Jimmy Kimmel to Kunal Kamra: Trump’s US follows a familiar playbook from Modi’s India

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on September 25, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/09/25/jimmy-kimmel-to-kunal-kamra-trumps-us-follows-a-familiar-playbook-from-modis-india

What do the current government of the United States, headed by Donald Trump, and the government in India, led by Narendra Modi, have in common?

I would suggest at least three aspects, although there are many more. One, an inability to tolerate criticism from the media, even as they declare that they head democracies, and second, a very thin skin that cannot tolerate humour.

The third, and in many ways far more insidious, is the attempt to control, regulate and even capture the media without making any changes in the Constitutional provisions that underwrite media freedom.

How do we define what has happened to India’s mainstream media, especially in the last decade? There have been various discussions whether we are living through an “undeclared emergency”, referring to the emergency declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975. Such a comparison serves no purpose in trying to understand the process that has resulted in a flattened mediascape, where even the normal questioning that is integral to journalism in a democracy, is virtually absent in mainstream media. 

I think the term “media capture” explains best the situation of the media in India. This is a term that is being used by media scholars to explain recent events in the US under the Trump regime where we have witnessed a combination of defamation suits and pressure on media owners to fall in line.  

The most recent incident was the decision of the ABC television channel to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s popular late-night show. Although within a week, Kimmel has been reinstated, the very fact that the channel felt compelled to take this step led to much discussion about what this represents in terms of the future of the freedom of the press in the US. 

In an article in the Columbia Journalism Review, under the headline “Is the US media captured?” Joel Simon quotes several media scholars who have used the term to explain the state of the media in authoritarian regimes such as in Hungary, Turkey, or Mexico. It entails “government strategies ranging from manipulation of advertising to economic and regulatory pressure to the exploitation of informal relationships with media owners”, he writes. 

The article discusses whether such an eventuality of “media capture” is a possibility under the Trump regime, if it hasn’t already happened to some extent. Simon paraphrases a media scholar thus: “What’s unprecedented in the US … is the willingness of media companies to so transparently put their business interests ahead of their public interest obligations. When one corporation does it, another might pull back on critical coverage to avoid regulatory pressure—a kind of anticipatory obedience or capture in advance.”

Senator Bernie Sanders provides us with a useful illustration of what is meant by the term “media capture” in the context of the US.

In a post on X, he writes: “This is what American media looks like today: The wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk, owns X. The second-wealthiest person in the world, Larry Ellison, owns Paramount, including CBS, and will possibly now be taking over TikTok and CNN. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and Twitch. Mark Zuckerberg owns both Facebook and Instagram. In fact, the five richest men in the world are ALL media owners or executives. When we talk about oligarchy in America, it’s not only income and wealth inequality. It’s control over the media and what the American people are able to see, hear and read.”

In India, the richest man owns NDTV, the second richest owns Network 18 Group, and the dominant media houses are all owned by businesses that must remain on the right side of the government, a “kind of anticipatory obedience” as mentioned by Simon in the article quoted above. The dividing line between editorial and management was erased well before this last decade but the results of that erasure are more evident today in India’s mediascape than earlier.

Just look at the print media on September 17, when the prime minister turned 75. Newspapers were replete with page after page of advertisements and signed articles praising Modi. As if this was not enough, a few days later, the government’s decision to lower GST rates, after the country had lived through eight years of much higher rates brought in by the same government, was also greeted with page after page of ads by businesses and corporate houses thanking Modi for taking this step. Such a display of obsequiousness to “the leader” would be considered an embarrassment in any country that claims it is a democracy and has a free press.  

In India, we’ve also had our Jimmy Kimmel equivalents. They do not appear on mainstream television but have a notable following. For instance, the stand-up comic Kunal Kamra has had multiple cases filed against him because someone, somewhere, was offended by his jokes. Or Munawar Faruqui, who was hauled off to jail during a performance in Madhya Pradesh in 2021 and finally acquitted after spending 37 days in jail.

In addition to all this, in my view, the central government’s September 16 order asking 12 independent journalists and news platforms to take down allegedly defamatory content, which included 138 YouTube links and 83 Instagram posts, on Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) removes even the chimera of pretence that it has any respect for the concept of freedom of the press. This order followed the September 6 ruling by a Delhi court, in response to a defamation suit by AEL against several journalists, asking them to take down content on AEL. The line between the government, and India’s richest man and a close ally of the prime minister, was erased by that one action.  

Although the matter continues to be heard in another court, the very fact that the government intervened on behalf of a private business, without allowing the matter to be assessed by a court of law, illustrates vividly the extent to which even the pretence of media freedom has been abandoned by this government. 

This has happened gradually over the last decade in a way that people have become used to a media that generally echoes the government’s line, questions only mildly, and stays away from any issue that could result in censure or loss of revenue.

The trajectory is now familiar. Get friendly industrial houses to buy media conglomerates. Then apply formal and informal pressure on those media houses that are still being critical. In time, mainstream media will be tamed.  

As for the pinpricks that constitute independent media, those not dependent on government advertising, or big business, you first ignore them because you think they don’t matter. Then you wake up to the fact that they do. You realise that technology has enhanced their reach. And the dwindling credibility of mainstream has further given the combined strength of many small platforms a reach that should not be ignored.

That is when you move against them. First, by protecting your main supporters, big business openly aligned with you. Then, by encouraging your loyal supporters spread across India to file cases against individual journalists or independent platforms under existing laws. These cases are filed in states where the party in power is the BJP. Hence, the police do not wait to even consider whether the complaint has any validity before they move. 

And all the while you keep assuring the rest of the world, and your followers in India, that this country is indeed the “mother of democracy” and that you are deeply committed to the Constitution and all the freedoms guaranteed in it.

The Modi government has provided a blueprint to other countries claiming to be democracies on how they can manage and capture the media.

Media spotlights leaders, but misses stories of those affected by their decisions

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on September 11, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/09/11/media-spotlights-leaders-but-misses-stories-of-those-affected-by-their-decisions

 

While Trump and tariffs continue to dominate our headlines, there is an important difference between why he is in the news, and why our leader, Narendra Modi, also continues to dominate the news. 

That the actions of the US President are headline news, not just in the US, but around the world is partly because of his open desire to be the centre of attention. He lets the media watch cabinet meetings, interactions with international leaders, and even going out to a seafood restaurant in Washington DC. As a result, he ensures that he is always in the news. You could argue that this demonstrates his commitment to transparency and democracy. Or that he is simply narcissistic and wants to stay in the limelight. Either way, no news organisation can avoid reporting on Trump. 

In India, in contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has successfully avoided any unscripted interaction with mainstream media after 11 years in office. Yet, he dominates the news in India, much like Trump. Every action, every reaction, every statement, all of them carefully scripted, are faithfully reported prominently by mainstream media. 

What’s more, op-ed articles, quite obviously written by his chosen speech writers, are sent out to all publications. Yet despite them being no more than press releases, several newspapers give these perorations pride of place on their edit pages, a space meant for exclusive contributions that are not offered elsewhere. This has become so routine that it fails to draw any comment. It is what it is, we are told. No point getting worked up.

But moving away from these attention-seeking political personas, the media can, and must, make space for the less prominent, the almost invisible, whose lives are being permanently affected by the policies propounded by the powerful.

Take the controversy surrounding the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Indian exports to the US. The news has dominated our front pages. Economists and experts have analysed the fallout. There are explainers with charts and figures spelling out the impact. 

Yet, the price for these policies is being paid not by those who find space in our media, but the voiceless, the millions of workers in the industries that have been hit by these policies.  The women who shell prawns for export, the women who work in the garment industry, the men who polish diamonds in Surat, the smaller home-based workers who do a part of the finished products. 

There have been some detailed reports in the English language media such as this one in The Hindu on the garment industry in Tamil Nadu. Many such articles focus on the owners of these industries without enough on the impact on workers, often women as in the case of the garment industry.

International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera and DW have also carried detailed reports on export industries such as the diamond cutters in Surat. This detailed report in an independent digital platform, Behanbox, is one of the few that has focused on the impact of these tariffs on women workers. The reporter points out: “In the frozen shrimp industry, women constitute over 70% of the 8 million workforce, and they perform low-end processing jobs such as deheading, peeling and sorting shrimp in cold processing plants. In apparel and textiles, they make up almost 70% of the 45 million workers, while the electronics industry is known to largely hire young women because electronics manufacturing needs ‘small and soft hands for small pieces’.” 

