NDTV’s star anchor Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami, the voice of the nation and Times Now, have for the longest time taken digs at each other, either directly or indirectly. On Wednesday, that changed. Barkha went all out against Arnab for seeking a gag on sections of the Indian media over its coverage of the protests in Kashmir.
Arnab on Tuesday night in his prime time show, The Newshour, demanded a gag on journalists and media who take an “anti-India”, “pro-Pakistan” and “pro-terrorist” line on the Kashmir issue.
Terming these people as “pseudo-liberals”, Arnab wanted them to be “tried and punished”.
But Barkha, a day later decided to throw caution to the winds and launched a scathing attack against the ‘most watched television journalist’ in India, saying she was “ashamed to be a part of the same industry as him”.
“What’s striking is his brazen and cowardly hypocrisy,” she wrote.
“So he drones on and on about Pro Pakistan Doves without one word on the JK alliance agreement that commits the BJP and PDP to talks with Pakistan and Hurriyat and is silent on Modi’s own Pakistan outreach- neither of which I object to- but since Arnab Goswami measures patriotism by such views why is he so silent on the government? Chamchagiri?” she wrote
She also questioned why no one else was objecting to it.
“Imagine, a journalist actually exhorts the government to shut down sections of the media, misrepresents them as isi agents and terror sympathisers, calls for them to be tried and acted against. And our fraternity remains locked into politically correct and timid silence,” Barkha wrote.
She said that she was no “shrinking violet” and didn’t give a damn about what he said.
“I hope I will always be someone whose journalism you loathe, because trust me, the feeling is so utterly mutual that it would kill me to be on the same side of any issue as you,” she wrote.
You can read the entire post here:
Now that the war between the two celebrity journalists is out in the open, it’ll be interesting to see if Arnab responds to her.
(Feature image source: Twitter)