1. Arvind Kejriwal is an honest, astute and capable man who knows that mediapersons will try to armtwist him into a political controversy and is wary of them.
2. There is no dignity left in the visual media. The media will always try to sleaze-ify any issue, no matter how important to the common man. Interviews with Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, and Om Puri prove this. The media have tried their damnedest to demean Team Anna and their cause by dragging them to the level of the cheap political controversy.
3. Anna Hazare and his team continue to the have the unquestioning support of the common people of India, despite the aforementioned pathetic attempts by the media to drag them to the cheap levels that are by now the media’s ‘comfort zone’.
4. Despite point no. 2, news channels like Headlines Today deserve my gratitude for re-telecasting Om Puri’s fiery, straight-from-the-heart speech that drew spontaneous applause from his audience. The channel treated it like a disciplinary hearing, playing excerpts from his speech and shamelessly asking the accomplished artiste to explain himself on each excerpt. The actor of course was visibly ruffled, but creditably managed to ride the storm of rude questions without losing his cool. It took real guts to say what he said on stage, and it is obvious to everyone that it was a passionate venting of well-intentioned emotions that accurately reflect what the average common man feels about the average politician.
5. Everyone knows that Om Puri’s speech was a deeply emotional outburst – the kind that our politicians only attempt to act out when they’re addressing poor farmers. It was probably this fact that has rankled our MPs enough to move a privilege motion against the hapless actor – how dare an actor encroach on their oratory turf?
6. The fact that Kiran Bedi has also been similarly honoured, shows that our MPs are either extremely sensitive people or, which is more likely, petty revenge-seekers and unsporting losers. I may be insensitive, but I fail to see what our seasoned MPs found objectionable in her speech. MPs have regularly been accused of fraud or some other crime, but rarely have we seen privilege motions being moved in such cases.
7. The media will always try to divert attention away from real issues (yawn) and towards petty political dramas, often of their own creation. We need to focus now on what the government does, and how quickly, to pass the Lokpal Bill in the form that Team Anna have demanded, the people of India have demanded.
Jai Hind, Jai Bhaarat, Jai Hindustan, Vande Mataram, Inqalaab Zindabaad.
Very righty said.. its for us to focus on the results with Jan Lokpal Bill not getting improvised any further