(Last weekend, as Republic TV’s social media accounts published a video from Arnab Goswami, it broke the internet! Literally hundreds of people saw those videos and set a new world record! What many people don’t know is that Arnab actually recorded a longer video as he had many more things to say. In fact, the video was shortened to make it seem more snappy and palatable. So, in the interest of fairness, we bring you the transcript of the entire video.)

Dear Viewers,

It’s so good to speak to you again. I have really missed yelling my opinions directly at you. In fact, over the past four months, I’ve been randomly showing up at some lucky viewers’ house to sit next to their teevee and loudly shout my thoughts at them.

However, I’m not here to talk about myself. I’m here to pretend to care about you. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to tell you that you’ve reached the end of the tunnel and you’re about to be on the receiving end of a whole lotta sunshine. That’s right, my friends. I’m coming back!

I know how hard the last four months have been for you. Going from channel to channel, trying to find someone from among the busybodies, charlatans, poseurs and amateurs that dot the landscape of news television to satiate your Arnab fix. Feeling alone and abandoned by someone you had put on pedestal. Wondering whether your life even has any meaning without your favourite news anchor.

So please accept my apologies. When I resigned from my previous channel, I was going to ease you into temporarily saying goodbye. But I was unceremoniously relieved of my duties to the nation. One day I was the face that ran the place. By the next day everything had been changed to seem like I had never even worked there.

This is why, ladies and gentlemen, this time I’m coming back with my own channel. Never again will someone be able to separate us! From now on, you can see me any time you want to. My new channel is going to be broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s going to be All Arnab, all the time. I’m now available on every screen throughout the world. Hell, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, my handsome mug has even reached the rarefied confines of the International Space Station.

So remember, whenever you feel alone, whenever you feel like making nuanced arguments about a subject, whenever you think you should see both sides of the coin, whenever you think that total nuclear annihilation of billions of people doesn’t sound like the best way to resolve our various disputes with Pakistan, just turn on my new channel and ten minutes later you’ll be cured of all these evil thoughts.

I see that in my absence the liberals have gone amuck. Not only did they force people to kill themselves so that they could exaggerate the so-called negatives of demonetisation, they’ve also encouraged the unrest in Kashmir and directly caused the multiple Naxal attacks in Sukma because of their fixation with human rights. They’re even acting like the government making the Aadhar card compulsory for everyone in violation of a Supreme Court order is some sort of big deal.

These liberals think they’re so smart! But I’ve managed to singlehandedly sideline them in our national discourse. They make it so easy! For example, while liberals talk about how democracy gives its citizens the right to question everything, including sacred symbols of the nation, all I have to do is accuse them of using free speech as an excuse to aid our enemies and voila, they’re done for.

What these liberals don’t get is that the time when people wanted their news delivered to them by a polite man in a soft but firm baritone has gone. Nowadays, people don’t want to learn about the events happening around the world, they want to know who they need to punch in the face.

I take our secret pact quite seriously, dear viewer. I know that you don’t want the news. You want a performance. You want a show. You want an assembly line of enemies that you can understand. A parade of people to yell at. A circus where the same acts are performed in the same order everyday. This helps you keep up the delusion that your life hasn’t changed at all. And I give that to you, day in and day out.

This is why I would never talk about the legislative coup that took place in the passing of the finance Bill. You don’t need to know that one of the laws amended by the Bill allowed any tax official to walk into your house based on their whims and fancies. Why overload your senses by having you worry about how such a provision makes you vulnerable to the diktats of corrupt bureaucrats? That would disturb your peaceful state of existence and I don’t want that.

I know, dear viewer, that you don’t want to know anything about those who pretend to be your friend and use your trust to benefit themselves. You don’t want your shaky worldview to be challenged and I do my darndest to make sure it isn’t. I understand you better than anyone else.

That is the reason you turn to me during and after every national tragedy because I know exactly where the blame lies. Some people say that I turn crises into farce, but what they don’t get is that in times of distress, you don’t want to question those you have put in-charge of protecting you. You want to question all those who question them!

Take the aftermath of the horrific Naxal attack earlier this week, I did not question the intelligence failures or ask about the tactical mistakes that were made. I did not ask why even though the CRPF is dealing with such a deadly enemy, they didn’t have a leader for more than two months because members of our government were busy fighting silly turf battles. I definitely would never wonder out loud why we have to pay for our government’s apathy with lives of our brave soldiers.

Instead, when the events took place, I knew exactly at whom to point and yell at. A group of people spread out over a large area where supposedly, the writ of the state doesn’t apply. Not only does this group of people have no respect for our flag and our Constitution, their mere existence is a repudiation of basic decency. This group of people has no respect for any of our national symbols. In fact, disobedience against the Indian state is a badge of honour for them. I’m referring to the Lutyens cocktail circuit, of course.

For far too long, these five-star activists have empowered people like those freeloading, ungrateful and churlish scholarship students in JNU. It’s time to take our country back! It’s time for this pinko commie left-wing hegemony to come to an end.

And that’s why I’m coming back, my dear viewers. I’m here to save you from the tyranny of the oppressed! I’m here to take power away from the powerless! I’m here to silence the voiceless! I’m coming back to do some victim blaming and chew gum.

And ladies and gentlemen, I’m all out of gum.

See you soon,

Arnab Goswami

The author can be contacted on Twitter @over_rated