Why Maharashtra journalist’s murder reflects poorly on status of press freedom in India

 BROKEN NEWS

Published in Newslaundry on February 9, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/02/09/why-maharashtra-journalists-murder-reflects-poorly-on-status-of-press-freedom-in-india

Hardly anyone in India, even in Maharashtra, would have heard of a 48-year-old journalist called Shashikant Warishe. On February 6, when Warishe was filling petrol in his two-wheeler in Rajapur, he was “mowed” down, according to newspaper reports, by a vehicle driven by Pandharinath Amberkar. Warishe died the next day from the injuries he sustained.

Warishe’s story is that of many journalists, working away from the glamour and limelight of our metro cities, who diligently report on the excesses that escape the eye of mainstream media. They are the stringers, and the small-town journalists, who file stories about local politics and issues. Warishe worked at a Mumbai-based Marathi daily, Mahanagari Times, and focussed on the people’s struggles in Ratnagiri district against a major oil refinery planned there.

For many years, people in this Konkan belt have opposed the refinery that was originally to be in Nanar village of Ratnagiri district. They opposed it as they feared that pollution from the refinery would impact this largely agricultural and horticultural region, famous for its Alphonso mangoes.  

The previous Shiv Sena government led by Uddhav Thackeray had responded sympathetically to those opposing the refinery by moving it from Nanar to Barsu, in the same district. But that did not end the agitation against it. People in Barsu too opposed it, supported by environmentalists, and Warishe continued to file reports reflecting these voices.

His last report, which appeared on the front page of Mahanagari Times, had images of posters showing Amberkar with Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and prime minister Narendra Modi. In the report, Warishe mentioned that Amberkar, who actively campaigned for the refinery, was accused of “serious offences”. 

For his journalism, and for reporting on this local struggle against the refinery, Warishe fell afoul of those who would benefit from it being located in the region. One of those was Amberkar, a land dealer who is also a member of the local unit of the BJP.  

The importance of journalists like Warishe cannot be over-emphasised at a time when the Indian media faces serious threats to its independence. It is people like him, close to the ground, who are doing what journalists are trained for: ground reporting that reflects reality, even if it is uncomfortable for those in power. This kind of reporting has virtually disappeared from our Noida-based mainstream television channels and appears only occasionally in a few national newspapers.  

Struggles like the one in Nanar, and now in Barsu, are taking place across this country with local people questioning the location of polluting industries, mines, and many other infrastructure projects. Their voices are barely audible in the cacophony that dominates mainstream media. Yet, ultimately, these struggles ought to be recorded by the media for they give us a true picture of what is going on in the rest of this country beyond the metro cities. 

Warishe’s murder is one more nail in the coffin of freedom of expression in this country. Just days before, on February 2, 43-year-old journalist Siddique Kappan was finally released on bail from the Lucknow District Jail after 850 days in prison. Although his release is a relief, the very fact that he was arrested and remained behind bars for so long reminds us how fraught is the right of journalists to do their jobs.

Kappan’s arrest, on October 5, 2020, by the UP police took place when he was on his way to report on the heinous gang rape, and subsequent death of a Dalit woman in Hathras. That is not a criminal act. Yet, he was arrested and put behind bars on charges ranging from money laundering to terrorism. Kappan reminds us in this interview to Scroll: “I am a journalist. Is it not my job to travel and report? Now, they are going after journalists everywhere.”

Kappan is right. This government is going after journalists who are doing what they are trained to do: report.  Even if one journalist is jailed, the way Kappan was and three Kashmiri journalists (Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shad and Sajad Gul) are, India’s boast of having a free press is seriously dented.

While on the subject of press freedom, let me draw your attention to my last column in which I mentioned a provision the government was contemplating to give the Press and Information Bureau the right to declare what is “fake” or “false” news and get it taken down from digital platforms.

Interestingly, the country to which the chief guest at this year’s Republic Day parade belongs, Egypt, has very similar laws. When the government announced that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the President of Egypt had been invited to be the chief guest, few people, including media houses, bothered to look at his record on media freedom. It would have been instructive if they had done so.  

In a detailed report by the Columbia Journalism Review, titled “Sisi’s crusade: One country’s legislative assault of the press”, there is much that echoes what we are witnessing in India today.

For instance, according to this report, “On the one hand, there is the appearance of legitimacy, in that spreading false statements is now banned by a constitutional amendment cloaked in democratic language about the need to preserve the country’s ‘national fabric’ and root out ‘discrimination, sectarianism, racism.’ On the other hand, the assault on independent journalism has become furiously brazen. As leaders around the world take aim at ‘fake news,’ Egypt’s efforts may be the most brutal, and the most foreboding.” Sounds familiar?

An Egyptian journalist is quoted as saying that journalists in his country are left now with only one option: “When Sisi talks about something, anything, all media organisations are required to cover Sisi’s ‘brilliance’...The only things that get published are those that the Egyptian government decides on, or the security services. Meaning, I can’t criticise a minister, or disagree with their policies. I can’t say that anyone is oppressed or suffering. I can only say that the ministers are right, that everything they’re doing is right, that Sisi is right, the security forces are right.” 

Again, sounds rather familiar even if we can claim not to have gone as far as Egypt in suppression of free expression. 

The only consolation, if we can even call it that, is that the Indian government is not alone. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “imprisoning journalists is just one measure of how authoritarian leaders try to strangle press freedom. Around the world, governments are also honing tactics like ‘fake news’ laws, are using criminal defamation and vaguely worded legislation to criminalise journalism, are ignoring the rule of law and abusing the judicial system, and are exploiting technology to spy on reporters and their families.” 

