Would Nehru approve of Modi, Sardesai's dumb question to MJ Akbar

Bangalore

oi-Shubham

Bangalore, March 25: Yesterday, the editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai was speaking to veteran journalist-author MJ Akbar in a programme about his joining the BJP. It was disappointing to see Sardesai attacking Akbar over his choice to join the BJP and he even went on to call the senior journalist a rank opportunist.

Sardesai at one point told Akbar that given his high opinion about late prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, how could he now join the camp of Narendra Modi or would Nehru have ever approved of Modi?

Seasoned journalist asking such ordinary questions

It was terrible to hear such ordinary questions from a seasoned journalist like Sardesai. Akbar was forced to go back to the basics while answering the second question of Sardesai and he said Modi was just 14-year-old when Nehru died and hence it was not possible for him to give an opinion on him.

What made Sardesai make a mockery of his journalistic credentials by asking such foolish questions? A sense of frustration? But how can a journalist allow himself to get drowned in emotions and make pointless remarks publicly?

MJ Akbar has endorsed the political reality

Akbar rightly said that it is not right to remain in the past. 2002 is a year which definitely haunts us but there are other years as well when riots rocked India's soul but how many other leaders had to undergo the same scrutiny like Modi? Akbar was again spot on. If the veteran journalist is trying to be a part of a change, then he became a rank opportunism. And what about the stagnation that his interviewer and many others of his ilk prefer in the name of moral purity? Is that a superior quality to exhibit?

People like Sardesai have become so impractical and impatient over the last six months (since Modi was crowned as the PM candidate) that they are not ready to understand bigger vision. The country has suffered in the hands of an under-performing regime for the last one decade and yet the Sardesais are feeling more apprehensive about 2002! Perhaps because the ground reality in India today is just another story for them to run their show 24X7. But for a common man on the ground, 2002 is not relevant but 2014 is. Sitting within the four squares of the television set, India's prime time anchors are no less disconnected from the nation's soul.

OneIndia News