'New Delhi Times' penned by Gulzar in 1986 showed well how Journalism could be "weaponized" ... and all this long before the concept of Fake News

Long before fake news and algorithms, this 1986 film saw how truth could be shaped and weaponised.  

I first saw the film when I just started journalism in Nagaland. One-liners like - "PTI has run the story .... some people have been killed in a liquor tragedy in Ghazipur"... would sound so natural for journos - especially of my era when the IT tech and skills were not in the air.

At the end of the film when protagonist Vikas Pandey (Editor) - played by Shashi Kapoor - realises that the two warring politicians have buried their hatchets -- he laments : "I have been used ....".  

We practicing journos must have realised these a number of times .... 

scene from the film when newspaper proprietor meets an emerging leader and Editor too is invited 

The film’s narrative is straightforward seemingly though -- a political murder, a web of intrigue, and a journalist’s pursuit of the truth. But he does not know -- he is drawn into a specific scheme of plots. 

In the beginning part of the film, the Editor comes home late ... around 2am. The wife has slept. The dutiful wife played by Sharmila Tagore says -- "Have some milk". 

Physically the man is exhausted; and yet he says - "Be here I want to do Goonda gardi". She still goes to the kitchen and gets a glass of milk but by the time the Editor is fast asleep. Looks like our lives !!  

 

Om Puri played the second politician .... Ajay Singh (pitted against a shrewd chief minister) and at one point of time he screams to the journo: "How much politics you know"? It mirrors the helplessness of intellectuals and more so if some people have been honest and sincere ! 

Shashi Kapoor (editor Vikas) is cornered into glories. But that does not mean he has been drawn to heroism. 

"Vikas Pande’s journey is not a heroic ascent but a gradual descent into the murky underbelly of statecraft. Each revelation corrodes his certainty, each lead implicates him further in a system he believed he could outmanoeuvre.

Journalism, here, is not a profession; it is a perilous calling that exacts multifaceted toll," writes Touseful Islam in Dhaka-based 'The Daily Star'. 

I saw the film on Doordarshan in the 1990s. We were in Kohima those days and I was into early years of journalism. More as an expedition.

My brother had discovered by life long's weakness by then and he used to tease - 

"This film is about your ism (he meant Journalism) ... and see how a politician has made a fool out of him".  

It took me years to realise that while Journalism gave us a false ego and some fame (lot of it is hyped and self-generated); in reality we are made 'fools' in every turns and traffic junctions of the road. 

Many years later my PTI colleague Ranvijay Yadav ( a junior) saw the film sitting on my PTI Guest House cot while I slept. 

My argument was: "Enough of bloody journalism .... you please continue watching it".  

Some years later another friend and colleague Anosh Malekar (of The Week) -- summed up the paradox of journalism pretty well. 

"I wrote a cover story on who led the flames in Godhra Train. ND, mera wife bhi nahi padta (Even my wife did not read)" - he lamented. 

I was bachelor then and did not appreciate his pain. But reading had declined around 2002 itself. 

Mark the coincidence .... around the same time emerged Narendra Modi. That was also the era when idiots from 'idiot box' TV channels thought -- they would decide who should be Gujarat's chief minister. 

The man in question is today India's Prime Minister and he is going strong.

He has used Journalists ... without using them directly. No pampering, no foreign junkets. Modi used social media. He was one of the first Indian leaders who had sensed the power of IT tools.

The Congress leaders laughed at him and by May 16, 2014 -- when the mandate came - they realised 'chiriya bhagal va (the bird has left the nest)'.

In fact by 2012 or so; the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh picked up one expert from 'know all sophisticated TV channel - Nothing Doing'. The gentleman hardly knew how to handle social media. Mistakes started flowing in ....

Rahul Gandhi did his magical harm at the Press Club of India. Everything was recorded and the damage was bound to follow.

What came out on TV (of course always the Idiot Box) and what went on social media -- defined the UPA's image. The 'spineless Shaky PM' of India could be easily humiliated by a crown prince - 'apple of the eye' of the Italian mom. 

Not all films -- they say can emerge from their moment only to outgrow it. 

Fewer still, read, decades later, look like dispatches from tomorrow.

Blogger and Naga Neta Late Vamuzo (mid 1990s)

(In Nagaland, former CM Vamuzo knew how to befriend journos. He would keep his hand on a 20-something young scribe's shoulder. That would be enough to feel flattered as senior IAS officers would stand along side. 