But by and large, such reports are few and far in between in Indian mainstream media. As a result, the majority of readers of print media probably have not understood this human angle to the tariff controversy. 

An explanation for the paucity of such reporting is the perennial challenge facing the media: even as you cover an event, how do you also ensure that you report the process that resulted in the event. The former has immediacy, is often dramatic, and draws attention. The latter requires an understanding of history, politics, and society to ensure that there is context in the reportage. It can be done. It has been done. Yet, we see little space devoted to such reporting in mainstream media today.

Another example of the importance of understanding process even as you report an event is the coverage of the horrific death of a young woman in Greater Noida on August 21. Nikki Bhati was allegedly set ablaze in her kitchen, in the presence of her three-year-old son, because she failed to meet demands for more dowry in her marital home. Her death would have been one more statistic had it not occurred in a place within easy reach of so-called “national” media and that it was also spread via social media platforms. 

But what above all her tragic death illustrated was how even the most effective laws are ineffective in changing societal mindsets. Dowry was banned by law in 1961. The law was further amended, following widespread protests and demands by women’s rights groups across India, in 1984. Yet today, in 2025, the reported deaths of young women linked with the amount of dowry they did or did not bring into their marital homes is still shockingly high.  

Remember, that for everyone reported death, there are many more that go by unreported. And as this worrying piece in Hindustan Times points out: “Dowry is perhaps India’s most normalised illegal activity, going by anecdotal evidence, but credible data on the prevalence of this menace is hard to come by. Yet there is enough evidence to flag this as a major problem.”

It is the “process” story leading to these deaths of young women that needs telling not just when there is a dramatic incident that draws media attention, but at all times. Why, when there have been decades of programmes by the government and by non-profits, to “empower” women and the “girl-child” are we still at a place where women can be murdered with impunity even in our major cities for dowry demands? Why is it that even today, parents who know their daughters are victims of extreme violence in their marital homes, still send them back and ask them to “adjust”? 

At the height of the protests by women’s groups demanding changes in the dowry law in the 1980s, the print media – and at that time there was only print – did respond by conducting its own investigations. For instance, in 1983, Indian Express carried a front-page series by two senior reporters under the banner “Why women burn” where they followed up on the so-called accidental deaths of young newly married women in Delhi.  

Although the death of Nikki Bhati did provoke some media houses to do follow-up reports such as these in The Hindu, Times of India, and Mid-day, we are now back to reading what we used to call “crime briefs”, small items spread across a newspaper reporting horrific incidents of violence against women.  

Yet, as the article in Hindustan Times quoted above points out, dowry is perhaps the most “normalised illegal activity” in India today. It calls for more focus and more investigation, to remind Indian citizens that behind the bombast about how this country is progressing, the fact that women can still be killed for dowry is a necessary reality check. This is the story behind the headline that the media needs to pursue.

From Trump’s ceasefire claim to Modi’s G-7 optics, media didn’t ask the right questions

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 19, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/06/19/from-trumps-ceasefire-claim-to-modis-g-7-optics-media-didnt-ask-the-right-questions

Did he, or didn’t he? That is a question that remains unanswered. US President Donald Trump continues to claim that he stopped the clash between India and Pakistan after India launched Operation Sindoor in May. At the same time, we are told officially that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a telephone conversation with Trump, told him in no uncertain terms that India will never accept mediation and that the “pause” between the two countries was agreed upon bilaterally.  

The Indian media’s reporting of this purported telephone conversation between Modi and Trump, soon after the latter left the G 7 summit in Canada, consisted of an almost verbatim reproduction of the external affairs ministry’s report on it. Furthermore, the claim that Trump had “stepped back” from his repeated claims that he was responsible for the end of hostilities between India and Pakistan was based on a statement Trump made after he met Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir. In it he didn’t emphasise his own role. But could this be credited to his conversation with Modi? Or was he merely being diplomatic?  

Meanwhile, reports continue to appear quoting Trump saying much the same as he had stated earlier, claiming he was responsible for the “ceasefire” between India and Pakistan. 

