Times Now editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami earned plenty of plaudits from right-wing Hindus on Tuesday night when he questioned the ‘award-wapsi’ brigade on their alleged silence on Malda violence.
He demanded to know why people like historian Irfan Habib and film-maker Anand Patvardhan among others had suddenly gone missing and ‘not taking’ his channel’s calls to come on News Hour-Times Now’s flagship debate show.
Patvardhan has now hit back through a Facebook post saying that he would return to Times Now if Arnab stopped ‘barking.
He said, “Apparently yesterday Arnab Goswami announced on his channel that I had gone missing. If he turns to other channels than his own, he may sometimes spot me. In case he does not understand why I have refused to be on his channel, I will spell it out here.
“I have boycotted Arnab ever since his total lack of reason, respect and courtesy were exposed when he began to bark as we returned our national awards. I can certainly understand dissent. I cannot understand barking. If someone gives him a biscuit and he gets retrained to stop barking, I may try his channel again.”
Goswami on Tuesday night had alleged that the itellectuals’ silence over violence in Malda smacked of their double-standard on religious intolerance.
Mahashtra-based Patvardhan is an internationally acclaimed film-maker and has won many global awards for his works.
