Hi NL Team,

Shrey here, I have recently subscribed to Newslaundry only because of the Paywall and the recent EXCLUSIVE news broken by one of the Anands on the Gujarat Election Results discussion where he talks about Amit Shah and traders’ secret meeting. My family business is the same, i.e. wholesaler for ladies’ clothes. I really like Anand V for his views contrary to other members’ in the panel most of the time. Thanks for the offer of 25 per cent off on subscription and I hope that you soon bring out the second season of Consti-tuition. Please send my TOTE Bag fastly.

Hi NL Team,

I am a subscriber for three years now, love your work.

In Hafta 153, Abhinandan asked the panel pointedly about their caste. Very impressive; usually discussions about caste are always about entities “outside”, and even when they are pointed inwards, it’s the half-apologetic nod at best. I would like that to be taken a step further. Both Abhinandan and Madhu have significant experience in the media. There must have been interviews or interactions with journalists who were interviewers. Have they seen any instances of bias against candidates based on caste or has any interviewer mentioned the caste of candidates?

I am asking because this is something I wonder about in my own line of work – software development. There is reservation in universities, and still, during the time I worked in India, and now for almost a decade in the US, I don’t come across enough last names which are not clear indicators of upper caste. The NL panel too must have had batchmates in college who were from the lower caste/reserved quota. How are they faring in their career in journalism?

In my case, when I studied for a Master’s degree in computer applications at Indraprastha University in Delhi, I came to know who all were SC/STs but never knew who were OBCs. Except for one, all SC/ST batchmates struggled to complete their credits within the time (three years) or failed the course, and that one exception went on to work at Microsoft.

I have interviewed in the companies I worked for, and never heard even one person mention the caste of any candidate. At most, what would happen if an uncommon last name was on the resume – say Neeraj Ghaywan (Masaan director) – was that one of the interviewers might ask “ye Ghaywan kahan ke hote hain? UP? Rajasthan?” But never about caste.

Are we correlating lack of representation with casteism too easily? Is the root cause something else, along with casteism?

Regards,

Prakash Iyer

Hi guys,

I loved your 150th episode, I liked it even more because it had a video. I would love if you guys switch to video podcast rather than audio, but anyway it’s a great podcast. Really love listening to Abhinandan, Manisha and Ranga uncle. I love all the jokes, banter and profanities you guys hurl around, please continue to be this way, no need for self-censorship, this quality is what makes your podcast special. I recently subscribed to Newslaundry and I am happy that I did.

Regards,

Sheshnath

Some pointers on Hafta 151 and what I feel is changing on Hafta, for good or bad.

a) Hafta used to be my news source, and the views expressed were sombre in these days of negative news. But the Hafta seems to be going that way, one thing I’d like to point out is the constant bickering about other channels/reporters. It might sound okay once in a while but in each of your episodes you are like Arnab is bad, Republic TV is bad, especially saying this in the context of NDTV job losses. Arnab is taking lots of limelight in your discussion, and maybe that needs to reduce. Just FYI, for TV news I am dependent on NDTV and others are available but there is no one left in TV news where there are no shouting matches.

b) On the point when Nikku said he would rather report to Pranoy than Sudhir, who apparently would do low-level journalism, I would say it’s like saying I would rather worry about if I have to pay money to get my driving licence and not worry about 2G corruption, as it doesn’t bother me.

c) Also, one thing I find missing from all channels, including yours, is that no one does a fact-finding numbers sort of thing, which gives us an idea on say, what the current government says and what they have accomplished till now. Example, in the IT world we always take a baseline and say that with time this has improved when we took over. So can this be a yearly thing, may be of six months, publish some figures and government claims, (whether) they have fulfilled them, examples could be the jobs provided, loans provided, insurance for farmers, loan waiver for farmers. Probably, the pros and cons of the current government. Maybe highlight what AK is doing good for Delhi, schools and healthcare, etc. I know can’t fit in Hafta but a special series like Consti-tuition?

Before I end, you guys are doing some awesome work which makes you stand out. Anand’s facts are always appreciated, though we haven’t heard the Other Anand (Anand Vardhan) for long. His views are strong with good justification, I miss his insights a lot. A special shout out to my pahadi sister, she is holding the flag high.

Abhinav Bisht

Hi NL Team,

I would like to congratulate you all on NL Charcha. It is an absolute delight to listen to, more so because of Mr Vardhan. Keep up the good work!

This email is with regards to recent events involving caste clashes in Maharashtra and specifically Mumbai.

I’ll preface what I’m about to say by saying that I understand the issue is not as binary as mainstream broadcast media makes it out to be. There are a lot of stakeholders involved and pinning blame on one group helps no cause. So here are a few points I wish can be discussed by the panel in the next episode if time permits:

1) From a historiographical perspective, can an alternate narrative not exist where the Muslims, Jews, Rajputs, Mahars and even Marathas can be seen as traitorous? As a follow-up to this, did the socio-economic standing of Mahars improve under the British as compared to the Peshwas?

2) Mr Sekhri talked about the extremely polarising discourse on this issue yet I feel there is still place for people like me who sympathise with the oppressed but condemn the fiasco that emerged out of alleged social media caste-baiting. This reflects how fragmented and frail our polity really is. Not helping the cause is a rising class of comedians in our country who suddenly think they are the fourth estate and are preaching sermons about oppression on Twitter. I think they would do better by going back to their comedy clubs and propagating their IQ-destroying, reductionist brand of political satire.

3) I am a resident of Chembur and in so being, fairly close to ground zero as there is a lot of RPI as well SS presence in and around where I live. I heard a lot of people making blanket statements about living a life of cocooned privilege because of a “small traffic snarl” and someone from the panel also seemed to agree with this statement. Let me set this straight:

When a mob swarms the street, it is not just traffic that is affected. Any and all order of business is upset. I was personally affected because there was no public transport for me to use to attend my UPSC class in Dadar. I cannot have my usual chai and smoke because no one wants to open shop. Do your hearts not go out to all those tapris, kiranas and thelas who have to forgo a day or two or three of income? They literally live on daily collections.

It is NOT privilege to expect these things to function smoothly. It’s what we call a civilised society.

4) From what I read in the papers, the motive behind these protests was to demand more equality and reservations. What does it say about a class of people and the rule of administration in the country (more than 85 per cent of which has been dominated by the Congress) that even 70 years after independence, our demands remain the same? When Dr Ambedkar reluctantly made provisions for the same in the Constitution, he would never in his wildest dreams have imagined us to be tooting the same trumpet even today. What is also quite ironic to me is that the same Congress today supports the Mevanis of the world without a care about their past that has impeded and obfuscated these movements.

5) Finally, I saw Prakash Ambedkar’s chest-thumping, self-aggrandising countenance on Times Now and couldn’t help but be amused about the kind of things he was saying on air. He proclaimed that by dint of being “the grandson”, he had inherited a 16 per cent votebank and that everyone loved him dearly. Dr Ambedkar would be turning in his metaphorical grave. When asked if he had a political agenda, he said he didn’t. Quite frankly, he should’ve admitted to it, because I feel the only way to empower any section of society is through political representation, but I digress.

The larger point here is that any policy of redress for an oppressed section of society has to be strictly time-bound. This is because generations evolve socio-economically. It is analogous to our troubles with the ration card and the monumental failure that is the PDS or with India’s struggles with respect to farmer subsidies in the WTO. Until India doesn’t learn to cut social and economic subsidies, we’re going to remain the most mahaan country with a soaring economy but ~20 per cent of the world’s poor despite being ~17 per cent of the world populace.

Regards,

Avijit