Journalism Couldn’t Sink Any Lower... Shameless Party Propaganda... : Shashi Tharoor
“The levels of journalism couldn’t sink any lower”, the Congress leader and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor on Friday took to his official X (formerly Twitter) and condemn the style of journalism propagated by Deshabhimani, a Malayalam newspaper and the organ of the Kerala State Committee of the Communist Party of India (CPI). He pointed a recent controversy from Kerala, to a senior citizen named Mariya Kutty, to substantiate his point.
Mr Tharoor sharing an article published by Boom Live, an independent digital journalistic initiative who majorly works on fact-check, wrote: “Just when one thinks that the levels of journalism couldn’t sink any lower, something like this comes along”. Mr Tharoor was criticising the attitude of Kerala government, led by the CPI, and their mouthpiece Deshabhimani for giving misinformation about an old lady and limiting her from the government allocated financial support of pension.
Just when one thinks that the levels of journalism couldn’t sink any lower, something like this comes along — a disgraceful defamation of a helpless 80-year-old widow by a shameless party propaganda rag to defend the indefensible: https://t.co/WfZEI5bRGP
Well done @rejitweets !…— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 17, 2023
The article, An 86-Year-Old Kerala Woman Is Fighting Misinformation Spread By Communist Mouthpiece, was written by Rejimon Kuttappan. It introduces Mariya Kutty as an 86-year-old homeless and landless Christian widow residing alone in Adimali, Idukki district of Kerala. She staged a protest recently over her prolonged delay of welfare pension. Mariya Kutty, along with another elderly woman named Annamma Ouseph (80) was on protest by holding earthen pots in Adimali town on last Wednesday.
It was on November 6, she went to Adiamli Grama Panchayat seeking pension. “When we went there, we were told the pension hadn’t arrived”, she told to Boom Live. As per the report, she hadn’t received pension for the last five months and subsequently started protesting with earthen bowl, meant for begging. The protest got not much attention initially, but a few have shared pictures of her on social media. Even though little later, the protest drew mainstream attention, and the ruling political front had come up with an excuse through their party’s newspaper.
On November 10, Deshabhimani reported that the protest was arranged by the opposition front Indian National Congress (INC). “The local leadership in Adimali also downplayed” the protest. According to the Deshabhimani report, Maria Kutti has lakhs savings in her bank account, owns two houses, 1.5-acre land, one has been rented for Rs 5,000 and her daughter and relatives are living abroad. The second report on her was titled “Staged drama by Congress”.
Following this, Mariya Kutty filed an application and sought details of her alleged possession of land. On Tuesday, the Mannamkandam village officer certified that Mariyakutty owned no properties in the jurisdiction, reported OnManorama. Her daughter is selling lottery tickets for survival, said the Boom Live. She is expected to approach the court on defamation, as the newspaper compromised the the correction of misinformation in just a single-column news on November 15.
“A disgraceful defamation of a helpless 80-year-old widow by a shameless party propaganda rag to defend the indefensible”, said Mr Tharoor on Friday. He also added on X that Congress “had nothing to do with this”.
