S P Udayakumaran is an anti-nuclear activist who did protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant project. In June this year, he wrote a letter to Press Council of India chairman Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad claiming that he suffered harassment from news channel Republic TV.
In his letter, Udayakumar said that council’s attention is needed towards the “ongoing deceit and harassment of me and my family by Mr. Arnab Ranjan Goswami and a few of his colleagues such as Shweta and Sanjeev from the Republic TV.” Now, after the resignation of Shweta from the Republic TV, he wrote this post on October 13, 2017:
Hope you remember me, Shweta. You visited my home on April 8, 2017, received my free books, enjoyed my family’s hospitality and backstabbed me and my family so mercilessly and cruelly. You lied to me that your name was Shweta Sharma and that you were a “research scholar” from the Cardiff University in the UK. You asked for my help with your “dissertation research.”
On April 9, 2017 you requested me to stop by your hotel room as you had a few more questions. There you told me “one of [your] British professors” was very keen on supporting our struggle against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant.
On both those occasions, you were secretly recording me and my conversation illegally, immorally and indelicately without any qualms about the journalistic ethos. It is interesting to note that you are upset that Arnab Goswami suspected you of “being a mole.” I am sure you have heard the saying “those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” Your calm demeanor, gentle head shake, deceitful smile, ungrateful attitude, lying through your teeth and the sheer criminality all make you very capable of being a mole of not just an MP but a whole array of foreign agencies.
When your criminal boss called you a mole, the proposition was “ridiculous,” and even a “witch-hunt” for you. But when you accused thousands and thousands of hardworking and well-meaning ordinary citizens of India of being stooges of the Catholic Church, greedy for foreign money and all that abhorrent nonsense without a shred of any evidence, you thought it was high class journalism, right?
You are raving and ranting about your “Reporting Manager who diligently spent time going through my social network profiles and later proposed that I maybe a SPY and also took it up with Arnab Goswami.” How interesting! You walked into my home, spent hours with an unsuspecting host family (comprising my aged parents, trusting wife, friendly son), recorded all the conversations secretly exactly as a SPY would do and betrayed our love and trust.
Oh, so “[t]he humiliation continued for a few more days,” eh? Your “financial status was inquired (proposing that [you] may have been getting paid by Mr Tharoor),” ha? Your colleagues were questioned on whether “[you] try to extract information, right?
How many days did you, your stupid boss and other morons in your TV humiliated us, the noble people who have been struggling against an authoritarian government who was imposing dangerous nuclear projects on us? Didn’t you probe our financial status and try to extract information through SPY cameras and hidden equipment, Shweta?
Why did this journalist resign from Republic TV?
They questioned your “loyalty” too? And you have a “famous poem that still continues to be [your] cover picture” on Twitter? And does it talk about loyalty, Shweta? Very funny! You know that word, ha? Do you know what it means to be “loyal”?
You are crying aloud now: “Nobody bothered to clarify. I was left in the lurch. My loyalty questioned, my vanity hurt.” It does hurt, doesn’t it, Shweta? Other human beings also have similar feelings, you know? You are hurt by the “scrutiny of character” that Arnab and his mad gang did on you? Weren’t you doing the same on us all, just a few months back and crying hoarse to the whole country on your TV without even asking yourself if it was all fair to do so.
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And on 30th May, 2017, you “had done a sting operation on a sitting SHO for a story” and your Editor accused you of ‘flirting’ with the SHO? How sad! Your Editor “threatened to make the conversation public and destroy [your] career”? I wonder what you guys talked about. The conversation must have been that randy and rousing to destroy someone’s career.
When my teenage son came to know about your stinking “sting operation” on me, do you know what he said, Shweta: “This woman could have killed you ‘Pa!” If one keeps on doing this kind of “sting operation” for a living, one will not only flirt or fornicate, s/he would even murder!
I particularly like your statement: “The culture of fear, intimidation and harassment I have seen in the last few months is unparalleled.” You also say: “Never have I witnessed such vindictive and vicious conduct.” These are nice statements, Shweta! Do you realize now what you have been doing to unsuspecting people like me with your criminal bosses? Read these statements aloud in front of a mirror, Shweta! You may understand better!
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It’s really funny that you are still “thankful to the organisation for giving [you] a great learning experience and abundant opportunities…” Opportunity to do what? To do what they have been doing to you, right? You have not regretted a bit about the wretched things you have been doing to other people. You only want Arnab and the gang to stop “this pattern of vilification of employees on the basis hearsay.” If they do, your Arnab, your nosy Editor and all others will continue to be good, noble and nationalistic leaders and you are quite fine with them. Right, Shweta?
You close your great manifesto with the simple question “what good am I as a journalist?” You may be anything, a spy, a mole, or an infiltrator as your bosses allege! But certainly not a good journalist! And you know what, what you sow, so shall you reap!
You can read the original post here.