Another example of questions left unanswered in the coverage of foreign affairs is the recently concluded G-7 summit. It was routinely reported until Modi, who was invited rather late in the day, made it to Canada. By then, Trump had already left.  There were no official photo-op as in previous summits. So why did the Indian PM, the leader of the world’s most populous nation, feel he had to accept being a sideshow in this summit? How did India benefit? Such questions, even if they were asked, were not part of the reportage.

The Hindu was an exception as it raised some questions in its editorial. Calling it a “Failed summit”, it concluded that “To have the Prime Minister travel more that 11,000 kilometres to address one outreach session of a fractious summit may not be the most optimal use of India’s resources.” 

This is only one of the many examples of how even the print media, which still occasionally shows some spunk by asking questions, today looks and reads almost the same across publications when it comes to any foreign policy issue.

In any case, in the larger scheme of things, especially at a time when we are teetering on the verge of a major conflagration in West Asia if the US decides to enter the ongoing war between Israel and Iran, perhaps such minutiae about who said what to whom don’t really matter. Foreign affairs have rarely excited readers except when our immediate neighbours are involved. 

But because all this has been front page news, it is worth considering what the reporting tells us about the coverage of foreign affairs in the print media and the uniformity in the style and substance of it.

This virtual uniformity brings back memories of the Emergency, declared 50 years ago by Indira Gandhi, on June 25, 1975. Several newspapers are carrying articles about it, a useful education for an entire generation that knows practically nothing about it. And the BJP has decided to make political capital out of the occasion by announcing that it will hold marches and meetings on what will be called “Samvidhan Hatya Divas”. Ironical, given the many attacks on the Constitution we have witnessed in the last decade since this party came to power at the Centre and in several states.

The big difference in the last 50 years is the change in what constitutes the media.  In those days it was “press” or print media. Television and radio were government controlled.

Today, not only have print publications proliferated, but the media scene is crowded with hundreds of television channels, social media, digital news platforms and video streaming platforms. Although print has not lost its relevance as precipitously as it has in a country like the US, there is a noticeable decline as the younger generation rarely turn to a newspaper as the main source of news.

In many ways, this diversification is a good thing. It makes the job of an authoritarian regime even more difficult when it wants to control access to information. 

Indira Gandhi had a relatively easy time in 1975. Yet even then, there was an underground network through which news circulated. It was unorganised, risky and with a limited reach. Still, word did get around and once censorship was lifted in the run-up to the 1977 general elections, it was evident that people already knew about the arrests of opposition leaders, the forced sterilisation campaigns in north India, the ruthless slum demolitions in cities like Mumbai and Delhi and the “encounter” killings of people suspected of being Naxalites. None of these violations had been reported in the media.

I personally knew people who would painstakingly type out stories that had appeared in Western media on such human rights violations, make cyclostyled copies, and then post them in different parts of a city so that the source could not be traced. News also travelled through word of mouth at a time when there was nothing resembling social media. So even during such a time of oppression, when after an initial fight, the mainstream press fell in line, and most of the smaller, independent publications that tried to defy censorship were unable to survive, the government failed to clamp down completely on the circulation of news. 

Today, of course, we have a different media environment. Officially, there is no censorship. Yet, Big Media in India, including television and print, mostly toe the government line barring an occasional report or investigative story that suggests that the official narrative on any issue, foreign affairs or developmental programmes is not entirely true.

Also, despite its efforts, the Modi government has not succeeded in controlling the counter narrative on independent digital channels. Ask any ordinary person you meet – a taxi driver, a migrant worker, a domestic help. Ask them where they get their news from. Rarely will you find someone who says they read newspapers. The majority of those even interested in news, and this interest is not universal, say they access it through channels on YouTube. And some of the most popular are those that are openly critical of this government such as Ravish Kumar, Abhisar Sharma, Punya Prasun Bajpai and Deepak Sharma. 

If there is any lesson to be learned on this 50th anniversary of the Emergency, it is this. 

While controlling a diverse media is more difficult, every government with an authoritarian streak will work out ways to control it. And perhaps the sameness of coverage that we already witness on some issues in mainstream media suggests that aspects of that control are already working. 

There is no guarantee that more avenues for control of media will not be devised.  So, diversity of media cannot permanently stall a determined government’s efforts to stifle the free flow of information. In fact, the experience of the Emergency has taught us that there is no room for complacency if you believe that a free media is essential for the survival of a democracy. 

