New Delhi: Sunday began on a rousing note with all TV news channels stationed at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan for the swearing in of Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal as the capital’s chief minister.
Channels reverberated with the sound of his singing, ‘Hum honge kaamyaab…” (We shall overcome)
At prime time, channels like Aaj Tak and India Today revisited Kejriwal’s journey and victory. Times Now was still at its first summit, with guests like Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Congress leader Salman Khurshid.
Most channels were dominated by video and counter video from Jamia Millia Islamia, purportedly of 15 December, which had suddenly surfaced. The first video seems to show that on the night of the Jamia violence, the Delhi Police attacked students studying peacefully in the library.
Then, in what India Today called the ‘Jamia video war’, a retaliatory video appeared that showed at least one person in the library holding stones. This, according to news channels like Times Now and Republic, established that stone pelters and protest planners had sought refuge in the library.
“Something somewhere is wrong,” declared Zee News.
On ‘Taal Thok Ke’, anchor Aditi Tyagi added, “Jamia ki video ne phir se siyasi bhuchaal la diya hai.” (The video from Jamia has brought forth a political earthquake again). Tyagi also gave a few precious seconds of her prime time to Shaheen Bagh’s ‘siyaasi (political) stunt’. This ‘stunt’ involved protesters beginning a march to Home Minister Amit Shah’s house before the police halted them Sunday. Tyagi questioned, “Kya samadhan nahi sangram chahte hai Shaheen Bagh wale?” (Does Shaheen Bagh want a struggle and not a solution?).
ABP News’ Indrajeet Rai set out to fact check the first Jamia video. Rai was most persistent in convincing his viewers about the objectivity of his fact-checking process. He concluded that, “The biggest takeaway from this process is that the video has been altered.”
Anchor Chitra Tripathi from Aaj Tak needlessly kept zooming in and out of the video. One was left clueless about what she was trying to achieve. Tripathi was visibly confused, “Did they (the police ) beat up the studious kids or the stone pelting students?”
India Today’s Pooja Shali in conversation with Vikram Singh, former DGP of the UP Police, questioned him about the police brutality in the video.
Singh was quick and defensive, “Jumping to conclusions about the video is uncalled for and premature.” In case anyone was left with doubts, he felt the need to add, “Don’t for a moment think that police officers enjoy using force. A police officer is not bloodthirsty, he has been trained to turn the other cheek.”
At Times Now, anchor Bhavatosh Singh asked Areeb Hasan, treasurer, Jamia Alumni Association, what his next legal step was going to be.
Hasan replied, “We will go to the High Court and file a writ.” He also added, “I want to say that Jamia is a gift of Gandhi. All students are followers of Gandhi and they will never be rioters.”
NDTV 24×7’s Ankita Mukherji was in conversation with newly appointed Delhi Minister, Kailash Gahlot. Mukherji was curious — “What is your takeaway from Kejriwal’s speech?”
Gahlot was disappointingly prosaic in his reply — “He (Kejriwal) made it clear that he wants to work for Delhi with everybody.”
“Poll animosity is a thing of the past,” Gahlot declared.
As usual, Republic took the cake for coming up with the most redundant and passe question. Anchor Arnab Goswami donned his academic hat for the day, “It is hard to deny the serious churn in Indian politics. The right wing is becoming accepted and more assertive.”
After minutes of beating around the bush, Goswami came to the point, “The big question is, is the right the new centre? This is given the fact that the right has become assertive.” He was rather pleased with himself to have come up with this formulation.
