Srinivasan Kalyanaraman
1 second ago - Shared publiclySATURDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2014
Swamy or Goswami
- Bhanu Pratap
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Over the past few days, there has been a lot of discussion regarding a Newshour debate "Is Swamy Right" aired on 4th of November in Timesnow. I am leaving a link to the debate below so that those who did not watch it may do it now.
Part 1
Part 2
This debate is special in so many ways because it made people to take sides and defend their viewpoints with a lot of rigour. This is one such rare Newshour debates where you can hear a voice that is not Arnab Goswami's. It made the photo and video sharing Facebook crowd to experience what the more serious Twitter users normally do. It also made the people who hardly care about politics to pitch in their arguments without actually knowing the details of the topic at hand.
The issue here is that a Sri Lankan court has awarded death penalty on October 30th to five fishermen from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu along with three Sri Lankans, allegedly for heroin trafficking in their country in the year 2011 and gave 14 days of time to them to appeal to a higher court. Reacting to this, the Indian External affairs spokesperson has said that Indian High Commission in Colombo will go to higher court for an appeal. No one knows about the bilateral treaty 'Treaty on transfer of Sentenced prisoners" that exists between the two countries until Dr. Subramanian Swamy brings it up.
Here comes Arnab Goswami who conducts a debate on this issue on November 4th and picks up a fight with Dr. Subramanian Swamy saying "Why do you choose to be against the views of the majority of Tamilians here". This was in response to Dr. Swamy's view to expunge Vaiko's MDMK from NDA because he was protesting the death penalty of the 5 fishermen by using the photographs of LTTE Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran was a hard core terrorist who not only killed many Sinhalese people and leaders, but also many Sri Lankan Tamil leaders and people ruthlessly and also eliminated our ex prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
I want to make a point clear that India cannot have different stands with respect to Sri Lanka and Kashmir. If you want Kashmir you have to support Sri Lanka's cause. If you support LTTE, then you got to support numerous militant organisations in Kashmir. Otherwise, its not rational.
Subramanian Swamy responds that Vaiko's party contested 8 seats in the recent elections and they lost all 8, lost deposits in 7 seats and vast majority of Tamil people want law and order, peace and are fed up with the Sri Lankan problem. For this, no one in the right frame of mind would draw a conclusion - "Are you saying the vast majority of Tamil people want the fishermen to be hanged" - except the self proclaimed Logician Arnab Goswami.
Arnab Goswami, the journalist who claims that he has all the facts at his disposal does not even know the fact that Subramanian Swamy has indeed written a letter to Rajapaksa on October 31st itself. He in fact questions Swamy on why he did not write a letter to Rajapaksa.
Letter that Dr. Swamy has written to Rajapaksa on 31st October.
He also inquires why Swamy does not use his good office to bring the five fishermen back for which Dr. Swamy responds that he has to first prepare the ground for that and that he has to talk to the Government.
Arnab shows his arrogance yet again by reacting like "Ahhh, now you have to talk to the Government. When you can meet the Sri Lanka president last time for release of fishermen when they were caught fishing in Sri Lankan waters, why don't you do it now"?
Mentally demented fellows won't understand that in the first case there was no court judgement and hence the government released them without going to the court. Now there is a court judgement which awarded death penalty. How can the Government release them when there is a court judgement all of a sudden just because Arnab wants it. Due process has to be followed in democracy and nuts like Arnab won't understand it.
Another blinder from Arnab is "Does Swamy have the guts to say that Sri Lankan Government is saying lies. Why doesn't Swamy write a letter to Rajapaksa saying that he is a liar. Are u scared that your relationship with Rajapaksa will be strained. Is your relation more important than the lives of 5 fishermen"?
This seriously can make one of the best cinematic dialogues ever. Is it the way to talk to a foreign dignitary and then again ask him for a favour? Only morons will think this way.
Arnab again brings out a fact that only he thinks is a fact saying "In Sri Lanka, people who support terrorism are pardoned. Drug trafficking does not result in death. It is only in this case, that also on the basis of flimsy unsubstantiated evidence and absolute fiction that the Sri Lankans are accusing 5 fishermen of drug trafficking".
If he doesn't follow his own newspaper's articles, then who will follow? Three other Sri Lankans were also awarded death penalty in this same case.
Dr. Swamy responds that "The judgment was given by a Court of law and it might have made a mistake which we will come to know after the appeal. But first we have to bring them back and the appeal should be in our Supreme Court". This is a fair argument and actually eliminates any prejudice by the Sri Lankan Authorities against the fishermen. Arnab Goswami, the man with little knowledge about law on the lines of Rahul Gandhi, dared Dr. Swamy, a legal luminary on many issues like Justice Ganguly's case and ultimately had to bite the dust.
Arnab presents some facts (according to him), that GPS data between Sri Lankan boat and the fishermen's boat are available, and they show that these Indian fishermen are no way close to the place where drug trafficking took place.
Government will submit all these documentation to the Supreme Court and ultimately Courts are the ones who are equipped to judge whether the fishermen are guilty or not, and is not Arnab Goswami who shoots his mouth off with half baked knowledge.
Arnab, in the climax, from nowhere brings the Italian soldiers issue into this and says "Italy and India also signed agreement for transfer of convicted prisoners. So, should the Italian marines be sent back to Italy after they are convicted in India or the rules different for different countries".
I do not know whether similar treaty exists between India and Italy and whether both cases are same, but if both are indeed true, then we have to respect the treaty.
And to those who are criticizing Dr. Swamy for being aggressive, Arnab tried to damage Dr. Swamy's reputation by distorting the facts to his whims and fancies. If Dr. Swamy sat idle, people would have thought he had no answers. Its the question of his character and self respect. And Swamy has risen to the occasion, exposed Arnab and showed that moron his true place.
Arnab Goswami has been exhibiting same characteristics of Arvind Kejriwal and it is time he changes himself. Otherwise, he may soon follow the steps of Arvind Kejriwal into oblivion.