One of the singular
achievements of sections of the Indian media toeing the line of the current
regime in Delhi is that it has created a dog eat dog atmosphere in a country
perpetually at war with itself. The polarization, often communal, racist,
sexist and driven by hate, is so sharp and relentless, that its only cutting edge
principle is to bay for blood at any cost, having buried all civilized
discourse or rational principles of interaction into the garbage can of
contemporary history.
Surely, this did not
happen even during the draconian days of the Emergency; brave editors would
dare to leave their editorial space blank, defying the censors sitting in their
edit meetings. These channels created a competitive environment which brazenly
and repeatedly flouted all that stands for media ethics and its inherited
values.
Day after day they have manufactured
mythical enemies of the nation from out of their figment of imagination,
pampered the ruling regime’s pet obsessions, declared legitimate and peaceful
citizens of this country as anti-nationals, created war propaganda and hate
politics to the most absurd levels of heightened hyperbole, and indulged in
daily media trials and hounding for the world to see. Much of what was
displayed as a grotesque public spectacle on live TV as prime time shows every
night in English and Hindi had neither an iota of decency nor space for
rational dialogue.
Apart from shouting
matches and regular ‘lynching’ of individuals, often these shows set the agenda
for a kind of television journalism unseen in the annals of the audio visual
media anywhere in the world. Anyone could be bashed, degraded and destroyed,
for no rhyme or reason, and without any evidence whatsoever.
In this vile and vicious
melodrama of character assassination and the ravaging of reputations, there is
no time to breathe. This is like the blood-letting of the gladiators of ancient
times where television anchors became the jury and the judge, where the
punishment was publicly announced even without a trial, while the mob wanted
more public lynchings.
The daily trial, of
course, daily entertainment of the most morbid kind camouflaged as news and
opinion – the more filthy and indecent it became, the more it seemed to be
lapped up by an indiscrete and invisible audience, till the time the Mumbai
police found that even the TRP ratings seem to be fudged and manipulated, much
like the prime time fake news dished out without any fact-checking whatsoever,
and with only the intention to satiate the lowest and basest instincts of
viewers.
The hounding of Rhea
Chakravarty, even Deepika Padukone and others, were clear examples of this
organized witch-hunting, driven by political interests. Indeed, most of the
channels including that run by this particular gentleman who is now cooling his
heels in jail, went overboard in becoming more loyal than the king, toeing the
central government’s line with such ferocity and with such total disregard for
basic journalistic objectivity and ethics, that embedded journalism found a
completely new genre on television media in India. Every night became a night
of organized targeting.
Even among the top television anchors, again unprecedented in Indian journalism, mutual hounding and calling names and that too on live television, became a new phenomenon. Rajdeep Sardesai for instance called Arnab Goswami’s channel a banana republic. Earlier Sardesai was castigated for his considered interview with Rhea, where she appeared articulate, coherent and dignified, while defending her arguments with great finesse. This was resented by those who had already announced her guilty in a shrill media trial which went on day after day.
A lot of dirty waters
have flowed in this daily gutter on live television in India in recent times.
Peaceful PhD scholars, students, academics, intellectuals, writers and artists,
and non-violent protesters against the NRC and CAA, demanding the restoration
and resurrection of Constitutional values, were declared anti-nationals,
terrorists, urban Naxals, among other condemnations which created a public
opinion against them; whatever the police and the government said were floated
with additional frills, thereby consolidating all forms of undemocratic actions
taken by the government. When it came to the process of justice, or a fair
trial, this section of the media chose to completely align with the powers that
be, thereby dumping all norms of journalistic detachment, impartiality, fair
play and objectivity. In sum and substance, this was the abyss of the lowest
common denominator.
Given this abysmal
situation, independent journalism and objective reportage was dumped into this
very gutter which was celebrated every night on prime time. Veteran journalists
were hounded. Others were arrested. A young Dalit journalist in Delhi was
packed off to a jail in UP for a tweet which he had apparently retweeted,
according to reports. The signal was clear: toe the line or be prepared for the
worse.
Journalists in Jammu and
Kashmir have been chosen for special treatment, even in what is ritualistic
media censorship. Indeed, the jackboots and the clampdown has been
celebrated by the loyalist media completely disregarding the basic
liberties and rights of 8 million Kashmiri people, thereby consolidating an
already existing collective feeling of exile, condemnation and alienation.
Hence, those who are
baying for the blood of Arnab Goswami who has been picked up by the Mumbai
police on a case of suicide of a son and mother, the son being an interior
designer of his new studio when it had launched a new channel, and the alleged
non-payment of a huge sum of money, as declared in the suicide note, might fall
in the same grotesque trap of vicious vindictiveness and public lynching which
was celebrated by these channels. The argument that it is not a case of freedom
of expression and is a criminal case might be true, but there are layers within
layers, even as the case becomes sub-judice.
The dark irony is that
this suicide was reportedly not even investigated earlier, even as the family
members apparently knocked at all doors seeking justice for the son and the
mother of the family. That seems to be a bigger case of injustice in a country where
justice seems elusive to the ordinary citizens, especially those in the
margins, as the family of the girl raped and murdered in Hathras witnessed.
Dissenters are currently languishing in jail on allegedly fabricated charges
under draconian laws. Whereby bail is a legitimate right in the judicial
process, even bail is denied to these peaceful dissenters.
In this context, Arnab Goswami too deserves a fair and just trial, and not only because he is brazenly biased and partisan, a favourite of the current ruling regime in Delhi, and surely not because he presided over media trials on his channel, while invading the privacy of citizens and vitiating an already polarized atmosphere of a democracy pushed to an edge.
