A confused video title on YouTube, relying on a rhetorical source for news, and venting frustrations in the name of commentary, Ravish Kumar’s sense of journalism itself has taken a big hit more than his career after leaving NDTV.
Ravish Kumar is amongst the most hurted individuals from the the anti-Hindu and anti-national ecosystem. The former NDTV anchor has published a video on his YouTube channel titled ‘iPhone, Adani aur Ayodhya. Kya hai aapas mein connection? (iPhone, Adani aur Ayodhya. What is their connection?)’
In the video, Ravish is whining and ranting against the Ram Mandir and the coverage given to it by the Indian, mostly Hindi, media. He tried to create a news angle based on a report published by the Washington Post which accused the Indian government of targeting Apple for the security alerts it issued to some individuals including Opposition leaders.
Ravish said that Indian newspapers assume silence whenever Adani’s name arises and that as soon as Ayodhya is mentioned, they start chanting Ram Ram. He then says that the report in Washington Post shows that not everything is alright in Ram’s country (India).
Ravish implies that by not heeding to a foreign media’s motivated and manipulated news against the Modi government, Indian news media is breathing its last breaths of freedom to speak. Ravish and his ilk have often followed this process themselves.
That is the process of relying on leftist global media, Chinese media and Islamist media for news to manipulate Indians against India. Given just how hurt Ravish Kumar appears that the Indian media has not picked up on WaPo’s allegations against the Indian government, it becomes clearer why Ravish and the section of journalists he represents have been called Indian agents of anti-India and anti-Hindu foreign enterprises.
He then highlights the feature image of WaPo’s report which shows a cut out of PM Modi giving a thumbs up and the thumb has been placed on an image of iPhone coloured in saffron. The caption below the iPhone reads, “Alert! State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone.”
The image basically implies that the iPhone has been hacked by the Modi government, with the saffron representing his party, the BJP. From the looks of it, to Ravish, this image probably seems like the epitome of ideal journalism. But, it is really just a well-edited image to form a narrative using optics.
It is surprising how Ravish’s journalism relies to a large extent on what the foreign media reports. His 21 minute 39 second long rant has taken WaPo’s word as gospel. On what grounds? No one knows.
Then again, Ravish Kumar has never required grounds or basis to weave his narratives. As long as the information is against PM Modi, BJP and Hindus at large, that does it for him.
But what has pinched Ravish Kumar this time more than others is that Ram Mandir has been getting significant coverage, something that he does not approve of as against coverage to foreign media’s allegations against India, something that he does approve of.
Ravish’s unapologetic allegiance to foreign media runs so deep that he has ended up disapproving of the attention that Ram Mandir is being given. In his video, he then shows cutouts of various Hindi newspapers with headlines on Ram Mandir.
He goes on to dissect the news about the consecration on 22nd January 2024 and points out in a sour tone how the event is to be organised. Ravish admits in clear terms his objection to PM Modi’s presence at the upcoming event. He does not shy away from expressing his apparent frustration that the Prime Minister is likely to receive more media coverage than WaPo’s targeting of the Indian government.
Ravish admittedly has a problem with the fact that Prime Minister Modi will be in the sanctum sanctorum at the backside to the left when Ram ji’s eyes will be uncovered. He spends over a minute to narrate how problematic the specifications of PM’s position in the Ram Mandir is during the event.
For someone who has criticised Hindus, Hinduism, Hindu symbols, Ravish Kumar might seem like he is concerned about the Ram Mandir so much that he ends up criticising the temple itself. But further into the video one realises that it is actually the coverage that PM Modi is garnering that is bothering Ravish Kumar.
Ravish moves on to another report which credits RSS in the headline on Pran Pratishtha. He calls it politicisation. RSS is a Hindu organisation albeit not actively a political entity.
There comes a point in the video, at exactly 10 minute, when Ravish objects to the use of the word ‘sambodhan’ (address) in a headline of a Hindi newspaper. He finds it objectionable that the word ‘sambodhan’ has been used instead of ‘bhaashan’ (lecture). At this point, Ravish is not even subtle in his criticism.
