Indians and Pakistanis, both at home and abroad, remained busy fighting the storm between the two PMs and two dubious journalists caught on record on the "a dehati aurat " comment by Nawaz Sharif on his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.
The "a dehati aurat" comment was made during a private conversation over tea at Nawaz Sharif's place with these two journalists,first Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir and other one the NDTV group editor Barkha Dutt, in New York. Hamid Mir felt Sharif was unhappy with Singh and smilingly told Barkha: ‘Looks like Manmohan Singh went to Obama not like India’s prime minister but like a dehati aurat to complain to Obama’.
But changing course of his earlier tweet , the famous Pakistani TV anchor Hamid Mir said Sharif had not said anything demeaning about the Indian PM. However, Hamid told a Pakistan channel that "Unka ye khayal hai ki Manmohan Singh kamzor hai aur Rahul Gandhi ne unke saath kal jo kiya hai, uske baad Manmohan Singh sa'ab ki credibility India may kaafi kharab ho gayi hai. Wo ab position mein nahin hai ki Pakistan ke saath koi bada breakthrough kare. Mir added that Sharif did not seem hopeful of his meeting with Singh, and is now waiting for the new government in India next year to do business.
Reactions to Sharif’s comments were more of disbelief to national outrage and the BJP PM candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday strongly objected,"How dare you (Sharif) address my nation's Prime Minister as a village woman? There cannot be a bigger insult of the Indian Prime Minister.......... We can fight with him on policies but this we will not tolerate......... its Prime Minister's insult,......even said: "The journalists who were sitting in front of Nawaz Sharif when he was insulting our Prime Minister should also answer to the people ....................who were having sweets sitting with Nawaz Sharif when he was abusing our Prime Minister calling him village woman, I expected .............them, to refuse the sweets and walk out," .
Indian Broadcast Editors' Association frustrated with the controversy, said,"such remark of Modi against Indian journalists "objectionable", the BEA believes that such statement aims at demeaning Indian media,..... is disturbed at the "attempt" to project Indian media (one individual journalist or ?).................in a poor light. .............made without knowing the full facts ......... dignified role media is expected to play at international fora".
Now the controversy has become a boiling pot for the "Honesty and Impartiality of India's Fourth Pillar".The Broadcast Editors' Association should not allow the "attempt to project Indian media team visiting the UN in a poor light" and so there promptness and calibre in "finding the truth through their investigation" in determining the exact version.
Will this be done ? Or will they will allow the "controversy on the comment" die down by using the same practise of "time factor delay in finding the fact", as used by most of their political leaders in various investigation ?
There are more questions on the journalists community as a whole ? But as both have many dubious allegation; remember Hamid Mir on Kargil controversy, also though Barkha is brilliant on her job, but also famous for her twist in reporting on communal matters or excessive empathises on particular groups, as seen in Muzzafernagar or Gujarat reporting.
The facts to be investigated are very simple : whether tweets of that "comment" were at all given or not ? Who tweeted those ? Who confirmed or denied the tweets ? And when the denial was made ?
Is not the time factor is important here for concealing or confirming the facts ? What made the NDTV and Pakistan "hukumat" friendly Barkha Dutt to deny the story prominently on Sunday morning itself before the venom spreads ?
It is more a question of justice to NDTV and Barkha Dutt's integrity as well necessity of calming the ensuing national outrage on the comment, and the Broadcast Editors' Association must reach a conclusive and factual time bound answer to that.