Independence Day is a reminder to ask the questions EC isn’t answering

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on August 13, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/08/13/independence-day-a-reminder-to-ask-the-questions-ec-isnt-answering

As the week leading up to India’s 79th Independence Day dawned, the condition of stray dogs in the country’s national capital made the top headlines following a ruling by the Supreme Court. While the fact of the highest court in the land addressing this issue is certainly unusual, one can question whether the story merited the page one lead in some English language newspapers.

Also, was it more important than the growing clamour by Opposition parties about discrepancies in voters’ lists? All Opposition members in Parliament staged a protest on August 11 as they marched to the office of the Election Commission but were stopped from proceeding by the Delhi police. Surely, in the context of India’s democracy and on the eve of its Independence Day, this merited more attention.

In many ways, this juxtaposition of two stories, one relating to the future of stray dogs in New Delhi, and the other relating to the future of electoral democracy in India, reflects media priorities in India of 2025.  The former will appeal to the “market” to which the media caters. The latter, if pursued and highlighted by mainstream media is likely to draw the ire of the party in power and be viewed as being pro-Opposition. 

 The issue of discrepancies in voters’ list became a topic for discussion after the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, held a press conference on August 7 presenting a detailed survey of one parliamentary constituency, Mahadevapura in Bengaluru. 

Since Rahul Gandhi’s press conference, several independent platforms and a couple of mainstream channels have followed up. But overall, national newspapers have stuck to reporting the “claims” made by Rahul Gandhi and the various protests but not done their own follow-up investigations.

The investigation by a team in the Congress suggested, based on the official data of the Election Commission, that in that one constituency questions could be raised about over 1 lakh registered voters. The voters list of Mahadevapura included duplicate votes, that is one person with more than one voter ID, unverifiable addresses, many voters registered at a single address (such as a brewery), voter IDs without photos, and voters registered as new voters who were older than the norm for such registrations.

Some newspapers took the investigation seriously enough to make an editorial comment.  The most nuanced of these was in The Hindu. Even as it acknowledged the importance of Rahul Gandhi’s presentation, it cautioned against drawing conclusions about electoral outcomes from these revelations without sufficient proof. At the same time, it emphasised that the Election Commission needed to respond to the revelations rather than casting aspersions on the motives of the person, or the party, that had done this. The editorial concluded:

“The ECI must embrace the principle that democratic institutions grow stronger through scrutiny. The alternative — continued erosion of confidence in electoral processes — poses far greater risks to democratic governance than any specific allegation of malpractice.”

The Indian Express, on the other hand, a newspaper that had done an excellent investigation into the way the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was being conducted in Bihar, chose to focus on Rahul Gandhi, calling the campaign of “Vote Chori” (vote theft) “self-serving and fraught”. Only in the last paragraph did it mildly criticise the EC for its “peeved responses”. 

Since Rahul Gandhi’s press conference, several independent platforms and a couple of mainstream channels have followed up. But overall, national newspapers have stuck to reporting the “claims” made by Rahul Gandhi and the various protests but not done their own follow-up investigations.

Meanwhile, even without the resources available to the big media houses, independent media journalists have been working and digging out information that suggests that the problem exposed in Mahadevapura is far more widespread. It calls for serious questioning of how an independent, constitutional body like the Election Commission updates voters’ lists.

On this issue, one of the first to raise the alarm was The News Minute which reported as far back as November 2022 how a non-governmental organisation called Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Institute claimed it had authorisation to collect information from voters to update voters’ lists in Bengaluru.

The story is worth revisiting now in the light of the discussion on voters’ lists as it suggests that there could have been other such interventions that were not detected or challenged and therefore not reported.

Also, in this last week, while little appeared in national newspapers, AltNews was already putting out information that mirrored some of what the Congress’s investigation revealed. For instance, it found from the official EC data that six duplicate voter ID cards were issued to the same person, Sushama Gupta from the same constituency, Palghar in Maharashtra.

A Newslaundry investigation of three Lok Sabha seats earlier this year had pointed to gaps in the way revisions were made and verified. In Bihar, a report on Kaupa village in Bihar’s Rohtas constituency revealed that several voters, listed as living in the same house, aged between 26 and 28 years, had either their own name, or the name of their father or husband as just a full stop. How has this happened when the state is going through an intensive revision of electoral rolls, and this information was gathered from the draft revised list published by the EC?

Also read this detailed investigation by the Reporters’ Collective. It found that more than 1,000 new voters registered in Valmikinagar in Bihar following the revision of electoral votes were also registered as voters in Uttar Pradesh. According to the report: “For more than 1,000 cases, we found perfect matches: Names of the voter, their ages and their listed relatives (a mandatory field in the ECI database) were exactly the same across the databases of the two states. Only, their addresses were different.”

Apart from the discrepancies in voters’ lists, in the last few years, attention has been drawn to a mismatch between votes polled and votes counted after an election. One of the first to expose this was independent journalist Poonam Agarwal, who noticed this in a constituency in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. Since then, she has persisted with the story, right up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. 

