Arnab Goswami to launch the Republic (also Parliament and Supreme Court)
If you go back to the Preamble to the Constitution of India, you might need to check if the “secular (not anymore), socialist (not), democratic (no comments), republic of India” still stands, because the only word in that cutesy line that hadn’t been patented by some controversy or another, was, well, “republic”.
So, now that it has been reported that Arnab Goswami will be calling his next media venture “Republic”, I’m curious if that will have a cascading effect on our Preamble. Something like: “secular (not anymore), socialist (not), democratic (no comments), republic (that’s RepublicTM, Arnab Goswami Incorporated) of India”.
It is always interesting how Goswami frames himself after the entire country. “The Nation Wants To Know” exuded a pan-Indian guilt at not knowing – not knowing why the Burning Question would have a ring of fire circumscribing the entire television screen as if it were competing with the Pacific Ring of Fire in the hellfire and brimstone and slimy tectonic plate shifts category. Actually, the Burning Question would win hands down, because Indian Ocean is more patriotic than the Pacific. Patriotism wins, always.
Goswami will be next seen on Republic. His Republic. His rule of the (his) people.
If you thought something big and earth-shattering was missing from the demonetisation action and reaction – debates, not the ATM queue deaths, cash crunch, rising attrition, derailed informal sector – it was, well, Arnab Goswami. Not Times Now, but the great Arnab himself.
To think that we didn’t hear “the nation wants to know” – with little boxes incarcerating Assauddin Owaisi for his gall to say that minorities areas might have received less cash, and AAP spokesperson Raghav Chaddha fielded to defend boss Arvind Kejriwal’s demonetisation is a Rs 8 lakh crore scam allegation – is heartbreaking.
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| No one says it the way Arnab does, of course. |
No one says it the way Arnab does, of course.
However, come 2017, and there could be Republic on our TV screens. Our remotes will send out an EM wave called nationalism whenever we will press the button to beam Republic on telly. We might get bonus points to watch Republic at 9pm sharp, that’s the prime time, a time infinitely more important than any other time, because it’s the time Arnab will be coming on air, presiding over the republic from his Republic.
But what hasn’t been reported so far is this.
Stand in attention for the BACK-BREAKING NEWS.
Though Arnab Goswami’s new channel will be called Republic, it will also function as Parliament and the Supreme Court of India.
What did you say? “Obviously”? “Duh”? Er, you already knew?
Arnab has been the judge, jury and executioner for the longest and no better way to give our dysfunctional Parliament an upgrade by making it subservient, in fact a total adjunct, to Goswami’s yet-to-be-born TV baby. Instead of from inside that colonial building on Parliament Street, somewhere in upscale Mumbai news studio should the debates happen, ideally.
In any case, the prime minister should have a little more faith in Arnab’s news channel that he does in our foundational institution anyway, which he treats like a junk app clouding his smartphone of a country.
The Amitabh Bachchan of Indian news can now officially demand taxpayers’ money, because he’s a nationalist institution by himself.
We might have laws that require us to cashlessly transfer a rupee to RepublicTM via Paytm every time we use the word “soldier” as part of the Swachh Border Cess, an Arnab Goswami initiative. Or laws that might legalise lynching if the object of that legitimate nationalist fury happens to be, well a Modi-baiter, or a Dalit, or Muslim.
“Libtards”, watch out.
As for Supreme Court, it’s already behaving like an extension of Times Now, er sorry, Republic. If verdicts on the national anthem, no liquor selling on national highways, national bust size (okay, okay we made that up, but you couldn’t tell now, could you?), etc, are anything to go by, then Supreme Court is pining for an official Arnabisation, which can be duly undertaken once Supreme Court gets an apprentice’s role in Goswami’s Republic.
True convergence, isn’t it?
Watch: