Modi govt’s message for 2024, with blocking orders and an OCI cancellation

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 22, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/22/modi-govts-message-for-2024-with-blocking-orders-and-an-oci-cancellation

The Narendra Modi government hates the concept of ranking countries on a press freedom index, an exercise that Reporters Without Borders undertakes each year. The last such ranking, in 2023, placed India at 161 out of 180 countries, below others in our region, including Pakistan (150), Nepal (95), Sri Lanka (135) and Bhutan (90). Only Bangladesh has the distinction of being two notches lower at 163.

So, in 2024, will India’s ranking in this index sink further?

Going by the government’s actions since the beginning of this year, there is more than a good chance that it will.

On February 9, Caravan magazine received a notice from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry about an article it had published on February 1 titled, “Screams from the Army post”.  It was given two days to respond. The magazine did respond but the ministry was not satisfied. On February 11, a meeting on Zoom between representatives of the ministry and Caravan was held. Later, on the same day, the magazine received a notice that it must take down this article within 24 hours.

What was the offending article, that has now been taken down, about? It was a detailed story written by Jatinder Kaur Tur on allegations of torture by the Indian armed forces against civilians from Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir in December 2023. Three of the 25 men picked up for questioning died in army custody.

The government used Section 69A of the IT Act, a section that has been challenged in several high courts, to justify its action. The section permits the government to take down any content that it concludes threatens the “sovereignty, integrity, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to the above”.

The government’s concerns about certain types of information coming out extends not just to platforms and publications located within India, but even those outside. Thus, in January, the Hate Tracker, a platform that documents incidents of hate speech and hate crimes in India, but is located outside the country, was blocked in India. This report in Article 14 sets out the details. The reason? The same as that used for the Caravan article under Section 69A.

The government has also demonstrated its inability to accept the right of foreign journalists based in India to report freely what they see and hear. On February 16,Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who has lived and worked in India for 25 years, was told she would have to leave the country. Her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status was withdrawn. She was told that her work was “inimical to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India and to the interests of the general public”.

In a statement before she left, Dougnac said: “Today, I am unable to work and have been unfairly accused of prejudicing the interests of the state. It has become clear that I cannot keep living in India and earning my livelihood. I am fighting these accusations before the competent forums, and I have full faith in the legal process. But I can’t afford to wait for its outcome. The proceedings with respect to my OCI status have shattered me, especially now that I see them as part of a wider effort by the Government of India to curb dissent from the OCI community.” 

As one can imagine, a foreign correspondent being asked to leave on dodgy grounds has not gone unnoticed around the world. In a strong and explicit statement, RSF stated:

“Forcing a seasoned professional journalist to leave India after she had been based there for two decades reveals a very dark and deplorable image of what press freedom has become under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With two months to go to general elections, the vice is tightening on foreign correspondents who try to cover India in a professional manner. We condemn the unacceptable way Vanessa Dougnac has been treated and the use of absurd accusations as a subterfuge to gag and intimidate outspoken reporters. The Indian authorities must guarantee journalists’ safety and freedom to work.”

The latest action of the government is an order sent to X on February 19 asking it to take down several accounts. Coincidentally, most of these are independent journalists using social media to report on the ongoing farmers’ agitation. These accounts provide us with detailed news about the agitation, about the way the farmers have had to face tear gas dropped by drones and rubber bullets fired by the security forces standing behind concrete barricades to prevent them from marching to Delhi. On February 21, the first death of one of these farmers – 24-year-old Shubhkaran Singh – from a bullet injury was reported.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, one of the accounts taken down is that of independent journalist Mandeep Punia and his platform Gaon Savera. People might have forgotten that Punia was central to the reporting of the previous farmers agitation in 2021. In this article he wrote for Outlook magazine in 2021, he describes his arrest by the police, and the stories he heard and reported during those months.

Although X has complied with the government’s orders, as it has done in the past, this time it has issued the following statement: “In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these posts and accounts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.”

You might think one article, one foreign journalist being expelled, and a few social media accounts being taken down does not represent any real threat to freedom of the press in India. But it does.

 

What these three incidents in the first two months of 2024 illustrate is the intent of this government. Clearly, it is determined to do whatever it takes to suppress critical independent reporting.

It does not care what international groups like RSF think. It does not care where India is ranked in a press freedom index. It is only interested in ensuring that the narrative that it has endorsed about what is happening anywhere in this country, which is dutifully amplified by mainstream TV, is the one that all media should echo. Those who refuse, do so at their own risk.

 

Beyond PM’s front-page guarantees, silence on Ladakh, and threat to digital media

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 9, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/09/beyond-pms-front-page-guarantees-silence-on-ladakh-and-threat-to-digital-media

The prime minister has spoken. He speaks all the time, but when he decides to speak in Parliament, we are compelled to listen. It is an institution that he visits infrequently. However, given that the 17th Lok Sabha is winding down as we face a general election, we must pay heed to his words. 

Apart from the predictable rhetorical flourishes for which the PM is now well-known, what continues to amaze those who care to listen carefully is his skill at proclaiming half-truths, or even untruths, as unquestionable facts. 

