Sameera Sood: Bollywood is the new JNU and Deepika Padukone the new opium of distraction / Tavleen Singh: ‘Reporters’ were so drunk with their power to smear that they failed to fulfill their primary role
If one were to look at what is occupying TV news channels and social media, it would seem India’s tanking GDP and rising job losses, and tensions with China in Ladakh are less important than exactly what time actor Deepika Padukone reached Mumbai from Goa after being summoned for questioning by the Narcotics Control Bureau for some hash she allegedly wanted in 2017. For the last three months, Bollywood has been used by government-friendly TV channels as political distraction.
Bollywood is the new JNU. What was demonised as the Tukde Tukde Gang is now the Nashedi Gang. Bollywood has always been the opium of a large section of Indian masses. Now, its salacious WhatsApp secrets are tumbling out, and the voyeuristic masses are transfixed. Indians have a new public enemy No.1. Just the way Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar were once. The names change, but the chant remains the same – ‘lock them up’....
Did you watch the vultures’ feast on our news channels last
week? It made me sick, but no matter which channel I turned to for news, I was
forced to watch the feeding frenzy. Forced to watch gangs of so-called
reporters reporting from ‘ground zero’ on every move that famous Bollywood
stars made after being summoned by the Narcotics Control Bureau.
‘I am outside her hotel in Goa. Now I am tracking her on her
way to the airport. That is her Mercedes car. This is an exclusive shot.’
Speculation, innuendo and half-truths were used to attack women whose guilt is
unproven. These ‘reporters’ did not hide their schadenfreude. And, they made it
clear that they believed NCB officials were doing a fine job. They praised them
for trying to stop big traffickers from bringing drugs into India. They did not
ask why the NCB has so far not been able to catch a single big trafficker in
decades...
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