Zee drops Kashmiri Pandit part from Anupam Kher’s interview and TOI pulls off cabinet minister story

Why Zee would cut out a reference to Kashmiri Pandits on their show, and how TOI pulled off a tricky story.

WrittenBy:Mahima Singh
Date:
Article image
  • Share this article on whatsapp

Any Newslaundry reader knows that we spend a lot of time telling you about articles that have been taken down or never put up.

subscription-appeal-image

Support Independent Media

The media must be free and fair, uninfluenced by corporate or state interests. That's why you, the public, need to pay to keep news free.

Contribute

Well, it happened again. Twice.

A “certain” channel has edited out part of an interview given by “someone” about a “certain group” of people belonging to a state.

Last Sunday, October26, Zee telecast a concert  for their fund raiser campaign “Hum Hain Ummeed-e-Kashmir” to raise awareness and resources for the devastating floods in Kashmir. Sunday was also the 67thanniversary of the day the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir became part of India. So airing a concert to spread awareness about the plight of Kashmiris on that day was no coincidence.

But what really caught our eye was something that couldn’t catch our eye: because it wasn’t there. Anupam Kher’s talk on the hardships faced by people affected by floods was edited to leave out the part where he mentions Kashmiri Pandits and their suffering.

Now, a casual viewer sitting at home and watching the show on any one of the 35 Zee channels that telecast it wouldn’t even know there was a part cut out. But thanks to social media, that is no longer possible. Kher tweeted out this.

And this.

Zee tweeted:

Beautifully worded I must say. What brevity, terseness and dismissive tact!  “…only portions that were relevant were retained”- relevant to whom?

When we got in touch with Sudhir Chaudhry, editor of Zee News, he explained that the event was organised by Zee and Wizcraft. All the decisions were made in Mumbai and the Zee headquarters. In an official statement (of which Newslaundry has a copy), Zee TV’s business head, Pradeep Hejmadi said that all the comments by celebrities were edited to fit the 3 minute time slot given to each of them. Only portions of their comments that were relevant to the initiative were retained for the 4 hour telecast. So, only bits that contained information about the initiative and what people can do to help flood victims were kept.

According to Chaudhry, Kher was reading page after page of “some” book that was not relevant to the theme and hence that was edited out of the 15- 20 minute talk.

Unfortunately for us, Zee hasn’t uploaded the entire show yet, but here is the part of Kher’s speech that was edited out.

In the video Kher cites from the book Our Moon Has Blood Clots, written on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, and says: “Our sponsors Hindustan Times says ‘This book cannot be ignored’”.

It wasn’t ignored; it was cut out of the narrative completely.

In other news, The Times of India took down a report headlined “5 months in power sees increase in crorepatis in the cabinet”. It was based on an Association Of Democratic Reforms (ADR) report that claimed that the format for the declaration of assets adopted by the government doesn’t do much to truly assess the ministers’ wealth.

But once on the net, always on the net. Here is the article in The Kashmir Monitor. Take that 404.

When we tried to contact The Times of India for an explanation, we hit a dead end.

We can only speculate on the reason it was taken down. Maybe it had something to do with #BlackMoney that’s got social media up in arms right now. But since we have no official quote, this will only end in speculation.

What isn’t speculation is that both Kher’s interview and the TOI story were censored. Though the whys and wherefores have no direct answers, the dots are fairly easy to connect.

subscription-appeal-image

Power NL-TNM Election Fund

General elections are around the corner, and Newslaundry and The News Minute have ambitious plans together to focus on the issues that really matter to the voter. From political funding to battleground states, media coverage to 10 years of Modi, choose a project you would like to support and power our journalism.

Ground reportage is central to public interest journalism. Only readers like you can make it possible. Will you?

Support now

You may also like