From Vantara to forest reserves, photo ops trump journalism

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on March 13, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/03/13/from-vantara-to-forest-reserves-photo-ops-trump-journalism

Compared to the Trump Tsunami that has the US president literally flooding the media with new and almost always controversial statements every day, our leaders and their politics appear almost dull. 

Even as he announced drastic job cuts in his country and the stock market went into a deep dive, Donald Trump found the time to promote his close friend and confidante Elon Musk’s electric car, Tesla, on the lawns of the White House. The concept of conflict of interest clearly does not exist in the era of Trump that we have now entered. There may be a few parallels in India.

Meanwhile, in India, the stock markets have been volatile. And there are other raging controversies, such as on the language issue and delimitation. But our prime minister seemed unperturbed as he spent a day endorsing the efforts of Anant Ambani, son of Mukesh Ambani, in setting up an animal rescue facility and what some may call a private zoo – Vantara in Jamnagar. 

Modi posed, stroking a lion who was safely ensconced in a glass cage. He was also photographed feeding tiger cubs. And all this promotional material was amplified without a question by mainstream media. There were no queries about the facility, how many animals it had, from where these animals had been brought, at what price, and whether the environment in which they were caged was suitable for them.

One newspaper did raise some questions shortly after Modi’s visit to Vantara. The Telegraph ran a story quoting a report by the Wildlife Protection Forum of South Africa (WAPFSA) which raised some uncomfortable questions about Vantara. Strangely, that story has now been taken down. And the PDF of that report as well as the statement by WAPFSA has also disappeared from its website.

But before that happened, it was mentioned in reports in Down to Earth and in Scroll, amongst other independent portals. 

The PDF of the WAPFSA report, which this columnist accessed before it disappeared, pointed out that Vantara had purchased wild animals from South Africa, some of which were endangered.  

It stated: “According to published articles, between 2019 and present day, the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust and the GZRRC have amassed what is described as an extraordinary assemblage of wildlife, including multiple endangered species. GZRRC started, according to the exact terminology of a published article, with an opening ‘stock’ of 1873 animals and during one year 2022 – 2023 acquired a further 1946 animals.” 

GZRCC stands for Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, an affiliate of Vantara.

The Down to Earth story also mentions the animals in captivity at Vantara and quotes WAPFSA: “Most wildlife experts agree that placing animals in any captive environment is itself a form of mistreatment. A life in captivity in a zoo, no matter how advanced the zoo facilities may be, can never equal a life lived in natural surroundings. Captivity enforces conditions upon wild animals in which they are not adapted to thrive.” 

Earlier in the year, Deccan Herald carried a story reporting that activists in Assam were worried about the way 21 captive elephants had been transported from Arunachal Pradesh to Jamnagar for the Vantara facility.

But these are exceptions. No questions asked or raised, no effort to get the back story. That now is the dominant norm in most of mainstream media when it comes to anything endorsed by the prime minister or the government.

For instance, after Vantara, Modi visited the 58th tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh. An obvious question that any self-respecting media organisation should have asked is: how are the other 57 doing?

Tiger sanctuaries were enthusiastically promoted in the 1970s when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. Project Tiger was hardly ever questioned except by a few journalists and activists. Anil Agarwal, the pioneering environmental journalist who set up the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), wrote this in “The State of India’s Environment 1982: A Citizens’ Report” about Project Tiger: “Project Tiger is a spectacular landmark in our efforts at wildlife conservation. A serious flaw in this approach, however, is highlighted by the situation in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Here, several tribal villages were shifted out of the core zone. Dispossessed of their habitat, the tribals soon lost the little land they were given as compensation, and became pauperised. At the same time, the authorities did not remove four cardamom estates in the heart of the core zone”.

Since then, the rights of forest dwellers have found support, and the Forest Rights Act was passed in 2006. The law is not perfect but at least it recognises that forests are not just for animals but also for the people who have always lived there. However, as with so many reasonably good laws in this country, it is observed in the breach. Unless people protest, no one pays heed to such rights, particularly when the people involved are at the bottom of the economic pyramid. 

And of course, only if people come out in substantial numbers on the streets does the media pay any heed to what they are saying.

