The News Minute’s latest video on the Karur stampede pretends to be accountability journalism but really seems designed to protect the ruling DMK while blaming their opponents.
In the “Let Me Explain” video, Pooja Prasanna catalogs crowd tragedies across India mainly focusing on Hindu events and pins the Karur deaths on TVK’s chaos and culture-wide neglect. Yet the episode surgically omits egregious, recent crowd disasters under the DMK government’s direct watch, most notably the Chennai IAF Air Show tragedy and the AR Rahman concert fiascos in Chennai and Coimbatore, thereby converting a public-safety debate into a political cudgel against BJP states and TVK, while laundering the DMK’s failures through silence.
Selective omission is editorial bias. When crowd disasters under non-DMK jurisdictions are named and shamed, but DMK-era stampedes are soft-pedaled, ignored, or reframed, the product ceases to be “explanation.” It becomes preaching.
What Pooja Didn’t “Explain”: DMK-Era Disasters With The Same Anatomy
Here’s what Pooja did not tell you. Let us explain.
Chennai IAF Air Show, October 2024: A mass-casualty event at Marina Beach, publicly described by opposition leaders as “state-sponsored murder,” exposed catastrophic crowd planning, near-zero heat-mitigation, and transport failures. Multiple deaths and hundreds hospitalised later, even DMK allies questioned the government’s planning and priorities. The core failures mirror Karur: swelling crowds, poor ingress-egress planning, absent shade/water, weak on-ground coordination, and post-facto blame-shifting. The outrage industry that now bashes TVK for “predictable, preventable” deaths curiously found no moral energies to interrogate the DMK’s role in a sprawling state-managed spectacle of failure.
AR Rahman Concert Fiasco, Chennai, September 2023: Overselling beyond capacity, stampede-like crushes, harassment claims, separated minors, traffic paralysis, this was crowd-risk 101 ignored. Police cases were filed against organisers; nearly two years on, fans still chase refunds. This was not a fringe mishap. It was a flagship city event that embarrassed the state machinery, exposed regulatory laxity, and showed how enforcement conveniently sleeps when influencers and power networks intersect entertainment and politics.
AR Rahman, Coimbatore, August 2023: Barricades breached, crowd surges, control breakdowns, another red flag that the “Dravidian Model” has neither codified nor enforced serious urban event-safety protocols when it doesn’t suit political optics.
If Prasanna truly wanted to “explain” crowd disasters, these three DMK-era case studies belong at the heart of her episode. They are recent, high-profile, and teach the very lessons her script recites: event permissions detached from reality, inflated headcounts, deficit of barricaded channels, inadequate medical staging, poor real-time monitoring, and political face-saving after fatalities. The anatomy is identical, only the political inconvenience differs.
Karur: Government Narrative First, Commission Later
On Karur, the Tamil Nadu government released handpicked videos, timelines, and talking points through senior IAS/IPS officers to assign culpability to TVK almost immediately after the tragedy, before the retired-judge commission could even meaningfully begin. The state held a media trial, then set up a commission to notarize it. Even mainstream outlets documented how the government’s “evidence” rollout pre-empted the inquiry while FIRs named TVK functionaries (conveniently not Vijay), a calibrated move to bruise the movement without alienating his fanbase.
The News Minute’s framing embraces the government’s early narrative while ignoring a basic question: if authorities can brief with “stills and videos” and effectively convict in press conferences, what is the purpose of a judge-led commission funded by taxpayers? On what basis was the location allotted by the local administration? Why were enough security personnel not deployed when we know that there will be uncontrollable crowd coming in not just from Karur but neighbouring districts as well? These are questions TNM should be asking, loudly.
The Pattern: Scrutinize All Except The DMK
Prasanna’s episode places BJP-governed events and Hindu pilgrim gatherings under a microscope – Hathras, Kumbh, temple stampedes, even RCB’s Bengaluru parade, while curiously bypassing the DMK’s own failures in Chennai and Coimbatore. This is not “South-first” journalism. It is “DMK-first” triage: a pattern that has been repeatedly flagged in TNM’s output and leadership commentary. When the ruling party in Tamil Nadu fumbles, TNM’s tone turns sociological and decontextualised. When BJP or non-favored actors err, it becomes prosecutorial and personalised.
That asymmetry is the point. It shapes public perception and recodes accountability: DMK’s failures are “systemic,” TVK’s failures are “criminal,” BJP’s failures are “ideological.” The end product resembles Murasoli, a little more polished than the original, equally, if not more partisan, and self-affirming more than a platform that confronts power without fear or favor.
If The Standard Is Safety, Apply It Universally
Prasanna rightly lists the operational must-haves: capped capacities, channelised entry/exit, trained stewards, loudspeaker comms, on-site medicals, camera-led monitoring. Good. Now enforce that standard on all governments and event ecosystems – film promotions, religious congregations, political rallies, government-sponsored spectacles. Chennai IAF Air Show and Rahman concerts were textbook violations. Why were they invisible in an “anatomy of a stampede” pitched as a comprehensive reality check?
If “predictable, preventable” is the ethical yardstick, then the DMK’s Marina mismanagement and Chennai/Coimbatore concert chaos deserve the same moral indictment. Otherwise, the “Let Me Explain” brand is just selective outrage in explainer clothing.
Pooja, Stop Womansplaining, Do Some Real Work
For once, will Pooja Prasanna and her team at TNM do some real journalism and stop buttressing the ruling party? For once will they hold the DMK accountable for whatever it has done? So, Pooja, stop the womansplaining and do some real work.
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