Shalini Langer: Give me Rhea’s fortitude any day // Tavleen Singh: Rhea and her family have been sacrificed at the altar of lynch mob journalism
At a time when most of us have been pummeled into even smaller selves by a tiny virus, eschewing the outside and tip-toeing around homes that are war zones, with frayed souls locked in together, it must be good to be able to just step away from it all. Those photos of Modi feeding peacocks and peahens while clearing files, underlined what we are all missing - the time from long, long time ago that we had anyone eating out of our hands; an indulgent photographer to record those Twitter moments; and, of course, a backyard as big as that. It must require a certain kind of equanimity to have this fortitude when running a country in the face of problems such as the GDP, GST, Galwan, and now, above all, ganja.
Still, give me the fortitude of a Rhea Chakraborty, any
day. A 28-year-old who is watching her life go up in ashes on live TV, for
what, so far, are minor infractions that the late actor, and sudden ‘hero’, Sushant
Singh Rajput, is as much guilty of; who must step out every day and face those
cameras; who must watch everything she does, from what she wears to what food
she orders; who must account for every conversation she has had in the past as
well as one undisputedly close relationship (in an industry famously
tight-lipped about them); who has the might of the State rallied against her;
who is seeing her family go down with her; who must watch some of India’s
mightiest prove to be only reel men; and who, most importantly, can’t dodge any
questions. Not one.
And yet, making her way through that camera siege, her head held high, with no lensmen indulging her, seeking no shoulders to lean on, donning no dark glasses or veils to hide behind, Chakraborty has not given those who would have her break down, the satisfaction of enjoying her tears. On Tuesday, she walked to her third round of questioning, leading to her arrest, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt that said let’s ‘smash patriarchy’ — the lawyer for Sushant Singh Rajput’s family earlier called a video of her dressed in white salwar-suit an attempt to show herself as “a simple woman”…
Hannah
Ellis-Petersen: Actor's death fuels media frenzy in India
Tavleen Singh: Rhea and her family have been sacrificed at the altar of lynch mob journalism
Till the day she was arrested last week they gathered like a
pack of hyenas outside Rhea Chakraborty’s home every morning and reported
her every move. She is upstairs in her flat. She will be down soon. She has to
come out now because the NCB officials are here. All this on camera in shrill,
hysterical tones. When she finally emerged, they shoved their microphones in
her face and jostled to get closer than the rest so they could relay their
‘breaking news’ and their ‘exclusive’ pictures fastest. They were meant to be
newsmen but more resembled voyeurs at a lynching. They were just following
orders. It is their bosses who need to be held to account. Their bosses are the
most famous TV anchors in this country, and they have turned journalism into a
lynch mob.
It saddens me to say that some of them are women. The worst of these were those who anchor primetime shows in Hindi. They made no effort to stop panelists on their shows from charging Rhea with murder, embezzlement and forcing Sushant Singh Rajput to kill himself. For weeks they have demanded stridently that Rhea be arrested. Why has she not been arrested yet? Will it be today? She will have to be arrested, they told their viewers, because the NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) has interrogated her for four days and she has admitted to taking drugs and procuring them. How did they know? Then, triumphantly, they declared that this was proof that she lied in those interviews she gave. These celebrated anchors masterminded the lynching, and it was they who put pressure on the highest investigative agencies in the Government of India to arrest a young woman who is charged with no more than smoking a joint or two...
Rhea
Chakraborty on 'media trial' after Bollywood star's death. By Geeta Pandey
"This country's tragedy is that
it expects more transparency from a moderately established starlet
than from the man entrusted to run its government. That it holds a movie actor
to a very high moral standard and its Prime Minister to none"
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