Editorial with Sujit Nair Completes 1000 Episodes

[00:00:00] Namaskar, welcome to the 1000th episode of Editorial. Let's get right into the show.

[00:00:13] So on this 1000th episode, let me give you a brief background about myself. I don't come from

[00:00:24] journalistic background. A lot of my viewers know that I don't come from journalistic background.

[00:00:28] I come from an advertising marketing background and you see a lot of people ask me, why are

[00:00:37] you doing this editorial and all that? Unnecessary talking about governments, powerful people and

[00:00:44] getting yourself into trouble. Why are you doing it? Let me tell you something very honestly.

[00:00:52] Even I have several times thought, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why am I

[00:01:02] talking against government policies or party in power or whatever, whatever. Why am I doing

[00:01:08] this? What am I getting out of it? But then you know what? I realized that after I started

[00:01:18] doing this editorial, initially there used to be 100 views, 110 views, 200 views. Even then

[00:01:28] and even now today when maybe it is 20,000 views, 30,000 views, 40,000 views. You know,

[00:01:34] when I go back home and when I lie in my bed, I get this tremendous sense of satisfaction.

[00:01:42] Tremendous sense of satisfaction thinking that I have acted for my democracy. I have acted

[00:01:51] for my democracy. I believe in that statement that democracy is not a state, it's an act.

[00:01:57] I believe that. I believe in that statement. I always believed in that statement and I thought that

[00:02:02] statement was the ultimate as far as democracy is concerned. And I feel that I have acted for my

[00:02:09] democracy, for which I pay price. So be it. So be it. What have I seen in the last five years?

[00:02:21] Five years. It's been five years I've been doing my editorial and what have I seen in the last five

[00:02:27] years? Oh, I have seen a lot of things. I have seen people who abused the prime minister at one point

[00:02:35] in time today, abusing the minority and falling at the feet of the prime minister. I have seen that.

[00:02:43] I have seen people who sweared by secularism go on the second day and talk about how they felt that their

[00:02:52] previous party harmed the concept of Ram and therefore they felt hurt. They couldn't carry that hurt anymore

[00:02:59] and came to Paraty-e-Janata party or jumped to another party. I have had experiences of meeting a man in

[00:03:09] Mumbai in the afternoon where he was belonging to one particular political party. In fact,

[00:03:15] he was supposed to be one of the super spokesperson of this particular political party, super spokesperson.

[00:03:22] He used to be the one who would just destroy everybody else in the television. Mind you,

[00:03:26] those days only Bharatiya Janata party, those days can be, but all the same, Bharatiya Janata party would

[00:03:31] rule mainline television media. They would rule and this one man would go and you know,

[00:03:37] make, mincemeet out of Bharatiya Janata party spokesperson. After all, he was in one particular

[00:03:43] political party, evening he thought everything that political party did against was against Ram.

[00:03:49] So his calling of Lord Ram happened and he changed the political party and he went into the other

[00:03:55] political party. I have seen this, I have seen this in these last five years. I have seen people

[00:04:04] change loyalties like nobody's business. I have changed, I have seen that ideology is something

[00:04:14] that politicians per se, I am not saying all politicians, I am saying especially not right-wing

[00:04:21] politicians because right-wing politicians, I believe are more ideologically blended than the others. I have

[00:04:29] seen the others just jump ideology like nobody's business either out of fear, fear of EDIT and all of that

[00:04:36] or out of sheer greed of power. I have seen them jump from one political party to another without an iota of

[00:04:47] their conscious pricking them, without an iota of it. So I have seen that. I have seen rapists,

[00:04:57] I have seen rapists who mock the society, who mocks at the society. I have seen convicted rapists who mocks at the society. I have seen convicted rapists get out of jail and attend their birthday party. I see, I have seen convicted rapists get remission.

[00:05:22] Remission for rape and murder. And people give them laddus because they raped and murdered a woman and murdered a child, murdered an entire family actually.

[00:05:36] Grace of God, the Supreme Court sent them back to prison. But I have seen them come out. And I have seen the society get divided in two, where one part of the society was actually supporting them.

[00:05:49] I have seen that in my last five years of editorial. I have seen, I have seen somebody called Rahul Gandhi, who used to be Papu, become a star in 2024. And then again, kind of fading away. I have seen that too.

[00:06:11] I have seen a star called Mr. Narendra Modi, who came to a level where I think a lot of media and possibly he himself thought that he was non-biological. I saw him come to that epitome of his popularity and then slide down and now slide back up again.

[00:06:36] I have seen that too. I have seen parties win elections by merely giving freebies, which is actually official bribe to their voters. Parties have won elections. I saw that too.

[00:06:54] I saw how easily our society could be manipulated, engineered by using religion, caste and freebies. How easily, how easily we could be maneuvered. I saw that too.

[00:07:16] I saw the pain of trusting somebody and putting a trust on somebody's shoulders, hoping that this man, this is the Messiah of democracy. He is going to save this democracy. And that same man letting the democracy down.

[00:07:43] Same man who sits in that constitutional chair. That same man letting democracy down. And down and how? I have seen that happen in the last five years.

[00:07:57] You see, at some point, when you see a person, when you have a constitutional position, such big constitutional position, sit in their chair, you know that, okay, this person may not really be a champion of democracy or, you know, this is expected out of this person or this person is slightly leaning towards this side.

[00:08:18] So you expect, you know, this person.

