One often wonders that why there is so much brouhaha by a section of pseudo-intellectuals over the sale of NDTV by a crafty capitalist duo, claiming to be the espousers of public interest to a proclaimed industrialist. This duo made a huge amount of money by adopting all the tricks of the trade, which could be unbecoming of any ethical and intellectual person. But by their intellectual posturing both accumulated stinking amounts of wealth. They are said to have assets worth thousands of crores, that too, within a span of two/ three decades. It is said they were living in a barsati of a house but in a very little time, they made hundreds of crores, mostly because of their connections with powers that be. They are, thus, classic examples of crony capitalism.
There was an Income Tax Officer, some Srivastav, who used to publicly say that husband and wife duo- Pranoy Roy and Radhika Roy owned a ramp consisting of hundreds of acres of land in an African country. So, NDTV was like any other business for them and there is nothing wrong with it. But they played the victim card to get the milage of sympathies from the gullible public was indeed condemnable. After all owners of big media houses, be it Print or Electronic do their business, not for any social service but to make profits. In fact, it has been seen that media owners indulge in
far more unethical practices than businesspersons of other varieties. Therefore, those shedding tears for the Roy couple are thoroughly mistaken about their so-called altruistic deeds.
There is no dearth of such people who are shedding tears over the drama of the resignation of a journalist, who has been associated with the Channel for a long time and is known for spearheading a campaign against a certain political party and a leader. These people possibly do not know the fact that power consists of the ‘ruling party as well as who is in opposition. Hence, those who are in opposition also fall within the realm of the ‘Power’. Therefore, this journalist, who was part of the NDTV was also part of the power structure.
Here it is a larger question arises whether this journalist and the NDTV owner’s duo were in any way different from other exploiting capitalists. In fact, when a person claiming to be against exploitation becomes an integral part of the exploitative machinery then his/ her exploitation becomes more intense and tortuous than other capitalists. Only a few years ago nearly 350 employees of the NDTV were very unceremoniously thrown out of their jobs but the entire class of progressive journalists and intellectuals kept mum as if they were hamstrung by paralysis. When we approached the Labour Commissioner of Delhi to help those hapless workers, he said that victimised employees must themselves approach the Labour department. We talked to many employees, but they did not come forward to complain about it for fear of being branded as the embedded agents of the government.
What was most astonishing was that a few days after the termination of workers the owners of NDTV organised a meeting in the Press Club of India, which was addressed by a whole lot of anti-workers ranging from reactionaries like Arun Shourie, and Fali Nariman to many shameless and rank opportunists, who did not say even a word against the unfair labour practices of the NDTV owners. The stony silence of this sermonising and preachy journalist (his name need not be mentioned here) over the termination of hundreds of workers was painful to the core.
I am sure that workers will now have more freedom in the NDTV to raise their voices against exploitation than they had in the regime of Roys, who were marauders masquerading as being pro-people businesspersons. They must be exposed, who have been worse than the enemies of the workers.