Electoral politics is a battle of perception, and visibility. And we have seen in the last decade how Narendra Modi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party have mastered this. 

Given that Modi has been the prime minister for a decade, everything and anything he says or does is news. In addition, he has a dedicated space on radio for his Mann ki Baat monthly programme, and even a YouTube channel.

 

As if this was not enough, we have been deluged with daily front-page ads in leading national newspapers. Without fail, at least one national newspaper will display below its masthead on the front page an advertisement that has Modi’s face and the words “Modi Sarkar ki Guarantee”. The ad boasts of schemes launched by the government that have apparently been brilliantly successful. 

 

As these are advertisements, there is no space to question the so-called facts stated in them. But just below the advertisement is often a front-page story quoting the prime minister. Even as the media feels obliged to report everything he says, is there no space to do a fact check on what he says?

No one expects mainstream media, given its current state, to call out partial truths uttered by the most powerful person in this country. Fortunately, we still have space to do this on social media and on independent digital news platforms.

A video worth watching on YouTube is this one by former television anchor Abhisar Sharma. He dissects the prime minister’s speeches in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha made earlier this week. He looks specifically at some of the PM’s comments about India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and establishes the half-truths and sometimes outright lies that were spoken.

Sharma is one of several well-known television journalists who now run channels on YouTube as there is no space for their kind of plain speaking on mainstream television channels. Incidentally, the subscriber base for YouTube in India is an estimated 462 million.

In print media, fortunately, there is still space to expose some of this wrong information being sent out to the entire country. Apart from blaming the Nehru-Gandhi family for all the ills the country faces today, the prime minister also ticked off state governments in the south for raising their voices against what they perceive as inequity in allocation of central resources.  

There is no discrimination towards the southern states, the PM insisted. It is leaders from the southern states who are creating a “north-south divide”. 

The facts, in this case too, tell a different story. Some newspapers, like Hindustan Times, are using data to inform people, such as these charts by Roshan Kishore. Ideally, people ought to go through such data charts and see for themselves why the south has a legitimate grievance. However, in these distracted times, perhaps it is asking too much of the lay reader to spend time going through such data charts. As a result, in the battle of perception, the accusation that a north-south divide is being artificially created by the opposition wins, while the facts lose.

If you are someone who turns to social media for news, comment, and information, as an increasing number of people are doing in the country, you will come across much that escapes the eye of the established media. Sometimes when you watch videos on social media, you wonder whether the reports are really about the country we live in.

Take for instance, the recent developments in Ladakh. In the last week, tens of thousands of Ladakhis have been out on the streets demanding full statehoodfor what became a union territory on August 5, 2019, when the Modi government read down Article 370. 

Size matters and when thousands of people demonstrate, the media generally has to take note. Yet despite the size of the protests in Ladakh, you will find hardly any reports on them in print media, and next to nothing on television. As a result, most news consumers in this country would not have a clue about what is happening in Ladakh. 

Ladakhis are protesting because they say there is no one to represent them. While Jammu and Kashmir might have assembly elections later this year, Ladakh does not have an assembly. It had district councils when it was still a part of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. When will they have elections, and who will they elect, they ask. 

The best-known environmentalist and civil society activist in Ladakh is Sonam Wangchuk. He has joined the protests and threatened to go on an indefinite fast. He wants the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which safeguards the rights of tribals on their land, to be extended to Ladakh. Yet although Wangchuk is a prominent personality, you do not hear his voice in mainstream media. For that, you need to make time to watch videos like this one in The Print.

The voices from Ladakh are not getting through, either to the rest of the country, or to the government, because the media is not amplifying them. This works in favour of a government that chooses to ignore protests like these and will say something, or do something, only when it suits its larger agenda.

The Ladakhis should pay heed to the way Manipur has been handled by this government. What began in May last year is still festering. It has the potential to blow up into a major conflagration that could affect all of the northeast. Yet, the prime minister has not found the words to say anything about Manipur. And the only solution that the home minister has devised is to say the border between India and Myanmar will be fenced! 

Meanwhile, mainstream media has switched off Manipur. Once again, the only news available of the ongoing violence in the state is on social media. 

This is why the small window of freedom that social media, and independent digital news platforms, provide must be protected. 

Irrespective of the outcome of the 2024 general elections, it is now clear that when political power and business are aligned, the space for free expression in the media gets restricted. 

Additionally, when a government brings in laws that will create more hurdles for independent media, as this government has done with changes in the IT Rules that will permit it to set up a “fact-checking unit” (currently challenged in courts) and the proposed Broadcasting Bill, the chances of it surviving are even dimmer. 

Over-the-top coverage, bounty of ads: The saffron hues of Big Media on Ram Mandir

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 25, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/01/25/over-the-top-coverage-bounty-of-ads-the-saffron-hues-of-big-media-on-ram-mandir

This was the first paragraph of the front-page story in The Times of India on January 23:

“100 private jets, rose-petals showering IAF choppers, swanky cars, rich and famous people – Ayodhya on consecration day saw all this and more. But it was the townspeople, forced to live with police bandobast for three decades, who brought life and light – 10 lakh diyas lit Saryu’s banks – to Ayodhya’s celebratory mood.”

