DISQUS

Almost As Good As Chocolate: Double Standards?

  • upnishad · 2 years ago
    Thats more like it. Go girl, you are doing great !
  • Arundhati Troy of Helen · 2 years ago
    Barkha Dutt, our high priestess of idiot-box liberalism, jumped into the fray with her condemnations a tad bit sooner because her butt is on fire. She had to give a little sermon to the "bad" liberals to prove herself the "good" liberal. Like many of her ilk she has painted herself into a corner with her gratuitous abuse of the Hindu Right, exploiting to the hilt every little "Hindu-Muslim" issue that can be used to abuse them. MF Husain issue? Well, before you bat an eye lid our diva of talk-show secularism gathers a crowd in NDTV studio and goes hammer and tongs at her object of hate, the RSS etc. Baroda issue? She does an encore with aplomb, right hand tied behind her back, that kind of expert at this condemnation game. Shiv Sena attacks shops selling Valentine's Day cards? Dutt is all outrage, and puts on a mighty fine show expressing it, studio audiences in tow, the all-leftwing panel she assembled in full, ecstastic agreement.

    The strategy of using faux outrage to target political enemies has its limits, such as the embarrassment caused by Taslima Nasrin episode. Discerning viewers know -- and Barkha Dutt knows that they know -- to which political camp she belongs, and for whose benefit she is pulling those stunts.

    She can brazen it out or pull one more stunt to save face. She opted for the latter. Note that she doesn't harp much on the fact that the government of West Bengal banned a book of Nasrin's for the same reason that fundamentalists railed against her, ie, "insulting Islam", and that this government is run by CPIM, and that Brinda Karat is a leading light of CPIM, and that Karat is related by marriage to Prannoy Roy, head honcho of NDTV, and that by virtue of that association Karat and her party always get good, adulatory coverage on NDTV. Given the customary references to "Narendra Modi's" Gujarat even when the issue is one concerning Islamist radicals, why did she forget to mention Buddhdeb Bhattacharya's culpability in banning Dwikhandito? Given the attack on Nasrin was perpetrated by an ally of the Congress, why did she forget to demand accountability from Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh?

    Instead she played good liberal vs bad liberal. You guys are impressed. Who knows. If you keep working on this condemnation thingy, you might get invited to the "We the Dumbass People" show.
  • megha · 2 years ago
    Whats even more deplorable is the fact that a case was booked on HER under IPC section 153, for disturbing 'communal harmony'. Words fail me.
  • Jason · 2 years ago
    To me the sad part is that Taslima's writing is so terrible. She doesn't deserve to be assaulted (except by the critics). But the less media coverage she gets the better.