Republic TV launches: Is Arnab breaking news or being BJP's force-multiplier?

While it is undoubtedly wrong for a jailed convict to have access to a cell phone, and doubly wrong for a prominent politico like Lalu to communicate with him, the way the expose was carried out by Republic TV seemed clearly motivated. In fact, more than just motivated, it seemed to also be orchestrated in coordination with the BJP.

Twisting the tale

In the alleged Lalu-Shahabuddin conversation, Shahabuddin is heard advising Lalu. The translated transcript is as follows:

MOHAMMAD SHAHABUDDIN: Do you know what’s happening in Siwan?

LALU PRASAD: Siwan? I know what’s happening in Mirganj

MOHAMMAD SHAHABUDDIN: The situation is worse in Siwan. The other day I told you about the ‘Chaata wala’. It’s due to their mistake. Today is Navami. Was Police deployment done?

LALU PRASAD: Wasn’t it done?

MOHAMMAD SHAHABUDDIN: No nothing was done. Khatam hai bhai aapka SP. Remove all of them. They’ll start a riot.

LALU PRASAD: Did something happen today?

MOHAMMAD SHAHABUDDIN: Yes, there was police firing.

While it is obviously terrible that Lalu would be receiving advice from Shahabuddin, that was all it was – advice. Lalu did not appear to be taking orders, nor do we hear him promising any one course of action. In fact, the conversation is far from insidious, with Shahabuddin advising Lalu on how to maintain law and order in Siwan. Yes, Shahabuddin is a criminal, and a dangerous one at that, but Siwan is an area Shahabuddin knows very well, having been Siwan's Member of Parliament for four consecutive terms.

Even his comment on the Siwan SP also seems less like a threat, but rather a statement that the SP's decision to order police firing has made his position untenable.
 
However, Arnab, the master of staging a spectacle, takes things in a completely different direction. First, he interprets the conversation as proof that Lalu Prasad is controlled by Shahabuddin, an allegation that is not proven by the tapes. Secondly, he insinuates that Shahabuddin's comments on the SP are a direct threat on the life of the SP. This too hardly seems to be the case, especially given Shahabuddin's tone while making the comment.

A don by any other name

To further fan the flames, Arnab employs another nifty trick – obfuscation. While Arnab went to great lengths to vilify Shahabuddin, something that is easy given Shahabuddin's notorious past, there's one point he fails to mention – Shahabuddin's long standing association with the RJD and Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Shahabuddin has been a four-time MP and two-time MLA of Lalu's RJD. This connection makes Lalu's relationship with Shahabuddin far less shady. By not mentioning this, Arnab spins the tapes to seem like Lalu is the pawn of criminal elements, making them seem more insidious than they actually are.

To take advice from Shahabuddin regarding law and order in Siwan, regardless of Shahabuddin's staus as a convict, is not proof of Lalu doing the bidding of criminal elements. It does instead show an astute politician using every option at his disposal to effectively curb a riot-like situation.

Yes, we should not want criminals in politics, and it is not a good look for any political party to have criminals as members. However, the RJD is hardly alone in this. Criminality and politics seem to go almost hand in hand in India. In fact, an ADR study of the 2014 Lok Sabha election results showed that a Lok Sabha candidate facing criminal charges was 8% more likely to win than a candidate with a clean record. The BJP alone had 98 Lok Sabha MPs facing criminal charges at the formation of the 2014 Lok Sabha. So to pretend the RJD is any worse than the rest of India's polity is misguided.

The saffron parade

For Arnab to look at a politician-criminal connection as "astonishing", or to express surprise that a powerful criminal-politician has access to a cellphone and his political mentor is laughable. To term it a super exclusive even more so. In the future, maybe we can expect more super exclusives like 'Water is wet! Will Poseidon resign?'

But while the super exclusive was far from novel, there was one group that were as impressed by the break as Arnab – the BJP. No sooner had he broken the news than BJP members of all shapes and sizes came tumbling into Arnab's panelist windows, all demanding action against Lalu, and the resignation of Bihar CM and Lalu's alliance partner Nitish Kumar.

From Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu, to senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, it seemed like every tool in the BJP's arsenal had been deployed to maximise the impact of Arnab's otherwise unimpressive expose. In their quest to have Nitish Kumar removed, and the RJD-JDU alliance dissolved, they were even assisted by Arnab's studio henchmen who directed them to specific laws under which they could seek these outcomes.

It seems to be the start of a symbiotic relationship between Arnab and the BJP. They showed up in droves to give his channel much needed exposure and legitimacy, and he, in turn, focused only on their political rivals. Even as inter-caste clashes erupted in BJP-governed Saharanpur, and Arnab's pet peeve Kashmir continues to simmer, both the BJP and Arnab were single-minded in their pursuit of Lalu throughout the day. This focus on a political scalp, over actually covering news further exposes the Arnab-BJP partnership that reports have pointed to during the channel's formation.

A BJP mouthpiece?

One of Republic's most prominent investors is Independent MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who owns a host of news outlets through his company, Jupiter Capital Investments. In late 2016, a leaked internal email, sent from Jupiter Capital's Chief Operating Officer Amit Gupta, exposed both Chandrasekhar's leanings, as well as his insistence that his news channels toe this line.

The email, which was sent to editorial heads of all news houses owned by Jupiter Capital, made certain demands. It insisted that editorial hires be “Pro-India”, “Pro-military”, and “aligned” with Chandrasekhar's “ideology”.

While this may seem innocent enough, especially considering Chandrasekhar is an 'Independent MP', it should be noted that Chandrasekhar was appointed vice-chairman of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in Kerala in September, 2016. To then expect Republic to not be pro-BJP, given how Chandrasekhar runs his other media interests, is beyond optimistic.

With this being the case, it is important to not mistake Arnab's agenda as coincidentally helpful for the BJP, but the start of a right-wing media-politico nexus.