Last night ‘The’ Arnab Goswami dared all media persons counselling restraint. If the Boss had it his way, India would fix all b*stards in the world six times a month. Our MiGs, some as old as the pilots who we force to fly them, would have flattened the Romans for daring not to return their two marines arrested for killing fishermen in Kerala.

Islamabad would have been done in similarly. First for chopping off the heads of two Indian jawans, and, now, for the “butchery” over Sarabjit Singh; daily favourite Meenakshi Lekhi alluding that Pak detenus here are to be minced similarly.

Beijing is Goswami’s new dart board.

Alas, even as the Times Now editor-in-chief hollers at the government, even ministers, at least the urbane, English-speaking types, queue up on The Newshour like school boys hooked to punishment.

It’s bizzare to see sheer humiliation and rapid-fire interruptions that Manish Tewari, for example, is willing to be inflicted upon, even though he, not the worthy anchor, is the nation’s information and broadcasting minister (read licensor of TV channels). My stomach curls seeing an elected government’s principal spokesperson raising his little finger, awaiting Goswami’s permission to slip in a sentence. I doubt if Tewari does this in cabinet meetings.

Even other regulars assume that the jury only watches the four english news channels, the stereotype reinforced by the ‘group thinkers’ they encounter at India International Centre, the watering hole of the Capital’s elite. At play here is the utter mediocrity of Hindi news channels, their audiences fifteen times bigger than Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, and NDTV 24x7, but production values so loud that nuanced discussants feel they are better off being murdered on the Anglais channels!

The result is cacophony, sandwiched between 28 minutes of advertising in 60 minutes of primetime. It forces poor Manmohan Singh to undergo a virility test night after night. Not one sober argument on whether the anchor’s absolutely street-side fantasy of attacking Beijing or Islamabad must be entertained. Who dare ask whether we have secured our energy lanes not to mention if our men and mortar can engage the duo in the three theatres simultaneously!
Now, why is the fact that a sober discussant has no place in “Field Marshal” Goswami’s war room, or that Newshour has taken over as the cabinet committee on security, important enough?

It is because discussants are asked, beforehand, whether one would profess war!

Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t because night after night, you’re drugged by jingoism, the content regulator (a backroom babu in Tewari’s ministry) too timid to show Arnab the rule book. No one really cares that the Cable Act has specific provisions that telecasts cannot make a joke of India’s neighbourly relations.

Fed with crap, our discourse next day, on taking on Beijing has become laden with factoids. Who knows when a desperate government, pushed to the wall with repeated aspersions to the prime minister’s masculinity, might give-in.

Our current state of preparedness, our sterile growth story, and St Antony’s distaste for arms acquisition, rewind us to 1962. Who has time to ask why there isn’t a single minute being devoted on the airwaves citing the Naresh Chandra report laying bare the sorry state of our security.

So, here’s the burden of my song.

Gen Bikram Singh, air chief marshal NAK Browne and admiral  Devendra Joshi must make way. The nation’s conscience keeper, the loin…oops lion of the media, is ready to be uncaged.

Ladies and gentlemen, we finally have our new-age reincarnate of  Sam Manekshaw. He’s no general BM Kaul.

It is He who will lead us to Light!

Towards that military glory, ‘Amen’ in advance!