Agarwal’s observations of the Periyar Tiger Reserve are echoed even today in other tiger reserves. Take this story by The Hindu’s Odisha correspondent Satyasundar Barik on tiger sanctuaries in the state. He points out that not only were the Adivasis forced to relocate but that out of four tiger sanctuaries in the state, one has no tigers and yet vast lands have been emptied out for it.

And this story in Down to Earth points out that even today, literally thousands of Adivasis are being evicted from lands they have occupied for generations by the process of creating inviolate spaces for tigers and other wildlife.  

“These evictions are affecting nearly 400,000 Adivasis, who are now fighting to defend their homes and heritage. Protests have erupted in major tiger reserves such as Nagarhole, Kaziranga, Udanti-Sitanadi, Rajaji, and Indravati. Demonstrators are calling for an immediate halt to what they describe as illegal actions by the government.”

You will not know any of this if you only follow mainstream media. Of course, there was a time when newspapers devoted space to environmental stories, even those that made the government or corporations uncomfortable. But that is in the past. In today’s media reality, the only environment that interests the mainstream is what happens in big cities. So, air quality, and sometimes water quality, will feature as environmental stories.

Meanwhile in the rest of the country, not only are thousands of Adivasis being displaced, but rivers are being poisoned, glaciers are melting, land degradation is evident, and the mad pace of infrastructure construction everywhere is turning cities, and even small towns into dust bowls.

Window of hope, yet little changed in media accountability in Modi 3.0

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on September 19, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/09/19/window-of-hope-yet-little-changed-in-media-accountability-in-modi-30

Since June this year, when the general election results significantly reduced the strength of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, the optimists believed that a party dependent on its coalition partners, even if it continues to be led by Narendra Modi, would be different. That the visible authoritarian tendencies of the last decade under Modi would be tamed somewhat.

How wrong they were. After 100 days in power, there is little to indicate that there is any change in direction, even if there has been some backtracking in the face of opposition. Even if some laws, like the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, have been put on the backburner, there is little to suggest that the desire to control the media by this government has been set aside.

Still, these last months since June have given both the independent and mainstream media a window to pursue the kind of journalism that is so central to democracy, one that questions the powerful, that independently checks and assesses claims by those in power, and that seeks out the voices of the many who are otherwise never heard. While independent media continues to report as the media should, there is little visible change in mainstream media.

Take, for instance, the controversy over a private function at the residence of the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. It was a Ganesh pooja. Families that follow this custom invite close family members and friends. They usually keep the idol only for a couple of days, or five to six days at most, before they submerge it. 

Questions were rightly raised, not just by the opposition but by members of the legal fraternity about the propriety of the head of the highest court inviting the head of the executive to such a private function.

While the national newspapers gave space to differing opinions about whether the CJI ought to have invited the Prime Minister, none, barring Deccan Herald, took an editorial stand. It pointed out that “such a controversy hurts the judiciary more than the executive and could certainly have been avoided. The judiciary should not only be independent and above the fray but also seen to be so”. A reasonably mild comment, but even this was missing from the other major English-language newspapers.

Indian Express gave space for two differing points of view on its editorial pages. Senior Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising, in her article, asked “whether the CJI has been true to his oath of office”. Few speculated on why the Prime Minister had chosen to publicise the private event given his record of using every opportunity to be heard and seen in the media.

The criticism by the opposition did not go unnoticed. In response, the Prime Minister, as is his wont, twisted the issue and made it one of bigotry by the other side. Here is what he said, as reported in Hindustan Times:

“The Britishers followed the policy of divide and rule. They used to hate Ganesh Utsav. Ganesh Utsav is not just a festival of faith, but it played an important role in the freedom struggle. Dividing us in the name of castes was a weapon of the British. Bal Gangadhar Tilak used community celebrations to awaken the collective conscience of the country. Today, everyone participates in Ganesh Utsav without any discrimination. But its celebration has once again become a point of contention, much like it did during the British colonial era. Even today, the power-hungry people of India who are busy dividing and breaking society are having trouble with Ganesh Puja. You must have seen that the people of Congress and its ecosystem have been angry for the last few days because I participated in Ganpati Pooja.”

