Full disclosure– I am a volunteer and supporter of Aam Aadmi Party.

“Krantikari…bahut hi krantikari ho gaya”  is a line that has caught the fancy of many Twitter users who have been contributing to the trend #AAPwedsAajtak for some days now. Supporters of AAP’s rival parties are sharing an allegedly “scandalous” video of an off-the-record conversation between Punya Prasun Bajpai and ArvindKejriwal. Mr. Kejriwal had just resigned as Delhi’s Chief Minister and Mr.Bajpai, Editor of Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak, was interviewing him at the former’s house in Delhi. The video being shared now has two bits of conversations that have been stitched together. You can watch the video here.

The clips are broadcast quality, so it seems likely that a TV Today Group insider is involved in leaking the video. The way it has been edited, taking only two tiny sections that may appear inappropriate, makes it amply clear that someone has tried to play mischief here. Unfortunately for the two gentlemen, the fact that they were speaking between two segments of an interview makes it look like they’re indulging in some kind of “fixing”. That they were both speaking in hushed voices doesn’t help either. The “scandalous” nature of the conversation, however, ends at just that – hushed voices. If we are to examine the contents of what is being said, the much publicised exposéis a lame attempt at trying to discredit Mr.Kejriwal.

To illustrate this point, let me divide the video into two parts – 0:00 to 0:43, which is between two segments of the live interview; and the rest of it, which is after the interview had ended.

The first part starts with Mr.Kejriwal saying “Wohwalathodatheoretical ho jaata…joaap pooch rahe the na corporate wala. Usmemainahigaya…Phirwoh middle class-anti ho jata…ki hum companiyonkekhilafhai, privatisation kekhilafhai. Uss debate me pad nahirahathajaanboochkar. Baakipoochhiye…” Here’s a rough translation of the same: “That would have been a bit theoretical…The question you were asking on corporates. I did not go deeper into it deliberately. It would have antagonised the middle class, as we would appear anti-business and anti-privatisation, that’s all. You may ask anything else you may want to.”

This conversation is obviously after Mr. Bajpai has asked his question and also after Mr. Kejriwal has answered it in a live interview. According to AajTak, the recording and the telecast of this interview was simultaneous. Therefore, Mr. Kejriwal could only be explaining to Mr. Bajpai why he did not perhaps answer one of his questions extensively. How can this be called “manipulation” when both know that since the interview is already on air, it cannot be altered? At worst, Mr. Kejriwal is justifying being a bad interviewee as he may not have answered a question well. At best, he is being a polite interviewee by explaining to the interviewer why he had not given straight answers to his question. Either way, he was well within his right to do so.

Mr. Bajpai then asks Mr. Kejriwal, “And what about the marginalised 80% population? After all this is what the country wants to know”. To this he replies, “Yes, I want to speak on that. It had almost skipped my mind. I don’t want to say that these private companies are doing all of this and regardless of which government is in power, the private companies bribe their way in. This would amount to outright rejection of the private sector, which is not right”. The context of this discussion is a bit unclear. However, what we do see here is this: before the next segment begins, the interviewer is simply alerting the interviewee of the subject he is going to breach in a few moments. By any stretch of imagination, how can one construe from this that Mr. Bajpai is trying to “fix” the interview? Is he feeding Mr. Kejriwal the answers? Is he telling him to consult someone about the same in order to be able to answer questions? Unfortunately for Kejriwal-baiters, Mr. Bajpai is not doing any of that.

At this point, the frame suddenly changes to a post-interview conversation. A visibly relieved and smiling Mr. Kejriwal asks, “Theektha?” or “Did it go well?”. Bajpai remarks, “Krantikari…bahut hi krantikari ho gaya” which translates to “It was revolutionary”.There is definitely warmth between the two and they might well have a rapport beyond their roles as interviewee-interviewer. That can hardly be held against them, as this engagement is off-the-record. At the end, Mr. Kejriwal lobbies for a specific part of the interview to be aired more, referring to the bit where he talks about a Bhagat Singh portrait in the background. Many news reports have misquoted this line as “Please play up that part”. There’s a major difference between playing something up and playing it more on air. In the context of the interview, the latter means exaggerating something that may not be worth much, while the former means giving more air time to a part of the interview.

Mr. Kejriwal is a politician, whose party is contesting elections. An interaction with the media is a legitimate form of campaigning for oneself. For someone who has no resources to build statues of India’s freedom movement leaders or run ad blitzkriegs about the same, an interview is probably the only way for Mr. Kejriwal to declare himself a follower of Bhagat Singh – and he did that. The question is, is it “immoral” or “unethical” for a politician, without misrepresenting, to build his image positively? The video would have been truly damaging had Mr. Kejriwal been seen asking a section to be edited out of the interview. But he has done no such thing.There is no question of Mr. Bajpai obliging Mr. Kejriwal’s request of course, as Aaj Tak has already confirmed that the interview was on air live and no repeat episode has been edited in any way.

The fact that this short video was played up by many television news channels as a grave misconduct on the part of the two people involved, is a serious indictment of the quality of our journalism. When an editor – who is being investigated for journalistic impropriety – preaches journalistic principles with reference to this leaked video for hours on end on Zee News, one can’t help but feel ashamed at the direction journalism is heading in. As a side note, let me add: the national media spent hours covering this ready made “story” on a day Maharashtra was facing one of its worst agrarian crises because of incessant hailstorms and rainfall. Somewhere, we have lost all sense of proportion and priority.