The parasites of prime time will not allow the nation to unite because their business model is to divide and reap dividends.
We have a strange situation now.
The threat from terrorism, abetted and inspired by official Pakistan, and what it has led to in terms of cross border military action, demand that we come together, sink our differences and rally around our armed forces to protect ourselves and to assert our
sovereignty.
Our armed forces have struck at the enemy in retaliation for its proxy war against us. They are fighting so that we may be safe. They are fighting to safeguard our syncretic democracy. They are fighting so that terrorism sponsored by the enemy cannot disrupt our way of life, our pluralism. They are fighting so that we continue to enjoy the rights and liberties our Constitution guarantees us.
They are not fighting for this or that political party. They are not fighting for the electoral gains of the ruling party, or of the opposition. They are, if anything, fighting religious fundamentalism of one kind, but not to replace it with the rampant religious fundamentalism of another, of the majoritarian, variety.
But the discourse in much of our mainstream TV news media makes a mockery of this noble cause to which our armed forces are dedicated, and for which they give their lives.
When the nation pulls itself together, these parasites of prime time, who can think of nothing else but TRPs, who cannot put the nation and national unity above their narrow commercial interests, their advertisement revenues and profit, use the threat to the nation, the threat of war, to rake in their profits. Parasites, because they batten on the chaos they themselves unleash. They bay for war.
When the political class, irrespective of party affiliations, comes together in such a time of crisis, these prime time parasites step in to divide, to sow discord, to orchestrate mutual suspicion and enmity within the nation. They mouth that discredited Bush-ism, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”. They stigmatise and exclude and ‘other’ our own people through innuendo. They resort to fake news. They glibly appropriate nationalism and give it a religious label.
In short, they do their damndest best to divide us, to divide this nation when it seeks to unite. They are cheerleaders of hate politics and intolerance. This kind of demagogic television-manufactured nationalism has nothing to do with national interest. it is narrowly self-serving and unbecoming of the noble calling of journalism.
So we have a strange situation now. We need to be vigilant against both the enemy across the border and these merchants of hate politics within and their daily dose of poison.
