#ShameOnTimesNow trends worldwide as India takes on the news channel // Piyasree Dasgupta - A hashtag that was just waiting to happen
When Times
Now began tweeting as well as broadcasting the hashtag
#ShamedinSydney, people did not take kindly to it and things quickly went
downhill after that. There was genuine anger among the people because the news
channel was clearly sensationalising Team India's defeat, which had come after
an amazing run of seven straight wins. Alongwith New Zealand, they were the
only unbeaten side in the tournament until they ran in Australia. Moreover, unlike the 2007 World Cup where India were knocked
out in the first round, Dhoni's team made it all the way to the semi-finals.
That run is worthy of being celebrated -- and it certainly didn't deserve the
#ShamedinSydney campaign that was being run by Times Now. Fans, in turn,
slammed the news channel on Twitter and made the #ShameOnTimesNow hashtag
trend worldwide.
Then Arnab Goswami shrugs, pulls the lapels of his severe
black blazer together, leans forward, pulls every muscle of his face into a
scowl and speaks. Pausing after each word (possibly to hear them echo),
twirling his pen, he says, "My first question is to Vinuta Gopal, head of
climate and energy campaign, Greenpeace. The British left India in 1947. Why do
you go crying before them? Who are they?" Gopal, an unsure smile plastered on her face, responds with
humility to the deeply insulting rhetoric. "Thanks Arnab for inviting me
to the show and giving Greenpeace a chance to be heard..."
This was on 17 February this year. Times Now was
discussing the row between the Indian government and Greenpeace activist Priya
Pillai who was prevented from travelling to the UK by the government. The video
was later uploaded on YouTube with the title 'Activism or Anti-Nationalism?' What prompted Times Now to insinuate that
Greenpeace's activities may also be anti-national? It was the news that Priya Pillai was headed to UK for
a talk with UK MPs as audience, where she was slated to speak about Mahan, a
thick sal forest in Madhya Pradesh which allegedly faces
destruction thanks to the expansion plans of corporate houses like Essar
and Hindalco.
Now, here's another way to frame the same question Goswami
asked. "Ms Gopal, what purpose would talking to UK MPs about Mahan serve?
This is an internal issue that they have no say on." Or, if he was indeed suspicious of her motives, he could
have asked, "Except for inviting criticism for the government, talking to
UK MPs wouldn't serve any purpose, was your only motive to embarrass the Indian
government?"
However, the above questions don't have either the sting of
an accusation nor the jingoistic drama that paints Goswami as the righteous
nationalist and his interviewee as the wrong-doer trying to squeeze out of the
trap he has her in. Goswami seems like he falls back on popular courtroom
dramas of the nineties (think Sunny Deol howling one melodramatic line after
other in Damini) to turn a debate into a 'tu tu main main'. The kind India indulges in parking lots over the best spot, in crowded bazaars
with vegetable sellers or with autowallahs at peak traffic hours,
therefore making it deeply satisfying for a great section of viewers. Since
India's preferred idiom of argument is aggression, Newshour seems
to have struck a chord with millions of Indians who tune in to the shows
devotedly, every day for an hour.
While the rest of the Times Now anchors
don't always manage to ratchet up the kind of vitriol Goswami does, the
over-all tone of the channel is provocative, loud and meant to disturb. And
their tickers and hashtags are perhaps undeniable proof of the same. Shame,
accuse, judge - that's their motto. Actually, long before Twitter saw the light
of the day and the word 'trolling' became a part of our daily vocabulary, Times
Now had mastered the brand of conversation we now associate with
no-holds-barred brawls on the social media site.
It was in the same spirit that #ShamedInSydney was born. The
channel probably felt particularly pleased with the same, especially since they
had managed to squeeze in an alliteration, usually considered the mark of a
superior hashtag in the social media world. They probably did not think this
hashtag as particularly out of the ordinary forTimesNow. They have had
hashtags like #ArrestThemNow over a separatist leader hoisting a Pakistani flag in Kashmir, they have had #IntolerantAAP
when Kejriwal, like many other leaders, accused some media houses of being sold
off to a particular political party, they had #NirbhayaInsulted when the
controversy over Leslee Udwin's documentary India's Daughter broke
out and had #ProPakCM referring to Jammu Kashmir CM Mufti Mohammed Syed. A TimesNow hashtag is not just a
social media publicity tool, it is the channel's verdict on an issue, often an
issue on which they are pretending to have an open debate.
And for a while now,
not many had a problem with it. Or even if they had it, they never voiced it. The mistake Times Now made this time was it
came up with a verdict-in-a-hashtag on a cricket team, that the country engages
deeply with and will not quietly swallow. Cricket in India is perhaps bigger
than politics, bigger than Bollywood. People skip work to watch the game as they
did for that semi-final. It is when Times Now wielded its whip on an issue that
millions of Indians care about passionately, that the country felt collectively
bristled. The answer was #ShameOnTimesNow.
Prior to this, several individuals had shown resistance to
Times Now's heckling tactics, some time with dignity, some times not. For
example Subhramanian Swamy called Goswami an idiot, TMC MP Mahua Moitra showed
him the middle finger and activists wrote an open letter boycotting the channel. Although some of these people, like
Swamy, were hardly the voices of reason themselves, protests against the
channel's verbal vigilantism was growing. #ShameOnTimesNow, clearly, was
waiting to happen.
In the debate on the Indian versus Australia semi-finals,
Goswami began with saying how 'some people' were getting 'touchy over the
truth' but it was a fact that 'we(India) got walloped'. His voice is abrasive,
deeply disdainful of any opinion contrary to his. One would ask then, if he has
already decided what the 'truth' is, what's the point of a seven member panel
to 'debate' it? Usually, that's something stuff memes are made of in the
country. Only, yesterday, Times Now gauged the mood of the
country wrong. And India told the channel that while it has been
critical but indulgent of its rhetoric, it has the capability to reject it
too. Rahul Bhatia, in his incisive profile on
Goswami in Caravan magazine mentions a staff meeting after a
particularly good run. "I don’t care about ratings,” he (Goswami) began,
waving a knife at the newsroom, “but we’re number one.”
Perhaps, the channel should start caring about how it plans
to stay there.
