In an interview with The Quint, in the city of Varanasi, senior journalist Ravish Kumar discussed his views on the city, the ongoing Lok Sabha elections and to what extent the incumbent BJP government has delivered on its promises.
Lamenting the state of Varanasi, Ravish compared it to the Japanese city of Kyoto saying that history had been preserved there, while it was being erased here due to “development work.”
“The prime minister says that he had liberated the city of Kashi (Varanasi), the very place that people come to be liberated, by creating the Kashi-Vishwanath corridor. That is very good, not many people manage such feats in history. But I was talking to some people, and apparently 200 to 250 houses were destroyed for the corridor,” he said.
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Ravish implored the people of Varanasi to think about the character of their city, which according to him, is losing its charm.
Talking about the political climate in the city, he said that dissenters had no place in this city anymore, citing that he was called a Modi Virodhi (dissenter) when he came here.
Questioned on the state of media in the country and personal attacks against his character as a journalist, he asked the government to question those who “sold journalism,” and target him later.
When confronted with the local population’s belief that the river Ganga was clean, he said, “People will say this out of faith that they have in the holy river, but their statements have to be based on facts. Has anything been done to clean up Ganga?”
He said that the BJP is one of the most powerful parties and its leaders still boycotted his programmes. “So tell me who’s discriminating?” he said, commenting on allegations of bias. “One person is enough to make them panic,” he added.
Ravish also talked about Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in general, saying that there is no dearth of talent there, but the educational infrastructure hadn’t been worked on. “There should be one good university here,” he added.
He concluded the interview saying, “There’s a responsibility on the youth of our country, that if they have entered politics, they should leave communalism. Due to it vandals are born in houses, not doctors.”
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