This ought to have been questioned by the media because Modi has cleverly confused two separate issues. The Ganesh festival is celebrated at home by many families. But during the Independence struggle, the concept of communities jointly and publicly celebrating it became a way to confront the British authorities. Today, this custom continues, and public Ganesh pandals are visited by common people and public figures, including politicians. There is nothing wrong with a prime minister and a judge visiting the same pandal. But when a prime minister visits the home of a judge, it suggests a closer relationship, one that crosses the line of propriety given the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive in a democracy. 

Perhaps the Indian media has now become so used to not questioning that it is unrealistic to expect a change even if the June results do provide a small window. The burden for such rigorous questioning continues to fall on the small independent digital platforms that, despite their tenuous finances, turn out incisive investigative stories. An excellent example is this one by Scroll on how Indian diplomacy and the growth of Gautam Adani’s investments in countries around the world have coincided.

The state of our media has not been pinned as a major concern by any political party, whether it is in power or in the opposition. Yet, it continues to draw attention outside India.

A recent reminder is an article by the publisher of the New York Times, AD Sulzberger, in what would be considered its rival newspaper, The Washington Post. 

In a guest essay headlined “How the quiet war against press freedom could come to America”, Sulzberger writes about one political leader outside his country in these words:

“His country is a democracy, so he can’t simply close newspapers or imprison journalists. Instead, he sets about undermining independent news organisations in subtler ways – using bureaucratic tools such as tax law, broadcast licensing and government contracting. Meanwhile, he rewards news outlets that toe the party line – shoring them up with state advertising revenue, tax exemptions and other government subsidies – and helps friendly business people buy up other weakened news outlets at cut rates to turn them into government mouthpieces.”

You would not be wrong if you surmised that he was referring to Narendra Modi. In fact, this is how he described Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary. However, later in the piece, he does mention Modi, as well as the recently defeated former President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and draws parallels between these three men and how they have curbed the media but continue to claim that they are elected leaders in a democracy.

About India, Sulzberger writes:

“In India, Modi has so successfully subverted independent reporting – blocking reports on everything from mass protests against his economic policy to mistreatment of the country’s Muslim minority – that much of the mainstream press is now derided as “godi media,” generally translated as “lapdog media.” It is wrong to imagine that this is a problem for journalists alone. The repercussions of a weakened media reverberate throughout society, masking corruption, obscuring risks to public health and safety, restricting minority rights and distorting the electoral process. Democracy itself, though still intact – as gains by opposition parties in the recent Indian election underscored – is viewed as more tenuous and conditional”.

He also speculates on what would happen to press freedom if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States on November 5. The picture he paints is dire.

I have quoted from his piece at length as it is behind a paywall and might not be accessible to readers.

The gradual degradation of press freedom acts like an anaesthetic. It numbs us to a point where what would have once been unacceptable becomes the norm. Can we still turn the clock back? This is the challenge that the Indian media faces. 

In ‘robust vs rowdy opposition’ binary, Big Media blanks out parliamentary traditions

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on July 11, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/07/11/in-robust-vs-rowdy-opposition-binary-big-media-blanks-out-parliamentary-traditions

Who would have thought that a session of the Lok Sabha would draw eyeballs the way the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha has?

Since it adjourned, it has been discussed and analysed in a way we haven’t seen in any other session of parliament in recent times. The reason is obvious. There are other voices that are heard, not just those of people on the Treasury benches. And some of these, especially the first-timers, are making a mark.

For the media – which is used to turning everything into the equivalent of the Big Fight, such as the programme that was once aired on NDTV – the focus has largely been on what the newly-minted Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, said in his 100-minute speech that was marked by many interruptions. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-hour-long speech, which was not interrupted although opposition members shouted slogans such as “Justice for Manipur” while he spoke.  In those two hours, Modi did not mention Manipur even once.

The media sat in judgement to decide who did better, Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi, as if that was the burning issue of the day. Also discussed was whether it was appropriate for the opposition to shout slogans when the PM was speaking or stage a walkout as it did in the Rajya Sabha during his address. The fact that this has been done before, including by the BJP when it was in opposition, was not emphasised.

