Tag: Media Freedom

‘The Censured TV Hosts Have Only Peddled Lies, Promoted Hatred’

By LokMarg

Pankaj Srivastava, the founder-editor of independent portal Media Vigil, says Opposition parties have rightly decided not to join a violent discourse run by select TV hosts. His views:

The first issue is that the Congress and the party-led coalition INDIA has not boycotted anyone. They have only proposed non-cooperation with certain ‘journalists’. There is no doubt that these anchors top the list of those who are continuously rake up communal polarization, especially since May 2014. The manner in which they have pandered to the RSS and Sangh Parivar, and manufactured a communal narrative, is a brazen violation of the basic tenets of media ethics. And they openly flaunt their biased stance as TV anchors and influencers.

Routinely, they would call the priests of various religions, and make them clash unnecessarily with spokespersons of political parties. The way they run the tickers and slug, and the inflammatory headlines they showcase, their intention is to inflame vile passions. That is the reason the Opposition parties have decided not to join this violent discourse.

The Congress has stated that if they change their ways, and become non-partisan, the party can consider joining their shows. Surely, even in our freedom movement, non-cooperation was a major non-violent weapon against the British.

Those who are criticizing this non-cooperation with certain anchors with a long record of fake news, hate propaganda and inflammatory discourse, they have earlier been silent on their rabble-rousing. The Supreme Court has declared the use of language by certain channels as hate speech. It is now trying to make new guidelines.

This only proves that the entire editorial structure, its ethics, news-sense and objectivity, seems to have collapsed. The Congress has not blocked the freedom of expression of any journalist. Nor has it gheraoed any TV channel. It has not held protest marches against them. It has not demanded that their license be suspended. It has only stated that it will not be part of any such hate politics. Is this a crime?

Those journalists who are now cribbing about this non-cooperation, should ponder if this poison being spread on a daily basis, constitutes freedom of expression. If they had used their influence and experience, to curb this degeneration, then journalism would not have been reduced to such a brazen farce.

I believe that fake news or propaganda is not created in abstract. There is a design and aim behind it. History tells us how Adolf Hitler used the media to spread hatred against the Jews. Rumours were spread. Hitler was turned into a demi-god. This repetation of history is not a coincidence. This is integral to a planned political campaign. It is  well-known that the RSS and BJP are inspired by Hitler and the Nazis.

The BJP is the first  party which created a formal IT cell which ran a relentless campaign to denigrate the Opposition parties, the minorities, and peaceful dissenters, including students. A popular Rahul Gandhi was targetted — non-stop. So much so, even Nehru was not spared!

Who can forget that the pandemic was blamed on a programme held by the Tablighi Jamaat? It was transparent that the Modi regime had no interest in stopping fake news. Instead, they seem to be profiting by it. This is part of their politics. The fact is that a big section of the media, especially TV in Delhi, is largely in the control of this government in the Centre. Hence, fake narrative cannot stop on its own.

ALSO READ: ‘Democracy Is Under Strain Under BJP Rule’

Meanwhile, certain independent journalists are using the social media to bring news and opinion which has credibility. They are trying to bring our everyday reality into mainstream media. Indeed, they seem to be becoming effective and popular. That is a sign of hope.

Social Scientist Noam Chomsky, in his seminal book (with Edward S Hermann), ‘Manufacturing Consent’, has pointed at this phenomena. All news channels are run by corporates. During the movement led by Anna Hazare, these channels were used to damage the reputation of the ruling Congress and UPA government. The Gujarat Model and Modi was glorified and posed as a great alternative. That is the reason that the same media, which had accused Modi for the Gujarat genocide of 2002, changed its tune after 2011-12.

Modi had promised to secure the economic interests of this corporate conglomerates. All kinds of myths were manufactured about the Gujarat model though the social indicators of Dalits, adivasis and minorities were really bad in Gujarat. The report card of the two tenures of this government shows that there is massive unemployment and inflation in the country. Thus, to distract the people, inconsequential things are turned into mega events with the loyalist media trumpeting it all.

The narrator has done a long stint on several television channels and print media groups. He has been the chief of bureau of Star News in Uttar Pradesh and has worked in Delhi with Network 18 and Swaraj Express as an editor and anchor

As told to Amit Sengupta

Survey of Madrassas

India’s Fall From Democracy To Electoral Autocracy

By Kunal Bose

By virtue of its having a population of close to 1.37 billion and holding elections to Parliament and state assemblies every five years as required under the Constitution and on the basis of adult suffrage, India has logical claims to the status of the world’s largest democracy. Unfortunately, to popular concern, India is not faring well as a democracy in the eyes of independent global watchdogs.

These agencies use copiously collected social science data and feedback from a wide range of independent sources before they decide where a particular democracy finds itself in their indexes. The first blow for India came from Freedom House, a US based watchdog funded largely by the US Administration, which relegated the country to “partly free” status from the earlier “free” ranking.

Now a much harsher admonition for India comes from Sweden based V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute. In a major setback for liberal democracy, “the world’s largest democracy has turned into an electoral autocracy,” says the V-Dem report. The country’s 23 percentage point slide on V-Dem scale since 2013 makes “it one of the most dramatic shifts (read in terms of erosion of democracy) among all countries in the world over the past ten years.”

