Political Diversion Tactics ft. Aryan Khan
- Writers Guild
- Oct 15, 2021
- 5 min read
Acting on a tip-off, the Narcotics Control Bureau conducted a raid on a cruise ship that conducted a rave party on October 2nd, to which many high-profile people were invited and were attending. Bollywood’s sensational actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, age 23 was amongst the 20 people that were arrested, following the incident. They were charged with various provisions under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) dealing with the sale and possession of illegal drugs. Arbaaz Merchant, the only person Aryan Khan claims to have known in this party, had 5 grams of hashish on him.
Despite finding no actual drugs on him, Aryan Khan has been placed in judicial custody for 14 days and his bail pleas have been rejected by the NCB stating WhatsApp chats as proof while the accused’s lawyer argues that those chats referred to “bulk quantities” of football and not drugs. The NCB also argued that Aryan Khan should not be given any special treatment on account of his father’s celebrity status. News channels are flooded with this issue and seem to be covering every little detail surrounding the people involved, even the list of guests coming to SRK’s house in his time of difficulty.
If you’ve been watching only Indian news channels lately you wouldn’t be the only person wondering if the biggest threat to Indian society is drug use among celebrity kids. In just the past few weeks, 4 farmers were allegedly killed by the son of the Union Minister, 3000 kilograms of heroin was seized at the Adani port and the Pandora papers exposed multiple Indian billionaires dodging taxes, but the most important issue for mainstream Indian media is drug use among celebrities.
So in case you got lost in these diversions, here’s a little recap of events.
On October 3rd, a convoy of cars rammed over a group of protesting farmers, killing 4 of them on spot in Lakhimpur Kheri, UP. Two of these cars belonged to a Union Minister. Eyewitnesses have placed his son, Ashish Mishra in one of the cars. Witnesses also say that farmers were fired at. The violence that followed killed 2 people and a journalist as well.
Ashish Mishra, along with 15-20 others, faces charges related to murder, criminal conspiracy and rioting. These charges normally warrant immediate arrest. However, Ashish Mishra was brought in only after two failed attempts of summoning him as a witness and subsequent criticism from the Supreme Court.
He was brought into questioning five days after the incident, by a special investigation team under UP’s Crime Branch. Mishra claimed that although the car belonged to him, he was not in it. But according to sources from the UP police, Mishra did not have proper answers or a believable alibi during his 11-hour questioning. Witnesses claim that Mishra was missing from the event he claimed to be attending at the time of the incident, and his phone location places him near the crime scene. His men claimed that no firing took place but Mishra had no answer for the empty cartridges found in the crime scene either. Additionally, The description of the driver that Ashish Mishra gave did not match the CCTV footage. Seeing how Mishra remained evasive, he was finally arrested.
Against the backdrop of these events, before the arrests, opposition leaders were not allowed to visit the site, or meet the victim’s families and were in fact detained and arrested under Section 151- that they may commit a crime in the future. The Minister and his son gained support from their party workers. A Congress-led delegation reached the President’s office to demand an independent inquiry for the matter with two sitting SC judges.
2. On 15th September, nearly 3000kg of Heroin was seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) from two containers in the Mundra Port, Gujarat. This consignment from Afghanistan had an estimated value of 15,000-20,000 Crore Rupees. The consignment was linked back to a firm called Aashi Trading Company whose owners M. Sudhakar and his wife Durga Vaishali, were arrested and brought to Kutch from Chennai. The Court gave the DRI 10 days of custody of the couple.
The owner of the Mundra Port, Adani Group gave out the following statement in defence:
“The law empowers the Government of India's competent authorities such as the Customs and the DRI to open, examine and seize the unlawful cargo. No port operator across the country can examine a container. Their role is limited to running the port."
3. On 3rd October, the Pandora Papers were leaked. The global investigation conducted by over 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries disclosed how hundreds of politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have used shell companies, offshore accounts or other tactics to hide their wealth & investments and evade taxes, around the world.
Around 300 Indians were named, out of which 60 were very prominent figures. The paper is yet to be completely corroborated and revealed but some high-profile names have already come forward- Anil Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, Nirav Modi, Nira Radia, Jackie Shroff and Satish Sharma are some of them.
The papers further highlight the massive inequality in the distribution of wealth in India, where the country’s richest 1% hold 51% of the country’s total wealth.
But how much of this have we heard on the news when compared to Aryan Khan’s arrest?
This isn’t the first time the media has conveniently distracted the average viewer from pressing issues. It happened in September 2020, when India had almost the largest number of COVID cases, the farm bills were being passed without deliberation in the Rajya Sabha and the Hathras rape case took place. Meanwhile, the news channels could only talk about Rhea Chakraborthy and her involvement in Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide. On the exact day that the Pegasus Leak took place - 19th July 2021, Raj Kundra was arrested for making and publishing pornographic films, and incidentally, news channels were flooded with the latter for days.
In some cases, it is also an issue of fake news or more accurately- misinformation. There are so many channels competing for the attention of a handful of viewers, they end up airing any kind of news they receive without any fact-checking or evidence. For example, Rhea Chakraborthy was given a media trial even before a proper investigation took place, accusing her of murder. She was eventually proven innocent but social media and news channels were filled with such accusations for quite a while. This is a well-documented method used by the ex-US president Donald Trump’s chief strategist dubbed “zone flooding” - a method effective enough to distract viewers from the events that matter.
This article's primary concern is not whether Aryan Khan or any other celebrity mentioned is actually guilty or not, but to highlight the disproportionate coverage of news with the magnanimity of matters. These diversion tactics have been used time and again and most likely will be used in the future too. One must be aware of what’s really going on in the background of the obvious drama.
For some reason, Indian news channels don’t appear keen to address serious issues affecting the daily lives of their viewers. This is partly due to pressure from the government or other political parties which play an important role in deciding which stories are covered. When faced with negative coverage the government may force publishers to drop the issue or face bogus charges. Journalists and activists that do not conform face intimidation of different sorts. To avoid such intimidation, it becomes increasingly obvious when news channels become pro-governmental and sell content according to the government’s propaganda.
These days, news channels can be distinctively right-wing, left-wing and rarely neutral. Their content also can be very easily distinguished. We are not here to take sides, so compare the news that you come across in all three types and see for yourself,
Who’s showing what and why?
Credits:
Written by Saniya and Shoukath
References:
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