Freedom of speech in India is slipping down a slippery slope

 

Broken News 

 

Published in Newslaundry on January 21, 2021

 

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/01/21/freedom-of-speech-in-india-is-slipping-down-a-slippery-slope

 

The good news we were all waiting for in these bleak times came with India's sensational win in the cricket Test series against Australia in Brisbane on January 19. But even as we celebrated good times for Indian cricket, the bad times for Indian journalism and freedom of speech and expression continued.

 

On the very day we celebrated India's cricket victory, a court in Kutch, Gujarat issued a non-bailable warrant against senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.  He was reportedly charged under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code relating to defamation.

 

Other journalists, most notably in Kashmir, continue to face arrest and harassment and have been charged under various laws.  So why should we take note of this particular warrant against Guha Thakurta?

 

As this piece in Newslaundry explains, Guha Thakurta had been slapped with a defamation suit by the Adani group for an article he wrote in Economic and Political Weekly in 2017 alleging that the Adani group had benefitted to the tune of Rs 500 crores because the Modi government had altered special economic zone rules.

 

Earlier in the year, he had co-written another article on the Adani group which had raised questions about the group evading taxes of up to Rs 1000 crores.  It is the second article that invited legal action. The governing board of the journal chose to have the article pulled down from the website.  This led to Guha Thakurta's resignation after a short two-year stint as editor.

 

The same article had also appeared in The Wire, which was also charged but chose to contest it. The case was finally dismissed in 2019 after Adani unconditionally withdrew proceedings. Although the case against  The Wire, its editors and his two co-authors were withdrawn, those against Guha Thakurta remained.

 

A case that lay dormant since 2017 has suddenly found a new life in 2021 and the question everyone is asking is, why now?  There could be a simple explanation. On the other hand, this case could be something like a warning being sent out to other journalists digging into the functioning of a powerful industrialist who also happens to be a close ally of the prime minister. A few months ago, some questions were raised in the media about the Adani group taking over the Mumbai airport after it also acquired six other airports in India.  But nothing more has emerged about these acquisitions.

 

We also cannot forget the continuing incarceration of the young stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui. Picked up by the Indore police on January 1 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments (although the police admit they have no evidence to support this), he continues to be in jail along with five other friends. Each application for bail is turned down despite the lack of evidence as this story on the portal Article 14 sets out. And as if that was not enough, he now faces another case from Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. These are virtually copycat complaints, filed by members of the Sangh Parivar in states run by the BJP.

 

It is not hard to figure out why Faruqui is being targeted.  Had his name been Suresh or Ramesh or Surinder, would he have received the same treatment? Clearly not.  States like UP and now MP make no bones about sending out a message to all Muslims that they must behave, or else.  They cannot marry or even be seen out with a Hindu girl, and they must not be even suspected of cracking jokes about religion, lack of evidence notwithstanding. Freedom of expression, or freedom of choice, are clearly rights that are available only to some, not all, under these governments.

 

These two cases, especially that of Faruqui, should have set off alarm bells in this country amongst people who believe that the right to freedom of expression is central to our democratic values.  But sadly, with all else that is happening, this could be one more case that will be forgotten.  And who knows how long Faruqui and friends will languish in jail for a crime they did not commit. They are joining a galaxy of such individuals across India.

 

Freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, were also the subjects that featured in an important judgement delivered by the Bombay High Court just a day before the warrant against Guha Thakurta.  This was in response to a slew of public interest litigations by a group of former police officers and activists against the "media trial" conducted by some television channels on the Sushant Singh Rajput case.

 

The 251-page judgement contains much that ought to be debated within the media. It raises important questions about the importance of freedom of expression and how far it can be stretched. It discusses whether the media, particularly the electronic media, has been able to self-regulate as expected.  And it sets out some guidelines for media coverage, especially of cases involving death by suicide as in the Rajput case.

 

The court singled out two channels, Times Now and Republic, finding their coverage of the case, "prima facie contemptuous" and stated that they played the role of "investigator, prosecutor as well as the judge".  The judgement is scathing when it writes:

 

"In an attempt to out-smart each other (for reasons which we need not discuss here), these two TV channels started a vicious campaign of masquerading as the crusaders of truth and justice and the saviours of the situation thereby exposing, what in their perception, Mumbai Police had suppressed, caring less for the rights of other stakeholders and throwing the commands of the CrPC and all sense of propriety to the winds."

 

But that said, the court held that it would not be useful to pursue contempt proceedings against the two channels. Instead it discussed why the guidelines that had already been laid down by the Press Council of India (PCI), on coverage of death by suicide (which apply only to the print media), and the advisory sent out by the News Broadcasters Authority (NBA) last year, were not being followed.

 

The judgement concludes that the self-regulatory authority set up by the NBA has failed to check the channels that violate these guidelines. It also faults the government for not stepping in despite complaints that clearly related to violations of the provisions of the Programme Code set out under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act.

 

It recommends that until such time as a proper and effective way to regulate the electronic media is set up, the PCI guidelines on coverage of cases relating to death by suicide should also apply to the electronic media.  And it also outlines guidelines for the media and that violating these could invite contempt of court. 

 

It remains to be seen whether such a judgement will tone down the hysterical reportage in some channels on such cases.  However, the question that the media as a whole must discuss is whether courts should be laying down guidelines for media reporting.

