Gagan K.

Today morning, Mid Day in its Bangalore and Mumbai edition has published a front page sensational story carrying the headline “Krishna Leela”.

The news report says: “Maharashtra Governor and former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna had an affair with movie star B Saroja Devi, reveals new book.S M Krishna, former Karnataka chief minister and now Maharashtra governor, had a fling with celluloid beauty B Saroja Devi, reveals a book being launched today.

Written by an admiring fellow-Congressman, the book suggests the US-educated politician remembers his lovers fondly long after the ardour has dimmed.

H Vishwanath, the author, was a minister in Krishna’s cabinet. His book, Halli Hakki Haadu (Village Bird’s Song), offers an insider’s view of contemporary Karnataka politics.”

Full report here:
http://www.mid-day.com/web/guest/news/bangalore/article?_EXT_5_articleId=942221&_EXT_5_groupId=14

This news report tempted our masala-news channel TV9 to air the same report. Gourish Akki was in the newsroom saying it aloud: “krishna leele”. And there was Lakshman Hoogar standing at some place in Bangalore and repeating the same thing all over again.

TV9 repeatedly recycled and beamed S.M. Krishna’s footage at the left part of the screen and B.Saroja Devi’s old cinema videos at the right side. And the flashing text read: “krishna leele… breaking news…”.

This repeated news report on TV9 tempted the congress supporters S.M. Krishna to go the venue of the book release function and protest. The protestors set fire to the flex banner which was put in front of the venue- Bahaddur Institute of Management (Manasa Gangothri).

Now the news has come in that the book release function was cancelled. The chief guests invited for this function were- U.R. Ananta Murthy, S.G. Siddharamaih (Pustaka Praadhikaara), Vishweshwara Bhatt (Vijaya Karnataka), Former minister V. Srinivasa Prasad, A.B. Ibrahim (registrar evaluation- Mysore University) and others.

I was on the venue from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Here are some of my observations about what all went…

The police were very much elastic. They din’t really try to put out the protestors. A lathi charge was done when things went out of hand. Due to this lathi charge, most of the protestors went out. When Ananta Murthy came to the venue, they tried to greraoh him but the police were successful in taking him inside the hall.

At last, after all the circus, H. Vishwanath, Srinivasa Prasad and some others were successful in entering the hall. But other chief guests like S.G. Siddharamaih were not allowed by the police though he told them that he was one of the chief guest.

Now what I feel is that, these protestors should have protested in front of the offices of Mid Day and TV9. The reasons are:

# All the people of this country of this country have freedom of speech and expression. And the Press/Media has more protection in freedom of speech.

# The freedom of speech and expression enshrined in our constitution is not absolute. Reasonable restrictions can be laid down.

# Reasonable restrictions for example are: A person may express his views. But he shall not express his views which are factually wrong. And the views shall not defame others.

# In this case, what H. Vishwanath has written in his book is about his experiences with S.M. Krishna. If S.M. Krishna comes out and files a suit of defamation, then H. Vishwanath shall have to prove in front of the court some proof for what he has written. Otherwise, H. Vishwanath will be liable for the wrong of Defamation.

# In this case, S.M. Krishna has not filed a suit yet. Only S.M. Krishna or B.Saroja devi have the right to file a suit. But it is strange that his supporters are staging the protest.

# Actual defamation has been caused by TV9 and Mid Day which have misinterpreted the facts said in the book.

# What has been written in the book is taken out of context and has been sensationalised by using words like “krishna leela”.

# Use of morphed photograph of S.M. Krishna hugging B.Saroja Devi is highly defamatory in nature. Though, it has been mentioned below the photograph in small fonts “image used for representation only”, this surely amounts to defamation.

This TV9 is mainly responsible for causing all this havoc and confusions. TV9 people need to answer these questions first:

1. What is the source from which they got this news?
2. Did they get a copy of this book?
3. Did they go through this book?
4. What was the rationale behind sensationalising such small issue for hours together. This news could have been shown in a proper way in just about 1 minute duration. What was the need to “hoogaar” (telling/ screaming/ repeating) it again and again?

U.R. Ananta Murthy reacted by saying: “all this has happened due to the over hype of some media people”

Suchetana Swaroop, Director of Sri Siddhartha Centre for Media Studies, Tumkur who was waiting outside the venue to enter the hall told me: “Firstly I don’t know why all this fuss? They have a right to protest. Let them protest outside the venue. And allow us to release the book, read and discuss it. Have the protestors read a line from this book? On what basis are they protesting?”
(link: http://www.siddharthamedia.in/ssprofile.htm )

Now let us examine, without the book getting released, on what basis did the protestors come to protest? It was surely on the basis of the sensational, senseless, misinterpreted reporting of TV9 that the protestors came to know about the issue.

I truly feel that S.M. Krishna has been truly defamed by TV9 and Mid Day, not by H. Vishwanath. They have also misguided the people. Whole Karnataka now knows about this issue not because of Vishwanath’s book, but due to the wrong reporting of TV9. The protestors need to go in front of TV9 office and Mid and do all types of protests.

H. Vishwavanath has been a politician who has been known for his straight forward talk. A book by such a politician was awaited by many academicians and journalists. I saw many such people in the venue getting disappointed.

We are now in such a situation where we have media like TV9 who give twisted news reports, supporters who do not read a book but rely on unreliable media, Police who allow protests which obstruct book releases. I think freedom of speech exists… but not for all!