[00:08:53] A leader, a leader, a leader, a leader, a leader, a leader, convince people to take their thalis or their plates and a spoon and bang in the middle of the road during COVID bang in the middle of the road during COVID to create some sounds.

[00:09:15] That was one of the solutions of COVID. I've seen that. I've also seen the same time bodies floating in the rivers in Uttar Pradesh. I've seen that too.

[00:09:29] I've seen us switch off lights for some time as some symbol of COVID or COVID resistance or unity or I don't know what the symbol was. I've seen us do that.

[00:09:41] And I've seen us people dying for oxygen, dying for a breath. I've seen that too.

[00:09:49] I've also seen us being the pioneer in vaccination in India, pioneer of vaccination in the world. I've seen that too.

[00:10:01] We produced enough vaccination not only to cater to India, but to the world. That too I have seen. I've seen us go to the moon. That too I have seen.

[00:10:12] I've seen us build infrastructure, phenomenal infrastructure, some of it absolutely commendable infrastructure, fantastic roads.

[00:10:24] I've seen us. I've seen our airports. I've seen our airports and ports being leased out to one particular capitalist who currently runs those ports and airports, which I thought was mine as a citizen of this country.

[00:10:44] I thought it was mine. I've seen that too. I've seen 1% of our society controlled bulk of our wealth and 99% of our society much way under it.

[00:11:03] I've seen 50% of our society having 3% of our wealth, 50%, the bottom 50% of our society having just 3% of our wealth. I've seen that too.

[00:11:16] So truly speaking, this 5 years has been absolutely exciting. Absolutely exciting.

[00:11:22] Because you know what? A lot of myths were broken.

[00:11:28] A lot of misconceptions corrected.

[00:11:32] A lot of new lessons one learned about social behavior.

[00:11:36] I think I came to know about our own society much more now than I knew it possibly as an advertising person who I thought I was specializing in social behavior because that was my job to study social behavior and to sell products after studying social behavior.

[00:11:56] I think all that I had to unlearn.

[00:11:58] I had to unlearn it because somewhere down the line that was a different paradigm and this was different.

[00:12:05] I learned a very different side of Indian society.

[00:12:09] I saw a very different side of Indian society.

[00:12:13] Some of it was absolutely surprising, pleasantly surprising and commendable.

[00:12:19] Some of it not.

[00:12:23] Some of it was a very different side of Indian society.

[00:12:25] So this was my 5 years or my 1000 editorials that I came in front of you with.

[00:12:33] And let me thank people who made this happen.

[00:12:40] You know, my colleague, my former colleague, he is no longer working with us, but my former colleague Pratamesh Gugari was, I think, the reason I sit here.

[00:12:49] Because those days, that young gentleman, that young colleague of mine, he was the one who actually pushed me to do this editorial, to do editorials.

[00:12:59] And that's what got me to sit here in this chair and talk to you.

[00:13:02] So Pratamesh Gugari, thanks to Alok, who was my first editor.

[00:13:08] You know, I used to fumble a lot those days.

[00:13:11] So, you know, I never had to face the camera before that.

[00:13:14] So I used to fumble a lot.

[00:13:15] So the first editor who used to sit and actually correct my fumble, to thank Alok.

[00:13:19] I thank Manasi, who edits my editorial for the last, actually, bulk of the 5 years.

[00:13:26] She has been the one who is editing it.

[00:13:28] And she is the one who is going to edit it today.

[00:13:30] So I thank her.

[00:13:32] I thank Swarith Tandon, who, you know, when nobody would watch, 100 people, 80 people would watch the editorial.

[00:13:41] He is the one who actually, you know, put it in groups and helped me distribute it 5-6 years back.

[00:13:49] And, you know, actually let people know that there is something called as editorial,

[00:13:52] so that at least a few more people could join us and watch editorial.

[00:13:58] So thanks to Swarith Tandon for that.

[00:14:01] And thanks to a lovely team.

[00:14:04] Thanks to Jash Hirani.

[00:14:06] Thanks to Amina Ansari.

[00:14:08] These are people who put my editorial together, put my research together.

[00:14:13] So thanks to them.

[00:14:14] There is, because without them, I have nothing to speak.

[00:14:20] So thanks to them.

[00:14:21] They are my voice.

[00:14:22] Thanks to Rohit, the man who is behind, right behind you, right behind you.

[00:14:27] As I talk to you, he stands behind and records me.

[00:14:31] Thanks to him.

[00:14:33] I think from day one, he's been with me.

[00:14:35] And he's the one who records.

[00:14:38] Thanks to Ganesh, the person who energizes all of us with this beautiful, lovely cup of tea.

[00:14:44] Thanks to Ganesh.

[00:14:47] Thanks to the entire team in HW that we could do this.

[00:14:50] And thanks to my viewers.

[00:14:52] Some of them who were with me for the last five years and who almost every episode, episode after episode has written to me, has commented on my show, has emailed me.

[00:15:07] Some of them even dropped into office.

[00:15:10] Oh, I thank those viewers.

[00:15:12] I thank those viewers with folded hands because for them, I survive.

[00:15:19] So that's what I wanted to talk to you about.

[00:15:23] I know a lot of Gyan today.

[00:15:25] But then, one day in thousandth episode is okay.

[00:15:30] Till I see you next time.

[00:15:32] That's tomorrow at 10 p.m.

[00:15:34] Sorry, day after tomorrow at 10 p.m.

[00:15:36] Namaskar.