At a time when political parties are getting into election mode, the fetters on journalists and independent media are unlikely to feature in any election campaign because no political party is vested in ensuring that the media is really free. More reason then that those of us, even if we are a minority, who believe that freedom of expression is a fundamental right, continue to write and speak out for that right.

Modi’s misstep: By banning BBC documentary, far more people have now watched it

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 27, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/01/27/modis-misstep-by-banning-bbc-documentary-far-more-people-have-now-watched-it

The Modi government has scored a self-goal.

By using emergency provisions in the Information Technology Act to order YouTube and Twitter to take down links to episode one of the BBC’s two-part series India: The Modi Question, the government has ensured that thousands of people have now watched the programme.

The programme was telecast on January 17 on BBC Two, which is only available to viewers in the UK. Yet, given the nature of the internet, it was widely available on social media in no time for anyone anywhere to watch it.

Two days after the first episode was telecast in the UK, India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindan Bagchi said the documentary was a “propaganda” exercise that reflected a “colonial mindset”, and that the government had taken the step to get all links to the episode taken down.

Under the emergency provisions of the IT Act, the government can ask for content to be removed if it affects the “unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India”. It has been used several times since these provisions were introduced and Twitter has acceded several times to the government’s requests based on this provision. In this instance, barring Bagchi’s statement, the government has not issued any explanation about how this programme falls under any of these categories.

The first episode focused on the communal killings of 2002 in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was chief minister. Its news peg, so to speak, was a confidential report prepared at the time by the British high commission in India on the events that unfolded in the state. According to the report, which has been published on the Caravan’s website, the team that went to Gujarat concluded that Modi was “directly responsible”. 

For those familiar with what happened in 2002, there is little that is startlingly new in the programme, barring the British high commission’s report. We see distressing footage of those days and weeks in Gujarat that are familiar to many who watched the events unfold on live television, as India had private TV channels by then that covered the killings. There have also been films like The Final Solution by Rakesh Sharma that recorded the events of 2002.

The producers of the documentary have ensured that both critics and supporters of Modi have a say, giving the former plenty of airtime to put forward their views. There is also a mention of the Supreme Court clearing Modi of all charges of conspiracy.

Then why object to the programme? It’s evident that any reminders of what happened in Gujarat in 2002 are not welcome, even if they are by a foreign channel with a limited audience, now that Modi is the prime minister. If the government thought the documentary would sully Modi’s image internationally, especially when India is chair of the G20, the decision to take it down has misfired. Leading international outlets – including the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and others – have questioned the Modi government’s commitment to freedom of expression. Hardly appropriate at a time when the government has claimed that India is the “mother of democracy”.

Apart from individuals viewing the banned episode, there have been attempts at public screenings. But by overreacting to such screenings at Jawaharlal Nehru University, where the power went off just as the screening was to begin, or detaining students who were organising screenings at Jamia Millia Islamia, the government is only adding more fuel to the fire it has lit. 

There are likely to be even more acts of defiance, and the debate over the documentary is likely to continue for some time. In some ways, the government has done us a favour. It has drawn the attention of the public to these emergency provisions that have a direct impact on freedom of expression.

Incidentally, so far, the government has raised no objection to the second episode of the series. This looks at what has happened since 2014, when the BJP came to power at the centre and Modi became prime minister. Its specific focus is the status of Muslims in India today and, over the course of one hour, it records the lynching of Muslim men, the impact of the National Register of Citizens on Muslims in Assam, the opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Delhi riots of 2020, and the reading down of article 370 in Kashmir. Together, this makes a powerful indictment of the policies of the current government. 

One of the most chilling sections in episode one is the interview by BBC correspondent Jill McGivering with Modi in 2002. It concludes with this exchange. McGivering asks, “Do you think you should have done anything differently?” Modi responds: “Yes. One area where I was very, very weak. That was how to handle the media.”

The Modi who is now the prime minister of India has figured out how to handle the media. 

The provisions of the IT Act that the government used to order the taking down of links to the BBC programme are only one of several steps that this government has taken in the last eight years. They are incremental, like a slow burn. Hence, the response to them has been muted, limited to statements by media organisations and some editorials.  But the cumulative impact of these measures has been to try and stifle freedom of expression.

The government’s latest move to control the media is a draft proposal amending the IT Rules that will give the Press and Information Bureau the power to determine what is “fake” or “false” news and demand that it be taken down. The draft has not yet been accepted and several media organisations, such as the Editors Guild, have issued strong statements against it. As a result, the deadline set for objections has been extended. Whether these objections will be taken on board remains to be seen.

 However, the very fact that this government can contemplate such an amendment, essentially allowing a government department to decide what is “fake”, with little recourse to a hearing before the action is taken, indicates a larger plan to control free expression.  As the Indian Express points out: “...to remove content merely because the government decrees it ‘false’ would restrict free expression without any constitutional justification, violating citizens’ rights to receive all information on public issues, whether true or false.”

Incidentally, for those of us who were journalists during the Emergency of 1975-77, and had a direct experience of press censorship, it was the same PIB that operated as censor under orders from its political bosses.  Although today we are not living under an Emergency, to institute a system that gives such powers to a body whose principal job is to put out information about government programmes is ominous, to say the least, and totally unacceptable under any criteria of press freedom.

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned earlier, such incremental steps are like a slow burn. The public does not realise how gradually these curbs are being put in place. It is a perfect strategy to lull people into believing that we live in a free country, with guarantees of free expression, even as this right is being stifled slowly and surely.