His use of the word ‘bhaashan’ when the headline says ‘sambodhan’ is actually a taunt at PM Modi’s speech. Hiding under this taunt is the want to silence Modi because to the ecosystem, every word Modi speaks is ‘bhaashan’.
Ravish moves on to full-flegedly criticise Hindi news media. He points out how, as per him, urdu words have been replaced with Hindi words after 2014. He says that this change has come about not with the people’s recommendations but has rather been imposed by the newspapers on the people.
It must be admitted that it is not easy to put up with the entire video published by the former NDTV anchor, or the former journalist so to speak. As he gets closer to driving his point home, Ravish suggests that the various programmes and campaigns being organised across the country for Ram Mandir are being used to inject a political agenda into Indian villages.
The video then talks about Rahul Gandhi. The abrupt cut from Modi and Ram Mandir bashing to Gandhi-Congress scion makes it seem that Ravish himself has never done any production work while being in TV news. He is not fooling anyone but pre-existing haters.
Ravish implies in the video that the Bharat Nyay Yatra is being organised because Rahul Gandhi has understood that the Ram Mandir coverage will take away all attention from him and hence he will have to reach out to the people by traveling, in buses, for 2 months, across 14 states and 85 districts. Makes sense.
For all we know, Ravish Kumar is giving Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Nyay Yatra the media coverage which it did not receive as expected. Painting a larger-than-life picture, Ravish says that on one hand, the people will be taken to Ayodhya in thousands of trains (mocking the 1000 trains organised for devotees to travel to Ayodhya for inauguration) while Rahul Gandhi will be marching alone amongst the people.
Ravish thinks this is representative of the fragmentation of Indian politics and will go down in history. Ravish vents out saying that the ‘result’ and ‘impact’ of Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Nyay Yatra have no place for discussion in the media because those places “will be filled with Ram naam”.
Ravish uses defaming terms like “rajniti ki Ayodhya” (the Ayodhya of politics). He rants about how the upcoming 2024 elections will be easiest for Modi to win because, he thinks, they are not being fought on key issues.
Surprising attempt at insulting Ayodhya city by a former senior anchor who five years ago was criticising PM Modi in his primetime debate for not tweeting about the Yogi government’s decision to rename Faizabad to Ayodhya.
Like a morose Congress, Ravish too is crying foul over Ram Mandir celebrations. He specifically named Dainik Jagran, Bhaskar, Hindustan and Amar Ujala, for their coverage of Ram Mandir.
His resentment knew no bounds. He says that while Jagran and Ujala can be read for news about Ayodhya but one will have to read WaPo for news on Adani. “Ho sakta ki hai ki ab jahaaz pakadkar Amrica hi jana pad jaaye (It could be that one would have to go to America itself),” he says.
It is appalling how Ravish, who has anchored primetime debates on NDTV in Hindi, has openly attacked Hindi newspapers and holds WaPo as the yardstrick by which true journalism must be measured. Who would have thought that Ravish Kumar, who has projected himself as a self-made man from Bihar with a poor background, would have hints of elitism in him.
Ravish Kumar creates suspicion that the Modi government is trying to drive out Apple from the Indian market. He then casts aspersion that Apple might also be made to settle with the government. This is to suggest that if the matter does get resolved amicably then the only reason for it would be that the government made Apple to collude with it.
After this point, Ravish furthers his imaginery journalistic interrogation saying that if Apple does reach a settlement with the government to resolve the issue then what will it do about its promise to its consumers that its iPhone is the most secure.
Ravish Kumar’s hatred towards Ram Mandir goes back years. A cursory search will show you old videos of him from his NDTV days wherein he describes Ram as imaginary and separate from the truth.
In October, Ravish blamed the Modi government for the war in Gaza saying that India is not attempting to bring peace in the region. It is to the effect of all the above points that netizens identify the former NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar as a ‘YouTuber’ who at a loss for news and is limited to outraging.