Thanks to Barbar Indian for covering this. I mostly ignore Tehelka nowadays because it is more nuisance than is worth my attention. But the real reason is its self-advertised unscrupulousness. When this gets dangerously intolerable, my itching hands assume a mind of their own.

BV Seetaram, and his wife were travelling in Udupi district, Karnataka. Seetaram stepped out to face a posse of 25 policemen seeking to arrest him in a two-year-old defamation suit against him. It is ironic that the policemen had forgotten to bring along the arrest warrant.

Chitra Publications publishes three newspapers, including the controversial Kannada news daily, Karavali Ale. A popular read in the coastal districts of Karnataka, the newspaper claims 40,000 subscribers and over two lakh readers.

A day after his arrest, Seetaram was produced before the court of the Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Udupi — handcuffed to an iron chain and escorted by several policemen wielding automatic rifles. Citing a serious threat to his life from the police and the state government, he refused to apply for bail but changed his mind after being moved to Mysore.

There you have a typical Tehelkaism. An exaggerated report replete with half-truths conflated with liberal doses of hyperbolic insinuations. A Tehelkaism tries to get away with such largesse with the truth because it relies on the reader’s presumed ignorance of facts. Karavali Ale was a popular tabloid. Local Kannada newspapers/tabloids report that it is currently facing a severe cash crunch and a high rate of employee attrition. Two, the same sources also report that B.V. Seetaram–whatever his journalistic credentials–is far more trouble than is worth. Three, they further report that he has a penchant for inviting trouble. Four, they yet report that he has managed to antagonize almost the entire local journalistic fraternity by wantonly throwing dung at them. Five, they again report that his idea of opposing injustice equals blackmail.

These are the olympian laurels of the man–from my very limited research–whom Tehelka seems to have vowed to protect. However, that is not all. The Fearless Paper’s taunt about the lack of an arrest warrant smacks again of half-truth. Seetaram has haughtily shown his middle finger to the court for about two years by failing to honour its summons for his appearance. It is the same two-year-old defamation suit that Tehelka speaks about. I suppose he expected the court to lay a red carpet all the way to welcome His Honour’s grand entrance in the court.

I quoth Tehelka:

Questions about Seetaram’s brand of journalism notwithstanding, the sequence of events and his handcuffing have sparked outrage amongst journalists and editors across Karnataka and elsewhere. Protests and statements of condemnation against the highhandedness of the police, the political manoeuvring behind the timing of the arrest and the attacks against Karavali Ale continue to pour in.

Interesting how the Fearless and Free paper dismisses the “questions about Seetaram’s brand of journalism.” In a word it is: bullshit. I’ll lay it straight: you piss off people far too often with no provocation, you blackmail them riding on the strength of your stinking pen, this is what happens. Somebody will piss back. Did somebody say “outrage?” The only outrage was against Seetaram’s brand of journalism not against his arrest. Apart from a few dutiful reports in a corner on page 6 or 7 in Kannada papers here, nobody has really given a damn to this non-incident. But Tehelka being Tehelka, it is obliged to spin uncontrollably. As Barbar Indian uncovers, the real reason this non-incident made it to Tehelka lies here:

The Editors Guild of India today expressed shock at the action of the police in Udupi in handcuffing and parading B V Seetaram, the Editor in Chief of the Karavali Ale group, when he was produced before a court in connection with a defamation case. The president of the guild Rajdeep Sardesai and General Secretary K S Sachidananda Murthy in a statement have said that ”the Guild is surprised at the way the police chased Seetaram’s car in Karkala at night in several vehicles and surrounded him, especially when Seetaram had been available in Mangalore in his office.” (Ed: Highlighting, mine)

Another instance of how the secular media is essentially incestuous. Barbar Indian weighs in with the rest of the commentary in his inimitable style.

As you can see, this is really straight out of a Sundance festival low budget pretentious indie film. From start to finish, notice the presence of a large contingent of media. The arrest on 5th January seemed nothing like the terrible action described in the Tehelka report. The dude was all smiles, posed for various photo-ops etc., even gave an interview while the police patiently waited.

The incident brought so much pressure on the administration that the two constables who arrested him originally (A) were suspended. The editors guild is demanding to know why should a journalist be arrested like a common criminal. They are really special, as you know. The connection of Sri Rajdeep Sardesai goes deeper than his being the president of the guild. His trusted leutenant wrote a blogpost about the incident.

But Tehelka gives away more than it should. The fearless report is but a thin veneer that almost wholly reveals Tehelka’s eternal BJP-hatred. Guess who rules Karnataka? Guess where the Church attacks happened? So you have a generous sprinkling of words like fascist, Hindutva, and communal used with mindless abandon. But here’s the decisive giveaway:

No action has been taken in two separate complaints lodged in Mangalore against a Kannada daily, Vijaya Karnataka. The complaints were filed by PB D’Sa, president of the Dakshina Kannada Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties and James Louis of the Bharathiya Crista Seva Sanghatane against a rightwing Kannada author, SL Byrappa, Vijaya Karnataka columnist Pratap Simha, and the editors and publishers of Vijaya Karnataka. Both D’Sa and Louis alleged that the articles were highly provocative and defended the attacks on the Christian community.

Note that the complainants are entirely Christian organizations. I had written earlier about what provoked the Church attacks so it’s superfluous to repeat it here. I wish Tehelka shouldn’t have made it this easy for me to rip their tripe. Calling SL Bhyrappa (at the least, get the spelling right) a right-wing author is beyond preposterous. Here’s my open challenge to Tehelka: give me exactly one evidence to prove that SL Bhyrappa is a right wing author. Two, my translation of SL Bhyrappa’s article is available on this blog: the onus lies on Tehelka to tell the world the basis on which it characterizes the article as “provocative.” It isn’t good journalistic ethics to present just the cases of D’Sa and Louis at the exclusion of opposing viewpoints. And Pratap Simha. Obviously. He’s a thorn in every true-blooded secularist in Karnataka. He writes it like it is. Worse, he champions Hindu causes. As for Vijaya Karnataka, Tehelka needs to tread with caution: it is now owned by the arch-secular Times’ group, which is big enough to gobble up a million Tehelkas.

The headline of this tripe reads Messenger Shot, Bajrang Style. Let’s apply that to Tehelka‘s report: Hit Job, Tehelka Style.

Tags: Commentary, Indian Media, Karavali Ale, Media has no Scruples, Media Watch, Pseudosecularism, Pseudosecularism Hall of Shame, Rajdeep Sardesai, Secular Media, Seetaram Arrested, Seetaram’s Tabloid, Society & Culture, Tehelka’s Hit Job, Vijaya Karnataka