Last week, I had the misfortune of running into a left-liberal masquerading as a journalist. One of those specimens who spent most of his career comfortably ensconced in a government-owned television channel, surviving not on merit but on entitlement, proximity, and ideological conformity. He greeted me with forced curiosity and then, with the characteristic smugness of his tribe, asked how my online platform was doing—Orangenews9, mine and mine alone.
The question itself wasn’t offensive. What followed was.
With a half-smirk and full moral superiority, he wondered aloud whether my platform had a “right-wing tilt”—which, in left-liberal dictionary, conveniently translates to “BJP-leaning”—and whether I was receiving funding from the BJP.
That was the moment civility became optional.
I reminded him, without mincing words, that I have spent over four decades in journalism without ever carrying a party flag in my pocket or an ideology up my sleeve. I told him—firmly and unambiguously—that I have an upright professional record, one that not even my worst critic can puncture with evidence. No scandals. No paid news. No power-broker journalism. No ideological prostitution.
“And how dare you,” I asked him, “have the cheek to question my integrity and suggest I am funded by a political party?”
To his credit—or perhaps fear—he promptly retreated. Had he persisted, the conversation would have been far more uncomfortable for him. I know enough about his reputation, even without ever having worked alongside him. Name-dropping, entitlement by birth, and climbing the greasy pole of government media—an ecosystem where ideology often substitutes for ability.
Government media, of course, is not alone in this. Private media is no monastery either. There, survival often depends less on talent and more on whom you flatter, whose ego you stroke, or what invisible strings you pull. Merit helps, but obedience helps more.
I entered journalism as a first-generation journalist without a formal journalism degree. Not by choice, but circumstance. After my graduation, I wanted to pursue journalism academically. I was discouraged—ironically—by a senior journalist who had already become a celebrity in the profession by the late 1970s. In hindsight, perhaps he was right: journalism, especially in India, is best learned the hard way.
My initiation into journalism was shaped by an unlikely influence—my father, an Indian Army man. A disciplinarian, a voracious reader, and a man of principles. Every afternoon in Secunderabad, I was instructed to bring home The Patriot, a CPI-run newspaper, which arrived around 2 pm, well before he returned home at 3 or 4. That ritual began after I completed my graduation in 1979.
Ironically, it was this “Left” newspaper—edited by the respected Edatata Narayanan—that sparked my interest in journalism. Even during my college days, I was drawn to its reporting. I began responding to articles, writing letters to the editor, reacting to social and political developments. That habit sharpened my thinking long before it sharpened my pen.
Another towering influence was D. Sitaram, one of the finest media minds of his time. During my final year, I worked briefly at his small publication, The Skyline. My father knew him—and perhaps more importantly—wanted to ensure I focused on studies rather than cricket, my other obsession. That detour changed my life.
From there, journalism taught me its lessons brutally. I learned the fundamentals on the job, often the hard way. I was mentored—directly and indirectly—by stalwarts like Amarnath K. Menon and Dasu Keshav Rao. They didn’t offer comfort; they demanded standards.
My career thereafter was anything but smooth. I clashed with editors—not because I was difficult, but because I refused to bend. I saw ups and downs over three decades. Eventually, I chose entrepreneurship—starting my own publications, burning through whatever I had earned, and emerging poorer in money but richer in conviction. I have no regrets.
Against this backdrop, this left-liberal moralist questioning my integrity was not merely irritating—it was insulting.
As if that wasn’t enough, he later boasted that he was the “baap of Modi” and declared Modi’s cabinet a set of “dummies,” claiming India is run like a dictatorship.
This level of ignorance deserves pity, not rebuttal.
Anyone with a functioning mind knows that Modi’s cabinet includes seasoned professionals—S. Jaishankar, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal—along with bureaucrats-turned-politicians with impeccable records. To dismiss all of them as puppets is not analysis; it is ideological delusion.
Had he pushed further, he would have exposed not Modi, but himself—another product of entitlement politics, intellectually cloned from the Rahul Gandhi school of political incoherence.
These people write nothing of substance, produce no credible arguments, and survive purely on recycled outrage. Their narratives no longer sell. Their echo chambers are collapsing. And they are confused because modern India is no longer listening.
The decline is visible. The Left parties are fading. Congress is in political ICU. Universities—once their safe havens—are no longer captive. Young India is rediscovering its civilizational roots and refuses to be lectured by people who despise those very roots.
The left-liberal game is not just weakening.
It is over.
And they know it.
