News became politainment, like a Netflix spectacle pregnant with sound bites, whataboutery, fake news, and dialogue-baazi. The motivation to indulge in exaggerated histrionics and name-calling backed by furiously animated expressions had suddenly become de rigueur.
The applause and appreciation got louder the more vitriol, venom, and vituperation there was, I assume, for all the bruised gladiators in the circus. The moment a programme concluded, spokespersons would rush to their social media accounts to seek validation from their equally trenchant echo chambers.
SUPERSTAR SPECTACLE FULL
2014 marks the beginning of a polarised India, which appears to be an ongoing project still in full throttle. Things changed dramatically after the monstrous emergence of social media, particularly Twitter, in the post-2014 phase. Javadekar was always humble and although Prasad found me an exasperating gatecrasher into the elite club, he never got nasty. Trust me, there was no love lost, and it was often acrid, but we unwittingly, subconsciously knew where to draw the line. When it came to serious heavy-lifting, Arun Jaitley made his commanding presence felt. The BJP fielded the veteran Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar and Piyush Goyal. Occasionally, Renuka Chowdhury and Rajiv Shukla joined in. The regulars representing the Congress were Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Manish Tewari, Jayanti Natarajan and the humble undersigned. Long before I became an official voice of the grand old party in 2013, one had been articulating the Congress position ever since Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal were daily slaughtering an unusually tepid UPA government in 2011. It was there earlier too, but it has become nauseatingly toxic.Īmrith Lal writes | Events surrounding the BBC, Air India and Iran offer insights about New India and how it sees to role in global affairs In the nightly blood-fest ritual that happens on prime-time TV, there can be only one man standing when the curtains fall. You are expected to deliver an annihilated opponent, bludgeoned to bits. You are daily gingerly navigating a minefield. But then it is not easy being a national spokesperson of a party.
It was, in retrospect, completely unwarranted. Should Khera have, however, adhered to the substandard conversations that define our public discourse today? Probably not. Given the bizarre histrionics, we see in the consecrated Parliament every day from elected members of the House, wherein even Modi insinuates mortifyingly at the Nehru surname as if it is an albatross around the neck of the Gandhi family, Khera was only playing by the standard playlist. Khera had in a press conference held earlier in Mumbai wickedly done a wordplay with Modi’s father’s name, later claiming to inadvertently call him Gautam Das instead of his real name Damodar Das.
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