to even dig tunnels to escape when they are caught with their pants down as Tarun Tejpal did. Chetan did it recently a few months back in an article about Modi , in the Hindu , when it was managed totally by two Marxist naxals Ram and Siddarth . I selected the terms he used and gave him a more refined thesaurus. here it ishttp://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/08/chetan-bhagat.html

Chetan Bhagat,

Dear  Chetan Bhagat,

Your column ‘Time to polish those very rough edges’.

I do not venture to write on politics or politicians because it would be better to write about the shape of a cloud at least I can be sure that probably sometime or other I can show to people what type of cloud I was writing about. So at the outset let me make it very clear that I am not a supporter of any particular party or political figure.  

I would like you not to ignore facts even if you are not willing to accept or approve them. This is the fundamental rule for writing about politics or history. You are at liberty to then give your own interpretations, justifications, opinions etc. So, first notice facts without prejudice, take notes from political correspondents like Paul Johnson or our own M.J. Akbar [ who has incidentally written an excellent article in the same page today] and read history by authors like Will Durant, Dance etc along with reading of social psychology before venturing to write on subjects like Modi. Do your home work before arrogating yourself  to sit on judgment on all matters like TV anchors or act like the feigning petty know-all newspaper or news channel reporters. 

1] “He stands tall but does not work well as a combo meal” It is not a rough edge it is the sharp difference of a great personality and all great leaders are firm and look firm. He did not have greatness thrust upon him either by virtue of any dynasty, sect, class, caste, religion or sponsored by any political party or business house but has become great through showing to India what is governance and what a good leader can do, someone who gives priority to governance  over corruption and governance over promoting his family members . What is wrong in being a tall leader if you can deliver good governance and achieve something very important for improving the economic conditions of the people like a Margaret Thatcher, Moraji Desai, Vallabai Patel, Martin Luther King, Jothi Basu and E.M.S.Namboodiripad [ I have selected examples from  parties where party ideology {whether right or wrong} and cadre approval matter more than any single personality]

2] On Independence Day remember it was not aggression but it was honest appraisal and evaluation. Come on stop being hypocritical all Prime Ministers, Ministers, Chief Ministers owe their post , position , power ,pelf etc to politics and must and do use all opportunities to play politics. Unfortunately most Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers observe Independence Day and Republic Day as mere calendared observation of rituals rather than an occasion to put across what is required to make the nation a better place to live and acknowledge the mistakes that have led the nation to where it is now and also pointing out who is responsible for the mess [here though not directly- unfortunately the PM is the official face of the present Government]

3] Modi hype. Without PR, publicity or hype nothing sells anywhere. That too in a country where it involves taking on a entire government machinery , paid and biased media and a hoard of sycophants who would do anything to support a single family. Please remember it is only because of hype and promotion by business houses like IBD that your books are in the front racks in most book shops at the Air ports, Railway stations, major book stalls etc and only because of hype an ordinary small time writer like you could become popular enough to migrate from writing very ordinary novels to writing columns in newspapers and they too publish them. Please do not abuse something [hype and publicity] which has given you an identity which probably many better writers deserve in India and unfortunately do not get it.

4] Pan –Indian sensitivity. Please define what it is? Probably only economic development, equal opportunities to all, dignified living standards to everyone, national interest above dynastic, family, party ideology etc could be the few things that can be included in that classification called  Pan –Indian sensitivity. We cannot even include common civil code for fear of  losing a particular minority vote which is euphemistically and conveniently termed as Secularism of lately. On this Modi has declared boldly that Constitution is the only religion of a politician.

He talks frankly as all leaders who have with national and economic welfare as a vision and mission do, combined with  good intentions, initiatives and interest in implementing them like Margaret Thatcher, Dr. B.R . Ambedkar, Vallabhai Patel, Moraji Desai, Kamaraj etc rather than perpetuating a dynasty, promoting their kith and kin or thrusting a political ideology at the cost of economic welfare of all. It was one family which ensured that a great person like B.R. Ambedkar was never allowed to lead the nation as a main leader or sidelined Kamaraj and ultimately pushed him out they want to push aside Modi too because he belongs to very backward Ghanchi caste.

Considering all this I find your write up as highly parochial, prejudiced and perhaps paid up.