Arnab Goswami last week made a desperate attempt to defend Harbhajan Singh for his controversial tweet on the successful launch of India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan 2. However, his attempts to defend the former Indian cricketer spectacularly backfired as he ended up exposing his inadequacies on facts.
Defending Harbhajan Singh, Goswami said, “We’ve reached a situation in this country, where we are now being told by the lobby (people critical of communal politics) that Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh) should be hated and targeted because Bhajji is anti-Muslim. I mean they must be mad….Today, the lobby is saying that Harbhajan Singh is a communal man because he forwarded a joke after Chandrayaan.”
Goswami then turned to one of his guests, Saira Shah Halim, to claim that the real problem of her and her Bollywood actor uncle Naseeruddin Shah was that he (Harbhajan) was one of the most ‘firm supporters of the Indian army,’ which ‘she pathologically hates.’
Halim reacted angrily to Goswami’s extraordinary attack as she reminded the Republic TV founder that her father Lieutenant General (Retd) Zameeruddin Shah was a decorated army officer and served the forces as the Vice Chief of the Staff. She said, “You’re talking to an army officer’s daughter. Mind you Arnab.”
But Goswami was in no mood to detect irony in his astonishing claims as he responded with disdain, “You may be an army officer’s daughter but I will define you by your own beliefs.”
Halim responded, “Sorry I don’t support bigots.” She continued, “How dare you (Goswami) call Naseeruddin Shah anti-national? Have some shame Arnab. Please practice some journalism.”
As the debate progressed, Halim began to launch a tirade against Goswami. At one point she told Goswami, “Shame on you. Don’t try and bully me on a national channel.”
Goswami ended his debate by declaring Harbhajan Singh a patriot.
Former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh had recently found himself at the target of incessant Twitter trolling after he posted a seemingly harmless tweet celebrating the successful launch of Chandrayaan 2 on Monday.
Taking to Twitter, Harbhajan had written “Some countries have moon on their flags
While some countries having their flags on moon.” While doing so, he had also posted the flags with the moon from countries with a predominantly Muslim population and compared them to countries such as the US, Russia, China and India, who’ve had moon missions.