Vamuzo was a regional party politician but committed Indian. 

A former Naga underground Brigadier himself - during Gulf war of 1990s, Vamuzo told NIC meet convened by PM Chandrashekhar (also his friend) - "The country is united and we all are with the leadership".

Today's opposition leaders should have done something like that with PM Modi when Op. Sindoor happened. Will the present Nagaland CM and president of NPF say something like that in 2026?

In Delhi, people still wonder --- Why one NPF leader's remarks on floor of the Assembly is now being probed at the highest level ?

Nevertheless, there were and still are Naga politicians - who often glorify one Naga underground faction or the other. 

We journalists have been compatriots at times. We might have written against some Netas on other occasions. Some journalists often would get carried away too by the potency of one group or the other.

In Assan, ULFA-scribe nexus also made news in the 1990s.

But like Vikas Pandey in the film .... we too have been used, abused and generally the trend has been we have been thrown away.   

The film 'New Delhi Times' is a slow-burning inquest into the fragile world of truth. In a democracy ... wherein the Journalism should profess transparency.

Scaffolding is a long metal poles and wooden boards that form a structure. Is Journalism something like that ?

Move to Kolkata; Mamata Banerjee's 'fish fry journalism' is still the hot cake. 

Long back, Marxist Sitaram Yechury had told some of us in Delhi's Ajoy Bhavan - - "You journalists go where there is good dinner and good coffee; we offer only chai and biscuit". 

In the film -- Shashi Kapoor as Vikas Pande, is an editor whose professional rectitude becomes both his armour and his undoing.

In the ultimate analysis; what really thrives in Journalism ? 

Do not blame AI and Fake News only

   

ends 

Long before fake news and algorithms, this 1986 film saw how truth could be shaped and weaponised 

At the end of the film when protagonist Vikas Pandey (Editor) - played by Shashi Kapoor - realises that the two warring politicians have buried their hatchets -- he laments : "I have been used ....".  

We practicing journos must have realised these a number of times .... 

The film’s narrative is straightforward seemingly though -- a political murder, a web of intrigue, and a journalist’s pursuit of the truth. But he does not know -- he is drawn into a specific scheme of plots. 

Om Puri played the second politician .... Ajay Singh and at one point of time he screams to the journo: "How much politics you know"? It mirrors the helplessness of intellectuals and more so if some people have been honest and sincere ! 

Shashi Kapoor (editor Vikas) is cornered into glories. But that does not mean he has been drawn to heroism.  

"Vikas Pande’s journey is not a heroic ascent but a gradual descent into the murky underbelly of statecraft. Each revelation corrodes his certainty, each lead implicates him further in a system he believed he could outmanoeuvre.

Journalism, here, is not a profession; it is a perilous calling that exacts multifaceted toll," writes Touseful Islam in Dhaka-based 'The Daily Star'. 

I saw the film on Doordarshan in the 1990s. We were in Kohima those days and I was into early years of journalism. My brother had discovered by life long's weakness by then and he used to tease - 

"This film is about your ism (he meant Journalism) ... and see how a politician has made a fool out of him".  

It took me years to years to realise that while Journalism gave us a false ego and some fame (lot of it is hyped and self-generated); in reality we are made fools in every turns and traffic junctions of the road. 

Many years later my PTI colleague Ranvijay Yadav ( a junior) saw the film sitting on my PTI Guest House cot while I slept. 

My argument was: "Enough of bloody journalism .... you please continue watching it".  

Some years later another friend and colleague Anosh Malekar (of The Week) -- summed up the paradox of journalism pretty well. 

"I wrote a cover story ND on who led the flames in Godhra Train. ND, mera wife bhi nahi padta (Even my wife did not read)" - he lamented. 

I was bachelor then and did not appreciate his pain. But reading had declined around 2002 itself. 

Mark the coincidence .... around the same time emerged Narendra Modi. That was also the era when idiots from 'idiot box' TV channels thought -- they would decide who should be Gujarat's chief minister. 

The man in question is today India's Prime Minister and he is going strong.

He has used Journalists ... without using them directly. No pampering, no foreign junkets. Modi used social media. He was one of the first Indian leaders who had sensed the power of IT tool.

The Congress leaders laughed at him and by May 16, 2014 -- when the mandate came - they realised 'chiriya bhagal va (the bird has left the nest)'.