PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Former Indian Express editor Arun Shourie‘s explosive interview with the paper’s current editor, Shekhar Gupta, while revealing the deep schisms within the BJP, has also once again thrown light on the less-than-professional role political journalists have been playing.
For the second time in two months, Shourie targetted “The Gang of Six”—a pack of half-of-dozen journalists who, says the Magsaysay Award winning investigative journalist, have been used (abused? misused?) by various different sections of the BJP.
On Gupta’s Walk the Talk interview for NDTV on Monday, Shourie said his letter to the BJP president Rajnath Singh demanding accountability in running the party had been dubbed as an act of indiscipline even though that letter had remained confidential.
There were leaders, he says:
“…who had been planting stories against L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh and others through six journalists (and yet it’s not called indiscipline)”.
At the BJP’s national executive meeting in mid-June, shortly after the party suffered a “nasty jolt” in the general elections, Shourie had gone so far as to say that “the BJP was being run by six journalists” who were “damaging the party interest“.
On both occasions, Shourie hasn’t named “The Gang of Six”, but by repeatedly talking about them has set tongues wagging.
However, the questions remain: is the BJP so feeble a party to be felled by mere pen-pushers? If BJP leaders are using them to “plant” stories against one another, are the journalists exceeding their brief by allowing themselves to be used?
Is ex-editor Shourie sanctimoniously crying wolf or is this par for the course in other parties too? Are editors and publishers of the publications where the “Gang of Six” work aware of their journalists being so used?
And if so, is it OK?
Photograph: courtesy IBN Live
Also read: Don’t laugh: do journalists make good politicians?
churumuri 
Is Churumuri so insecure that it has to often file posts under Hindutva, Moditva or BJP tags to attract comments?
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any clues on the pack of 6 ??
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i have nothing against the content itself, but the trademark incessant schadenfreude is getting tiring and stale. i get it. but atleast comeup with meaningful and substansive criticism no? i mean how many times are we going to hear the 60 iq thingie without ever hearing a single substansive critique of the actual things that the 60IQ-wala said.
its not even funny anymore. the conservatives are worthless producers. the un-conservatives are worthless at preserving. we can only produce something, when somebody is fighting to preserve our production. and we can only produce when we are not in the existential battle of preservation. to assume one can exist without the other is stupid.
ok let me slip out before the lingerie salesmen pour out on the streets now.
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oh! wait!! didn’t some idiot say really great producers are not aware? (that kaminey thread, partha paraphrased it) well duh! somebody who believes production is by itself an end is neither great nor rooted to reality.
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Of course they are aware. In fact it is one of the qualifications to cover a beat today –political or otherwise. How close are you to the people concerned. Close enough to get plugs that are passed off as exclusives? It seems more like, “I am the CHOSEN one for the plug…so I am special.” Such journos come in handy to do little favors for the management as well.
On another plane, I think Shourie’s interview was also a plug. I hardly saw any “inter” view. It was just Shourie telling what he had to say, with some noises from Shekhar Gupta. If it had been a proper interview, Shekhar would have pinned him down with some sharp questions: “If you have raised these issues with BJP, what response did you get really?” If you think ABV was ‘thwarted’ would you say ‘rightly so’—after all you later projected Modi as future PM, praised his development programmes etc; “Do you think you are not being taken seriously after the nuclear deal fiasco where BJP was forced to oppose it –after you and Sinha made some interpretations –despite popular public sentiment in favour of it; perhaps BJP feels that on some issues many other leaders/members are more attuned or ‘in touch’ with the mood of the people? etc, etc
Now, I am sure Shekhar can come up with such questions. But then he is also a journalist. And journalism these days is all about providing a platform for leaders, companies, personalities to air their opinions. I think another blog, termed it ‘individual infomercials’ and called for regulation of the news media in this context.
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What is now happenning in BJP is not good for democracy. A country like India needs a very strong and alert opposition.
Otherwise Congress will start to behave like a monarch.
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but the old bjp was useless. they didn’t have the right priorities or approach. an opposition is only useful if it has a reasonable chance of forming a government.
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The BJP in its current avatar has no absolutely future with a retired old man hanging on to his post and shamelessly day dreaming along with his cronies. While Rajnath Singh is a figure head and completely incompetent it was Advani who first raised the issue of his true love for Jinnah and Pakistan!
Mr. Humpty-Dumpty has now told the media that BJP will emerge stronger, sadly it will be completely destroyed much before the next elections.
Obviously the Cong-I is enjoying the decimation of the opposition by a gang of senile, retired so called saffron leaders!
It is a crucial cornerstone and sad tragedy in Indian politics.
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The Jaswant-Jinnah controversy exposed again that BJP’s secret scheme of things revolved around sweeping history under the carpet. Sushma Swaraj said Jaswant’s writing on Jinnah is not as per the ideology of BJP. A political ideology not evolved out of historical truth? Its true we need strong oppositions on the right and left to keep the government on track. If only BJP could get over the habit of spreading falsehood and communal ism. But then can leopards change their spots?
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The six of the said gang running/damaging BJP are obvious. Arun Shourie, Balbir Punj, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Chandan Mitra….
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