 

In the light of the Faruqui case, I will leave readers with the following passage in the judgement, that quotes from the Supreme Court's ruling in the LIC vs. Manubhai D. Shah (Prof.), reported in (1992) 3 SCC 637.  I believe it has a particular relevance for these times:

 

"The words ‘freedom of speech and expression’ must, therefore, be broadly construed to include the freedom to circulate one’s views by words of mouth or in writing or through audio-visual instrumentalities. It, therefore, includes the right to propagate one’s views through the print media or through any other communication channel e.g. the radio and the television. Every citizen of this free country, therefore, has the right to air his or her views through the printing and/or the electronic media subject of course to permissible restrictions imposed under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. The print media, the radio and the tiny screen play the role of public educators, so vital to the growth of a healthy democracy. Freedom to air one’s views is the lifeline of any democratic institution and any attempt to stifle, suffocate or gag this right would sound a death-knell to democracy and would help usher in autocracy or dictatorship."

 

 

That R word again!

The Hoot

SECOND TAKE
Kalpana Sharma

Every day, reporters routinely file thousands of words of copy and only a fraction of this sees the light of day. It is part of the ‘collateral damage’ of the news world – only news that’s fit to print, we are told, survives. Or is it news that fits the emerging definition of what is “news”? 

Those who have been in the print media for the last three decades will be familiar with how this definition has changed over time. Yet, every time an ostensibly ‘newsy’ development is covered, but not printed, one needs to ask why. 

I can distinctly remember at least three press conferences where the media was present in full strength but the next day, there was practically no report. 

The first was some time in 1989 when workers from Hindustan Lever had been locked out from its Sewri plant. In protest, they had begun manufacturing a soap called Lockout, which they sold to raise funds for the workers. The newspapers reported such developments even if the space given to the workers’ point of view was perfunctory. In response to a request from the union, a fact-finding committee was constituted to look at whether the lockout was legal, and also at the conditions of the workers who had lost wages during the lockout. Krishna Raj, the well-respected editor of Economic and Political Weekly, headed this committee. 

When the report of the committee was ready, a press conference was called at the Press Club to release the report. At that time, I was a Senior Assistant Editor at The Times of India (TOI). I went to the press conference as I was interested in the report.  Reporters from my paper and practically every other newspaper in the city crowded into the room and asked many questions of the committee.  One expected that the result of such a lively press conference would be reports in the newspapers the next day. But no, there were no reports, or practically none. Certainly, TOI did not carry anything although I do know that a report was filed. I gathered that the company’s representatives had managed to speak to the newspaper’s senior management and ensure that nothing appeared. 

After I joined The Hindu, something similar happened. A woman reporter from the TV channel Sahara Samay went public with a sexual harassment charge against the person in-charge of the channel. She named him and gave detailed instances of the way she had been harassed. She also reported how the company had responded by first transferring her and then dismissing her rather than looking into her charges. Once again, the press conference was packed, this time with many television channels also recording her statement and speaking to her afterwards.  Yet, the next day, none of the Mumbai papers reported this. I filed a story that appeared in The Hindu, but the paper does not have a Mumbai edition. 

I was reminded of both these instances last week when I saw a virtual repeat of them unfold. The Mumbai Press Club must be commended for taking a risk to organise a release of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s controversial book “Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis”. Apart from the author, the club had assembled a panel consisting of former Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and senior journalists Kumar Ketkar and Govindraj Ethiraj. It was a lively discussion. Press Club President Gurbir Singh spoke of how they had tried to get a representative from the Ambanis to join the panel but the company declined because the book contained matter that they considered defamatory and for which a legal notice had been sent to the author. 

While Guha Thakurta spoke about the book and also the legal notice he and others had received from the Ambanis, Aiyar, in his inimitable style, provided several quotable quotes as he spoke about his stint as minister. He also gave his opinion on gas pricing, an issue that is currently in the news because the Modi government has decided to defer any decision on this until September. Even if the book has already been in the news since its release in Delhi, Aiyar’s comments were worthy of at least a few column inches. 

Yet, the next day, there was almost nothing on this discussion in any of the Mumbai papers; not even the financial papers, although representatives of these papers asked several pointed questions of the panelists. Only Mumbai Mirror carried something because its columnist, Ajit Ranade (who is not a journalist), used his column to write about the event and the issue of gas pricing. Asian Age had a short item, and a PTI item focused only on Mani Shankar Aiyar’s comments on gas pricing was picked up by the Economic Times. 

If this had been a big news day, one would have understood that newspapers had no space. But nothing earth-shattering happened in the city, except a fire in the administrative building of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a stone’s throw away from the Press Club. 

Significantly, Ethiraj stated that he had received a “friendly” call from a representative of the Ambanis informing him that the author of the book had been slapped a defamation notice! 

So one wonders, how many other “friendly” calls were made before  and after this event to ensure that nothing of it was reported the next day.  Even if they were not, has the media decided to be ultra cautious about reporting on the Ambanis to pre-empt any legal action? Is this not a kind of self-censorship that should have no place in a democracy? And are we going to see more of this in the future?  

These are questions that we in the media need to discuss and ask ourselves. How have we come to this stage where 39 years after Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed press censorship during the Emergency, the Indian media has decided to censor itself?