Crawling then, crawling now

Indira Gandhi imposed national emergency in June, 1975, followed by clipping the Freedom of Press. She expected the media to bend. But to her surprise media crawled, mostly towing the government line.

Now fast forward to the year 2020. Kunal Kamra, a stand up comedian hitherto unknown to most public, publicly heckled Arnab Goswami, a news anchor who is a household name in India. What he did was totally unacceptable. Apparently it was a pure publicity stunt, although Arnab Goswami is no lily white either.

In such cases of unruly behavior, the perpetrator is usually handed over to the law enforcement authorities, as Odisha's CM Naveen Patnaik often says - "Let law take its own course". But what followed was a classic case of overreaction. The Airlines competed with one another to ban Kunal Kamra. Frankly the Airlines raised storm in the teacup - making mountains out of molehills. The stand up Comedian succeeded in his mission. I didn't know who Kunal Kamra was until little more than a week ago. Now I am writing about him.

So much water has flown in river Ganga since 1975. Indira Gandhi strangulated the Press at a time when the electronic media was government controlled monopoly - Black & White TV limited to few Metros and the ubiquitous government mouthpiece All India Radio. Now we have hundreds of private channels ruling the airwaves. Internet has brought information to fingertips. Social media has made everyone a citizen journalist, with a double edged sword.

What hasn't changed over these years ? We were spineless then, we are spineless now. Mainstream media is crawling when asked only to bend before Mahaprabhu and co. The Airlines flew a step higher to prove their unflinching obsequiousness - doing the comic act by competing with one other to ban a stand up Comedian. There is no winner in this drama except Kunal Kamra who must be happily walking to his bank.