Mangaluru: Bestowing former Union Minister Veerappa Moily with the Saraswathi Samman award prompted a battle of opinions in the social media among two popular scribes in the state of Karnataka.
Soon after the news related to award broke, Editor-in-Chief of Kannada Prabha Vishweshwar Bhat recently wrote an article criticizing Moily’s literature, ‘Ramayana Mahaveshanam’ in his well-known column (Noorentu Maatu). The content of Bhat’s view was published under the title Moilyge Sammana, Saraswathige Apamana! (Honor for Moily; Insult for Saraswathi). Saraswathi, according to Indian mythology is a god of literature.
As an immediate fall out another freelance journalist Shashidhar Bhat who earlier worked as Editor-in-Chief with Samaya 24/7 and Kasthuri news channels condemned the opinion of the Bhat on his Facebook wall. He claimed that Vishweshwar Bhat does not laud literature written published by persons hailing from backward classes.
He, in a series of posts, criticized Bhat for using journalism as tool to satisfy his personal vendetta. Besides he went on to apologize to Moily, on behalf of all scribes and argued that journalists in the current age, lack credibility.
A common friend of both the journos on the facebook, principal correspondent of Kannada Prabha, Mangaluru bureau Jitendra Kundeshwara attaching the screen shots of Vishweshwar Bhat’s article on his FB wall fueled this fight. Jitendra said he struggled a lot to get versions from the litterateurs on the literary efforts of Moily. He added that, many people to whom he spoke, expressed the view that they had not read the book written by Moily. 
The real FB altercation began when Jitendra attached Shashidhar Bhat’s post saying “it’s a known fact that Shashidhar Bhat built his journalism career using politicians.” Jitendra strongly objected to the words of apology and regrets expressed by S. Bhat. However Shashidhar Bhat reacting to this on the wall contended that Rama (Vishweshwar Bhat) shot his arrow hiding behind Sugreeva
When this reporter contacted Vishweshwar Bhat, he said, he does not wish to comment on this matter. On the other hand, Jitendra speaking to Newskarnataka.com said he had no intention to defame anybody and he was not wooing his Editor, Vishweshwar Bhat too. Further Kundeshwara expressed that it was very difficult for him to collect opinions from public on the book written by Moily. When questioned, was your editor casteist and partisan? He opined Vishweshwar Bhat was not that kind.
Giving the example of former journalist and present Member of Parliament Pratap Simha, he argued had his editor been casteist, he would had curtailed the latter. “Apart from Simha he has promoted many journalists to enable reach the status of a celebrity, especially, those who had worked with him in Vijaya Karnataka”, he averred. Kundeshwar clarified that his opinion was personal and he was miffed by Shashidhar as he demeaned all journalists of the state.
