Recently, a video of Kunal Kamra confronting Arnab Goswami in a flight over his brand of journalism went viral. While many celebrated the fact that Arnab got a taste of his ‘own medicine’, others claimed that it was an invasion of privacy. Kunal was finally banned from flying on IndiGo Airlines for 6 months. This was followed by him being arbitrarily banned from a host of other airlines as well.
Even though he clarified that he had gone back to his seat as soon as the crew had asked him, and also apologised profusely to the crew (who made no formal complaint), he was still demonised by the right-wing  and its connected media.

Kamra then put out a statement questioning why these sweeping moves were made considering he hadn’t even travelled on these other airlines and there was no official complaint.

Apart from the fact that there was such an immediate and overwhelming response from the aviation industry, it’s also ironic to see the right-wing take the high horse in this case, but support Arnab whole-heartedly when he and his reporters do the same thing. 

People also started pointing out that no action was taken against BJP MP Pragya Thakur, who recently delayed a flight for 45 minutes by refusing to change her seat, despite crew and passengers asking her to do so. Why has there still not been any action taken against her?

Thakur’s stubborn behaviour was met was sharp criticism online, but there was no action taken against the MP. There was a stark right wing silence, and not a single minister commented on her causing such a problem with a flight. Compared to that, Kamra, who did not delay the flight and sat on his seat once asked by the crew, has been banned and even been denounced by Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri himself.

Another thing that was brought to attention was an old video of a Republic news editor questioning and heckling Tejavi Yadav constantly despite being asked not to by him and the crew. The video is introduced by Arnab.

It’s ridiculous that this video exists, where a reporter is shown heckling someone on national news, and no action was taken. In fact, there was no hue and cry about this at all.

Faye D’Souza also put out a statement on the whole debacle, saying that as there is no formal complaint from passengers, crew, or Arnab himself, due process has not been followed, and these bans won’t hold up in court.

She further added that if any of the involved parties felt they had been harassed or treated badly, the procedure is to file a police complaint once the plane lands. As there was no written complaint, it doesn’t appear that these bans will hold up to legal scrutiny. You can watch her video here.

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As the events are ongoing, it still remains to be seen how this volatile situation will come to a close.