It ran under this headline: “Jets, copters, swanky cars, VIPs, 10 lakh diyas: Ayodhya’s changed. So has life there.”

The lead story on the front page, showing a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, ran under this headline: “Dev to Desh, Ram to Rashtra: PM”. And a strap above it said “Diwali arrives early as nation celebrates consecration of Ram Lalla’s idol with fireworks and festivity, amid calls for harmony and healing”.

Page 1 of The Times of India on January 23.

This is illustrative of the celebratory and frankly over-the-top nature of the coverage of the temple consecration in most mainstream newspapers. The exceptions were the usual suspects, who covered it but were restrained. The Hindu, for instance, carried its lead story under the headline “Rituals done: PM calls it a historic day”. To see the headlines of all the papers, see this story in Newslaundry. 

See all this report in Newslaundry, which is entertaining and informative. It gives us a glimpse of what it rightly calls the “media circus” in Ayodhya and records the antics of mainstream television channels and their anchors. It also shows us how many journalists have abandoned all pretence of being media professionals as they shouted “Jai Shri Ram” in the media centre while watching the event on television.

The story also records what ordinary people living in Ayodhya thought of the celebration. Not all were in the “celebratory mood” touted by The Times of India. Life in Ayodhya has changed but whether everyone living there is happy about it is another story – one that has been barely reported.

Also lost in the hype around the temple consecration was the fact that violent communal incidents occurred in at least six states leading up to January 22, as reported by The Quint.

We should not have been surprised by the newspapers of January 23, given the hue of these papers on the previous day. They had a distinctive saffron tinge with almost half the printed pages covered with colourful advertisements on the temple inauguration. 

Indian Express, for instance, in a 20-page edition of January 22, carried seven full page advertisements, including on its front page. The lead story on the front page, when you got to it, was naturally focussed on the temple. Pages 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were all full-page ads on the temple as was page 9.  In between there was some other news, but even news pages included a comment piece by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. And the lead op-ed piece was by the BJP MP Rakesh Sinha. The only pages where there was no mention of Ram were the sports and business pages.

The exception to this common theme song extolling the glory of the new temple was an acerbic edit page article by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Most people these days don’t have the patience to read such articles; they prefer short news stories with catchy headlines and spectacular photographs. 

However, Mehta’s piece stood out because he asked questions and stated what needed to be said. This quote sums up the main drift of his article, which needs to be read by all those who are interested in different perspectives on the January 22 event and not just the hype propagated by mainstream media:

“It is not just a moment where the state, which has pulled all its mighty power behind this event, ceases to be secular. It is also the moment where Hinduism ceases to be religious.”

Amplifying on this, he noted: “Ram has been transformed from a radiant glow of righteousness, compassion, and imaginative power into something merely instrumental: A litmus test for national loyalty. We are now more valorous devotees of Ram – more than Tulsidas or Gandhi, who rejected the logic of retaliation. You now have to swear allegiance to this Imam-e-Hind, or else.”

Another insightful comment, that appeared not in an Indian newspaper but in The Guardian, was by Mukul Kesavan. It also gives us much to think about.  Kesavan points out:

“In this season of Donald Trump, it’s worth remembering that the ethno-nationalism that the temple at Ayodhya embodies isn’t the handiwork of an erratic, populist tycoon; it is a century-old political project backed by militant cadres that number in the millions. The India (or Bharat) that Modi and Bhagwat envision is more like Netanyahu’s Israel, only on a subcontinental scale; as majoritarian and as intolerant.”

The celebratory tone of the legacy print media around the temple was only to be expected, especially as the flood of full-page ads ensured the well-established dictum: “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. But what is extraordinary is that one of them was so afraid that it junked an article by one of its best-known humour columnists.

Jug Suraiya has been writing for The Times of India for decades. What began as a column in the middle of the edit page has now been reduced to a short piece that appears at the end of the editorial column, or the “third edit” as we used to call it. Despite the reduction of words available, Suraiya still manages to infuse his column with mischief and humour. But this time, his paper clearly did not want to take any risks. No place for humour, apparently, when a temple is being inaugurated. 

So Suraiya’s column, reprinted in The Wire, was spiked.  

As LK Advani famously said after the Emergency, the press now has not just bent down, it has prostrated itself at the feet of “Modi sarkar”.

From that position, it obviously cannot ask even the most obvious questions, especially about the January 22 event or what happened before it. Read the Times of India story quoted above. It says flower petals were sprinkled by “IAF helicopters”. That is the Indian Air Force. Who paid for this? Who decided that this is a “national” event no different from the Republic Day parade or the opening of the new Parliament building last year?

For 11 days before this event, the prime minister visited various temples around the country. Every day, this was dutifully reported on television and in print. But again, did anyone ask who paid for this? Should a prime minister’s personal resolve – to fast for 11 days and visit Hindu temples – be billed to the public exchequer?

Perhaps a day will still dawn when the media does the job it is supposed to do in a democracy: ask difficult questions about the actions and decisions taken by the powerful. Sadly, given the current state of the media, as evident on January 22 and 23, that day is not yet on the horizon.