Rononjoy Sen, a former journalist who is with the National University of Singapore, reminds us in an op-ed in the Hindustan Times that the BJP had disrupted parliament using precisely these tactics in 2010-11 during the 2G scam row. In fact, Sen quotes Atal Bihar Vajpayee as saying that the “most effective way to oppose someone is a walkout” and that, in his view, this ought to be seen as the “highest form of opposition or antagonism”. 

Sen concludes: “A popular news channel recently made a distinction between a robust and a rowdy opposition. That’s a false dichotomy. The opposition can be both as long as it does not stall parliament. In a noisy and cacophonous democracy, such as India, it is unrealistic to expect otherwise.”

The day before Modi spoke, Manipur was mentioned, not just by Rahul Gandhi but more eloquently by the MP from Inner Manipur, professor Bimol Akoijam, a first-timer. Speaking close to midnight to an almost empty House, Akoijam’s words need to be heeded. I doubt if too many people were still watching the live telecast on Sansad TV when he spoke, but what he said was noted by several newspapers, and his entire speech was widely-circulated on social media.

According to The Hindu, Akoijam said, “The hurt, the anger has thrown a nobody like me to be part of this temple of democracy, beating the BJP cabinet minister. Think about the pain. I will keep quiet the moment the Prime Minister opens his mouth, and the nationalist party says that Manipur is a part of India and we care for the people of that state.”

While I doubt that the Prime Minister heard Akoijam, the next day in the Rajya Sabha, he did mention Manipur. In another long speech, he devoted five minutes to Manipur. Yes, five minutes after maintaining silence for almost 15 months.

This momentary mention made front-page news in most national newspapers the next day. But there was little by way of a critique of what he said in those five minutes, most of which was devoted, as usual, to criticising the Congress and placing the blame for what has happened in Manipur on the past. There was not a hint of acknowledgement that perhaps his government at the centre, and his party’s government in the state had fallen short. 

Only The Hindu, in a strong editorial, called him out and pointed out that “Manipur, unlike what Mr Modi asserts, is not any close to normalcy.”  It emphasised that “bluster and mere acknowledgment of the crisis will not solve the problems in Manipur and Mr Modi has to become proactive in leading changes that will lead to peace and reconciliation.”

As for others, the Indian Express waited until Rahul Gandhi visited Manipur on July 8 and met the displaced from both sides of the divide to comment. Compared to the editorial in The Hindu, the Indian Express editorial was muted in its criticism of Modi’s government. Instead of pointing out the centre’s role in allowing the situation in Manipur to deteriorate as it has, the paper praised Modi and wrote: “In his RS speech, the PM rightly spoke of the necessity to ‘go beyond politics and bring peace and stability’ to the state.” It is inexplicable that the media cannot see the politics that the BJP, at the centre and in the state, has played in allowing the crisis to fester.

The Manipur story doesn’t begin and end with statements made in parliament or slogans shouted by the opposition.  As Akoijam eloquently stated, “The silence on the Manipur tragedy is not unique, it reflects this general continuity of colonialism. A national party like BJP will be comfortable with the silence on Manipur... If you hear the anxiety and pain in my voice, please go back and see the 60,000 people languishing in relief camps, don’t talk about Partition Remembrance Day till then.” He was reflecting on the reality of his state, which is now divided to the point where it appears inconceivable that it can be put together again.

The other story that could be drowned out, literally, by all the shenanigans that we have yet to see in the forthcoming budget session of parliament is the appalling state of India’s infrastructure.

In the state of Bihar, more than a dozen bridges collapsed within a fortnight. How could this happen? Will anyone be held accountable? 

Hindustan Times followed up with this story that tells us about the pathetic situation in the state, where a maintenance policy is formulated after a bridge collapse rather than after it is built.

 

Apart from the bridges in Bihar, in the last month, there have been multiple reports about airports where roofs have collapsed or where there are serious leaks. In Delhi, the national capital, Terminal 1 had to be shut down because the roof over the driveway collapsed, killing a taxi driver and injuring others. The same thing happened at a new airport in Rajkot. And Lucknow, Guwahati, and the north Goa airport also reported leakages. Why is this happening, especially in newly-built or refurbished airports? Who is responsible?

I am waiting to be proved wrong, but I doubt if this story will be pursued as assiduously as the one of the collapsing bridges in Bihar. Many airports are run by Adani companies. Who will dare to bell that cat?