There are a number of open letters as well as, their counter letters that have been written after JNU Row. Out of all the letters that have been written recently, only three are my favorites, which have been listed below:
- Open letter to Raj Deep – By Vivek Agnihotri
- Open letter to Rahul Gandhi – By Mrinaal Prem
- Open Letter to Barkha Dutt – By Vande Mataram
After I had seen numerous open letters, I realized that I am the only person that has not only, not written an open letter but has also not responded to any of the unlimited open letters available. It is probable that none of the letters was addressed to me, but normally those responding to such open letters are not exactly the people the letter was directed to, but third parties.
Today, many are writing open letters, as if they are sending a “whatsapp” forwarded joke message to the Prime Minister of country like India, which is known for its laid back bureaucracy and red-tapism. Since it costs them nothing, they write open letters and expect immediate responses to their open letters; possibly with the assumption that even if the prime minister does not respond to such open letters written, at least, he will send a smiley or a pictorial message as a rejoinder to their letter.
As a response to the open letters addressed to the Prime Minister of the nation with the population of 1.2billion people, third parties write counter open letters who somehow assume the role of the prime minister. I, therefore, decided never to write an open letter nor to assume that a particular letter is addressed to me and respond.
But still, my enormous desire for open letters could not stop. To quench my desire for open letters, I started rehearsing and reading all those letters again with the decision that I will not write an open letter which is long; with the intention that a busy person like the prime minister may be able to read and respond at least in the form of smiley or pictorial message.
Consequently, I decided to decode and simplify one of the letters addressed to the Prime Minister by Ms. Barkha Dutt, who seems to be the best journalist as per to the major opposition parties in the country. She, generically, seems to be representing the hundreds of opposition parties but also the 1.2 billion people.
The actual Barkha Dutt’s letter to the prime minister can be read from here.
We now get down to “Decoding Barkha’s Dutt Letter addressed to the Prime Minister” to make it easy for all those who are reading the letter, including the Prime Minister himself if he at all he decides to read her letter.
For this, I use the dictionary from my favorite, R. Jaganathan. As I consider him the master of decoding speeches and open letters too, other than providing financial advice day & night to the Government of the day. I mean, the advice in the night will be 100% different from what he provided in the day. I love to call him as my Guruji, but ever since the Congress’s innovation of Afzal Guru ji, I stopped using Ji. And we are again distracted from the “decoding process.”
Actual Headline of her letter is as follows:
“A letter to PM Modi from Anti -National Sickular pressitute”.
Deciphering the Headline:
This is a clever distortion, a thorough attempt to narrow down the argument by painting positive things which is obvious and which everybody can agree on. This is what others refer to as anti-national, since the issue you tabled is different from the main topic. Those few who are against JNU slogans are against the fundamental right of “speech”.
Example: “I am for a uniform civil code and if that makes me communal, I accept”
Having decoded the subject of the letter, we now Decode the Letter in one go.
Dear Prime minister,
We both are equal, we both started our career together – you as the General Secretary and I as the Reporter. While you were trying to manage the affairs of the party even without being fluent in English, I mastered the art of managing the entire military. I have not only given input to the past government to solve all the problems of the Indian military, but also have the solutions to the problems which you personally could not solve, be it OROP or Defense Procurement. This signifies that I am the most patriotic person in the entire universe.
Also, I am the best, be it in my part-time job of reporting or full-time job as a consultant to the government. I can be an adviser or critic from The South of Tamil Nadu to Kashmir. Don’t trust my competitors, my service is readily available for you to always see and hence collect. Irrespective of the fact that my friends are teasing me and telling me that I should not provide you any advice. Yet, I am still willing to offer my services.
Additionally, I have always been thinking that you are more inclined towards the center instead of left leaning like the past government, which was my assumption. But with the action your government has taken at JNU, I am totally convinced. Since all your men are completely under your control, we could in no way influence them, unlike previous NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, yours made our lives miserable.