Elaborating how democratic values got eroded in India, V-Dem says: “Autocratisation process has largely followed the typical pattern for countries in the ‘Third Wave’ over the past ten years: a gradual deterioration where freedom of the media, academia and civil society were curtailed first and to the greatest extent.”

But Pranab Bardhan, professor emeritus of economics at University of California, Berkley, says much of Indian media, particularly the TV channels are found “shamelessly” ingratiating themselves with the powers that be. What freedom of the Press can there be when media owners and journalists who matter have on their own drawn the Lakshman Rekha in a way offering comfort to the ruling party at the Centre and in states like Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. What is left of free media is some news and opinion websites run by some intrepid journalists and a magazine or two.

ALSO READ: A Tale Of Two Indian Protests In Media

Bardhan is surprised that BJP has the gumption to complain that the opposition is engaged in smearing the reputation of the country across the world. “But it is now imperative to say that the way democracy is being trampled in so many ways is giving the country a bad name. Let’s take the case of harassment of Disha Ravi (climate activist). Hasn’t this invited global criticism? I will say those who describe the protesting farmers and principled journalists as anti-nationalists are a blot on our democracy,” says Bardhan.

Bardhan, a global campaigner for equality of opportunity for human development, has strong distaste for doublespeak that BJP leaders indulge in. They, according to him, will say sabka saath sabka vikas (development for all) but when it comes to act they will spew hatred for the ones not of their faith. Why Bills are not discussed any longer and Acts are steamrolled through Parliament?

Bardhan thinks the fear of courting uncomfortable questions has made Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to hold Press conferences at all. The people are instead left with ‘Man ki Baat,’ a monologue that leaves no room for questions to be asked. (To put the record straight, Modi at least once sat for a long interview with the former Hindustan Times chief editor Sanjoy Narayan.)

Incidentally, Bardhan like many other front-ranking intellectuals is a strident critic of the NDA decision on demonetisation and the Covid-19 lockdown for the indescribable sufferings of the common man, millions of migrant workers and people dependent on the unorganised sectors. Now we learn from the periodic labour survey by National Statistical Office that the urban unemployment rate in the country shot up to 20.9% in April-June 2020 coinciding with the lockdown from 9.1% in the previous quarter. But what will go unrecorded are the physical, mental and financial pains millions of migrant workers suffered because of sudden declaration of the lockdown without giving them a chance to go back to wherefrom they came by train and long distant buses.

In a recent interview with the largely circulated Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika, Bardhan expressed his anguish over disintegration of the country’s federal structure. As policy decisions are getting concentrated in the Prime Minister’s office (PMO), in a novel development New Delhi is regularly trespassing into areas reserved for the states. There are too many occasions when the centre without seeking the views of states are addressing subjects concerning education, health, agriculture, law and order and labour.

The winding up of the Planning Commission where the states could place their economic demands and subsequently get relief from the government was a blow to federalism. As for revenue mobilisation, every time New Delhi would impose a cess that will be a denial to states of their rightful share. This is not the case when revenues are mobilised by way of taxes.

Drawing an analogy with Germany in the 1930s where the Communists and social democrats locked in political bickering helped in Hitler coming to power, Bardhan strongly recommends that the Left, the Congress and Trinamool Congress should not allow their past differences, often quite bitter, to come in the way to stop BJP from wresting power in West Bengal.

ALSO READ: Battle For Bengal Is The Election to Watch

Bardhan says if the Left truly believes that ‘Ram in 2021 and Bam (that is left) in 2026’ then it is indulging in self-delusion. The left apparently doesn’t want to have any kind of understanding with Trinamool since its members and supporters had suffered a lot in the hands of ruling party members in the past ten years. But he says in the past ahead of the Left Front rule, the Communists were given a hellish time by the Congress. The left, according to him, will be showing wisdom if it is found ready to bury all such hatchets to stop the BJP juggernaut. He at the same time wants the Matua and Rajbangsi communities, which are befriended by BJP, to stay clear of the party with strong Brahminical leanings.

People from different parts of the country have over centuries made Bengal their home and in the process they have made rich contribution to the local economy and culture. Many Bengalis are uncomfortable that BJP is described by incumbent Trinamool as a party of outsiders.

Bardhan has an interesting take on this: “BJP has tenuous links with Bengali culture. Since the party doesn’t have a great Bengali intellectual to boast, it is busy paying obeisance to Bankim Chandra, Rabindranath, Swami Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose. But it is impossible to reconcile BJP’s Hindutva with what these great Bengali minds wrote and said.”

Bankim Chandra will not accept that the country has made any progress unless the Muslims and everyone else have a share in it. Vivekananda wanted everyone to read the Bible and the Quran along with the Gita. Subhas Chandra was secular to the core. His strong disapproval when Syama Prasad Mukherjee joined Hindu Mahasabha is well known. Finally, the world has known Tagore as a well wisher of both Hindus and Muslims and as someone desirous of their brotherhood.