In an interview to Article-14, she describes the hurdles she has faced to expose the discrepancies between the votes polled and the votes counted after an election. She says:

“When I first started working on stories about a mismatch between votes polled and votes counted, I asked the EC questions about this mismatch. Rather than answering my questions, they removed the data from their website. I found the EC’s response very odd—not normal at all. Earlier, politicians across party lines had a sense of trust in the Election Commission and believed that whatever it did, it did with full transparency. But since 2019, and especially after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there has been growing distrust of the EC among both politicians and the public.”

It is evident from the reports that have already appeared, that the expose by the Congress, irrespective of its claims that this represents stolen votes, is a big story, one that is worth pursuing by the media.

If the EC had addressed these queries and discrepancies, it is possible that the story would have died down. But when an independent body like the Election Commission stonewalls, or prevents data from being accessed, or refuses to publish data (such as the list of the 65 lakh voters who have been held ineligible in Bihar following the SIR), we must ask why? Did it not know that there were such discrepancies? If not, why not? Did it know but chose to ignore them? If so, why? Or is there another reason?

These are perfectly legitimate questions that voters, and the media, should ask of the EC and what better time than when we are celebrating and talking about freedom and independence. 

 

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?

More arrests, Rahul Gandhi coverage: Why press freedom continues to take a beating in India

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on March 23, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/03/23/more-arrests-rahul-gandhi-coverage-why-press-freedom-continues-to-take-a-beating-in-india

In the last fortnight, Indian democracy and press freedom have taken a beating. But there have also been words spoken that are like a balm to an ever-deepening wound. They may not be able to stop this wound from festering, or to heal it, but they are worth noting and remembering.

I refer to the speech of the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, at the 16th Ramnath Goenka Awards function in Delhi on Wednesday. 

There is much in what he said that is noteworthy. But in the context of media freedom, these words are especially important:

“A functional and healthy democracy must encourage the development of journalism as an institution that can ask difficult questions to the establishment – or as it is commonly known, ‘speak truth to power’. The vibrancy of any democracy is compromised when the press is prevented from doing exactly this. The press must remain free if a country is to remain a democracy.”

For democracy to survive, the press must remain free. Yet just a week before the Chief Justice said this, a young journalist working for a local newspaper was arrested for doing precisely what Justice Chandrachud recommended that the media should do – ask difficult questions to the establishment. 

Sanjay Rana, a YouTuber who also reports for Moradabad Ujala, decided to use the occasion of UP minister Gulab Devi’s visit to Budh Nagar Khandwa village in Sambhal district, to ask some questions. He stood up with a mike in hand and listed out many unfulfilled promises as narrated to him by villagers – no toilets, unpaved road, blocked drains and more. The video of him asking the questions went viral on social media. But the price he paid for doing this, his job as a journalist, was to be arrested. Rana was released on bail because his story was noticed, and senior journalists intervened.  If they had not, he would have been another name added to the growing list of incarcerated journalists.

Two days before the Chief Justice’s reflections on the importance of a free press for a democracy, Irfan Mehraj, a Srinagar-based Kashmiri journalist was arrested. He was summoned to the police station, a routine to which many journalists in Kashmir have become accustomed. When he went there, he was arrested for a 2020 case and booked under UAPA. Mehraj is editor of Wandemagazine but also writes for Indian and foreign publications. His arrest has elicited strong statements from several organisations, including the Editors’ Guild of India, Digipub and Press Club of India as well as Mary Lawlor, the Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders.

In the context of media freedom, the other noteworthy speech at the Ramnath Goenka Awards function was that of the editor-in-chief of Indian Express, Raj Kamal Jha.  

What Jha said stands out especially in these times because just a few days earlier, another editor of a media house broke several records of sycophancy in his speech while welcoming the chief guest at that function, the Prime Minister. After the Emergency ended, LK Advani, who was the information and broadcasting minister in the Janata government, famously said of the press that when asked to bend it chose to crawl during the Emergency. In this case, even though we don’t live under a state of emergency, an editor chose not just to crawl but to literally prostrate himself before the powerful. 

But not Jha of Indian Express. In the presence of former and current ministers in the Narendra Modi government, including information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur, Jha referred to the Supreme Court as the “North Star” for journalists and journalism. Note that he spoke of the Supreme Court, the institution, not the Chief Justice, an individual. 

“Year and after year, that starlight has illuminated the road ahead,” he said, adding that the court “has kept pushing back at the State to expand our freedoms”.

And then, even as the camera panned the stony expressions of some of the luminaries in the audience, he said, “That’s why when the lights dim…When a reporter is arrested under a law meant for terrorists; another for asking a question; a university professor for sharing a cartoon; a college student for a speech; an actor for a comment; and when a rejoinder to a story comes in the form of a police FIR, we turn to the North Star for its guiding light.”