Even during 26/11, when several people were killed by Ajmal Kasab and his friends from Pakistan, the previous UPA government was so accommodating. Not only that they allowed us to access to all their data, but also, the ministers of UPA were accommodating. The interesting part was that each of them was speaking in different languages which enabled us to create so many conspiracies and interesting stories which also led to an increase in our TRP coupled with a mount in my salary too. Your government, on the other hand, has made my job quite difficult. Interestingly, they all speak a single language, leaving us with lesser opportunities to create interesting stories or conspiracy theories and hence, the downward slope in our TRP.
Furthermore, our TRP has come down to 3%.This is because your government does not have a conscience. It only concentrates on filing cases against us and sending us notices. Since there is no support from the government, we – the like-minded people – tried to lobby, so that our TRP could go up. But to our greatest surprise, your government rejected it. My friends refused to support me in pretention because you told them not to help me in increasing my TRP. I came with the idea of taking support from the lawyers to increase our rating, yet they refused to accept my proposal. But your refusal to support our business as well as your refusal to increase our influence with the corporate, our business almost liquidated. To me, this is against our channel.
We assume, Mr. Prime Minister, which you are aware of our hardship and therefore, you need to do something. It is not only my channel that has this problem, but also other channels except “Times Now” that broadcasts exclusive Dogs barking shows and government-funded channels. All the others channels will be forced to close, if your government refuses to support, just like previous ones. Then again you did not inform us about your visit to Pakistan, due to which we could not get the advantage of 24/7 coverage. It was only a Pakistan TV channel that milked your entire visit. Same with the case of your visit to Kashmir several times, only Pakistani viewers are interested in Kashmir related news so their TRP increased.
After our best efforts we are able to convince some motor mouthed members of your party, all that news they could create for us are about Beef and Demons. Do you agree that news on “cooking beef” and “worshipping demons” is not something people are interested in? When we report news on those subjects, no one views it. We need news that people will watch and a situation whereby our TRP increases. Even when Kanhaya Kumar was being dragged and pulled, our cameraman was not given proper access to show whether he was bleeding or had broken legs or hands.
What kind of police force do you have Mr. PM? … could not even break his leg. Our TRP would have gone up not only locally, but the image would have made both national and international headlines. We need to be reporting the abuse of power so that we can get donations through NGO route. In the previous UPA government, we had a Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh who was not able to give us an exclusive interview as he can’t speak at all. But even now, we do not have hope on Prime Minister – a one to one interview as we know that for sure, will not be given by you. Help us Mr. PM … Support an increase in our TRP.
We know your love for the nation; we also love the nation and also want the nation to become richer so that, we can improve our business by numerous blackmail options we routinely do. But, to our disappointment Mr. Prime minister, all those news coming from your government is not TRP worthy. After persuading for long, your party members were willing to help us, but all that they could do is to hit a couple in Maharashtra in Mumbai. What can we do with this kind of stupid news? We need news like that of CWG or 2G.
During the previous government, not only did we get all the support to increase our TRP, but also support to make additional income through Ms. Radia and many others. The previous UPA government allowed us to make enough money, honored me by giving several awards but even asked all the school going students to study about me. But to my dismay, I was told that you will be removing even those lessons about me from the Syllabus.
I am getting older, so before my retirement, I need to make a reasonable amount of money. I also intend to start my own business up. I also published a book that only very few have purchased. Please be kind enough, help us! If you help us, I will try my best to support you. I don’t have money to buy diamonds for you though. If you make up your mind that you are not helping me after reading this letter, well, God help you. I pray to God and I believe that the government that will support me will be in power in 2019.
Dear Prime Minister, India belongs to people like us, not you. People like me have built this country over a period of 50 years of hard work, and we have built a strong eco system. Whatever you may try, our eco system will fail you, and 2019 will be ours.
Yours truly,
Anti-national Presstitute Barkha Dutt.
Post Script (This is from me, not Ms. Barkha Dutt):
I don’t expect any response from either the Prime Minister or Barkha Dutt, or anyone who has excellent skills in writing an open letter – including those who have written the above 3 letters. I don’t mind if you abuse me with written comments here or on my twitter account, I will not read them. I am requesting for a small open letter from those who are planning to write in future, so that I will be able to decode faster.
