Barkha Dutt’s little talked about response to Anupam Kher’s speech at Telegraph National Debate 2016 is a must watch! (Video)

While everyone applauded veteran actor Anupam Kher's very overtly nationalistic speech, the response to the speech, by NDTV journalist Barkha Dutt hardly got any attention.

March 7: Everybody watched the supposedly amazing speech by veteran Bollywood actor Anupam Kher at The Telegraph National Debate, and applauded it for the impassioned words and the nationalism that they entailed. The video was widely shared and talked about and bhakts were especially happy to wave the video in the faces of the ‘sickulars’ and ‘Congis’. But what they forgot was that it was a DEBATE and not a mere podium to express rage and anger. So obviously, there was a response.

Celebrated journalist Barkha Dutt was the next speaker after Kher and she gave a befitting response to his supposedly ‘amazing’ rant about how tolerant India was (which by the way, was so not obvious from his aggressive gestures which expressed something opposite to tolerance). Dutt gave a response that tore Kher’s speech apart, one argument at a time and demonstrated brilliantly the difference between a well structured and intellectual argument and a mere dumbed down populist rant. In her address, Dutt spoke, very patiently, about the sad trend that has inflicted all of Television debates. Also Read: Twitterati go gaga over Anupam Kher’s fiery speech trolling Rahul Gandhi & Congress at Telegraph National Debate 2016

Taking a dig at prime time news’s super star Arnab Goswami in her speech, Dutt said, “As a television host, who presents the 9 pm news and goes up in competition against some one who believes that splitting the screen into neat boxes, and then shouting the loudest, is what qualifies as journalism, and the absence of nuance, is what qualifies as entertainment, I worry.” She asked a pertinent question about the dumbing down effect that is taking over discourse in India.

“Let us take a step back and think about the environment that we are operating in. Who has created this environment? Is it the politicians, or is it us? Have we as Indians, forgotten the art of conversation?”, Dutt asked the audience. Referring to Kanhaiya Kumar, Dutt recalled an encounter with the PHd student, saying that his definition of ‘Azadi’ or freedom is “the freedom to practice the Constitution”, indicating that he has been misunderstood and wrongly targeted. “I’m sure that all of you will agree, that certain narratives (in the media) are dumbing us down. We are more intelligent that this nationalism versus anti-nationalism narrative”, Dutt said.

Here’s the full speech that Dutt gave at the Koklata Press Club.

(Courtesy: The Political News Youtube Channel)

Here’s the speech by Anupam Kher which had made waves in the social media last weekend.

Whose arguments did you think were better? Let us know in the comments below!