Let’s face it. In a democracy, debate is healthy. Even necessary. Accidents—no matter how tragic—deserve investigation, accountability, and introspection. But increasingly, a breed of journalists (or should we say activists with press cards?) has turned national tragedies into ideological rampages. Their factory-fitted outrage activates faster than any black box recorder—and the blame, of course, must land on Narendra Modi.
The recent crash of an Air India flight in Ahmedabad was heart-wrenching. Lives were lost, families shattered. But before the debris cooled, a certain city-based university-bred “journalism graduate” (yes, from that self-declared professional group of righteous warriors) took to social media—not to mourn, not to wait for facts—but to launch a sermon dripping with loathing for Gujarat, for development, and for one man alone.
“The scale of this failure is staggering, but not surprising,” he began, before waxing eloquent on how Ahmedabad is nothing but a Potemkin village of PR and propaganda. The tragedy didn’t stem from a mechanical failure, poor maintenance, or human error—but from an urban planning conspiracy dating back to…well, Modi’s chief ministership.
You see, for these folks, even a pothole on the moon would somehow trace back to Narendra Modi.
This self-styled commentator didn’t stop at panning the city. No sir. He threw in Amit Shah too, for good measure. According to him, Shah should have personally cleared land transfers, audited runways, fast-tracked tarmac upgrades, and maybe even inspected the wheel bearings—because representation means you must be clairvoyant and omnipresent.
The most grotesque twist? He couldn’t resist dragging the deceased former CM Vijay Rupani into his ideological tar pit. The fact that Rupani died in the crash only proves he was complicit in the infrastructure rot that killed him. A sort of poetic justice, according to our liberal conscience-keeper.
Pause for a moment.
What kind of warped logic tries to win political arguments over dead bodies? Is this journalism? Or is it ideological necromancy?
If this is what modern journalism looks like, I’m filing for ethical asylum.
Let’s be clear: tragedies demand accountability. But accountability based on facts, not Twitter-ready poetry penned by activists masquerading as journos. Conveniently omitted from their narrative are actual complaints about the aircraft’s maintenance, under a Tata-led Air India, and the dubious outsourcing of critical repairs to firms in nations that don’t exactly top India’s friends list (Turkey, anyone?).
Why so silent on those details, comrades?
Ah yes. Because that doesn’t fit the preloaded script where the BJP is always the villain, and the private sector is evil only when not run by their ideological cousins.
Let’s also not pretend this cabal values “free speech.” Had anyone spoken this way about the Congress Party or the late Indira Gandhi back in the day, they’d have found themselves in a prison cell—or worse, disappeared in the emergency-era footnotes. The selective courage of today’s pseudo-journos is inversely proportional to the power they’re critiquing.
Here’s the bitter truth: this isn’t journalism. It’s catharsis. It’s the weaponisation of grief for ideological gratification. And sadly, it’s becoming a pattern—loud, performative, and utterly divorced from facts.
India needs journalists who question power, yes. But what we don’t need are performative moralists who believe every tragedy is a referendum on one man, and every dissent from their script is fascism.
There is a Laxman Rekha, even in freedom of expression. And when certain “internal critics” begin sounding more unhinged than external enemies, it’s time for the law—and the nation—to draw a firm line.