The lights have indeed dimmed for media freedom, and for democracy in India. Anyone saying this is not “defaming” India as the BJP insists as it continues its energetic attack on Rahul Gandhi for what he apparently said during his trip to Britain.  

In fact, the media’s coverage of the controversy over Gandhi’s supposed remarks, that has led to the treasury benches disrupting the working of parliament during a crucial budget session, is another illustration of the fog that has enveloped media freedom.

Rahul Gandhi spoke on several platforms during his time in Britain. He also answered questions. But most of what we have read or seen in the Indian media is the reaction of various BJP functionaries, including several ministers and the prime minister himself, lambasting him for defaming and insulting India on foreign soil and asking foreign countries to interfere in India’s internal affairs. BJP chief JP Nadda went a step further and accused him of being “a permanent part of an anti-nationalist toolkit”. 

If readers or viewers wanted to decide for themselves whether the Congress leader had crossed a line, and needed to apologise as is being demanded by the BJP, they would have had a hard time if they relied on mainstream media. If they searched social media or independent digital news platforms, they would have found reports and video clips from his various speeches and interactions. 

Take for instance, the charge that he asked foreign countries to step in. There is no evidence of such an accusation. On the contrary, in his session at Chatham House, he makes a very clear statement. When asked what governments or even people in the West should do in the light of his comments about Indian democracy, Gandhi says, “First of all this is our problem. It’s an internal problem. It’s an Indian problem. And the solution is going to come from inside, not from outside.” 

It is evident that the reason the BJP can confidently go ahead with its attack on Rahul Gandhi is because it knows that his actual statements have been sparingly reported. Deliberately, or otherwise, the Indian media has helped spread a lie.

Two other recent blows to freedom of expression, apart from the ones Jha noted in his speech, must be mentioned.

On March 10, Lokesh Chugh, a PhD student at Delhi University was suspended. His crime? He organised a screening of the controversial first episode of the two-part BBC series titled India: The Modi Question. 

And on March 22, even as the Chief Justice was speaking about freedom and democracy, an incredible 100 FIRs were lodged and six people arrested for a handful of posters pasted around Delhi with the slogan, “Modi Hatao, Desh Bachao”. 

The government, however, continues to insist that all is well with Indian democracy.

Journalism can be so much more than stenography. Ravish Kumar taught us that

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 1, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/12/01/journalism-can-be-so-much-more-than-stenography-ravish-kumar-taught-us-that

This column cannot begin without mentioning the importance to Indian journalism of Ravish Kumar, who resigned from NDTV yesterday after almost 27 years there. His video statement after resigning is not just moving but also an exemplary lesson for us on what journalism is meant to be – but increasingly isn’t in India.

Much will be written in the days to come about Ravish and his outstanding daily show, Prime Time, on NDTV’s Hindi channel. The standards he set challenged the divisive, frivolous, loud and irrelevant ranting that constitutes “news” on other mainstream television channels. He demonstrated that it was possible to go beyond “breaking news”, to bring out the voices of the people so often ignored by the mainstream, and to speak the uncomfortable truth straight to the camera without blinking and without a trace of fear. That much-used phrase, “speaking truth to power”, was indeed the foundation on which Ravish’s programme was based.

In his book, The Free Voice: On Democracy, Culture and the Nation (Speaking Tiger, 2018), Ravish admitted that at times, he was afraid – for instance, when he did a programme on the alleged murder of Judge Loya after a Caravan story on the matter. 

He wrote: “I had found release from the fear that had held me in its suffocating grip for two days. Through the duration of the show, I’d felt that every single word was holding me back, as if to warn me: ‘Enough, don’t go any further. You cannot put yours and yourself in danger just to overcome your fear. Fear does not end after you’ve spoken out. Even after you’ve spoken, fear lies in wait for you with its nets and snares.’ But I had spoken, and I was free.”

There is little doubt that Ravish’s “free voice” will be heard again in another avatar, on his YouTube channel and perhaps elsewhere. But his exit from mainstream media extinguishes the one spark of intelligent, resourceful and courageous journalism that somehow survived the last eight years, when the pressures on independent journalism escalated. 

Ravish was an exception. There is no doubt about that. The norm today is fear of the consequences if you don’t toe the line. And, every day, we see examples of this. 

On December 1, Indian Express, Times of India and Hindustan Times ran identical op-eds. The author was Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and the subject was India chairing the G-20. The Hindu also ran the piece, but on its news pages, because it was not an exclusive. Articles on the edit and op-ed pages must be exclusive. This is a well-established norm that newspapers generally follow. Clearly, a statement from the prime minister, for that is what it was and could have been dealt with in a news item, was considered an exception. Why? Has the fear of consequences distorted even established editorial norms? 

Then take the way some recent statements made on the campaign trail in Gujarat by the prime minister and home minister Amit Shah were handled by the print media. 

As a rule, most newspapers report verbatim what important politicians like the prime minister say at public events. Such statements are often displayed on the front page, irrespective of their relevance. However, during an election campaign, the meetings addressed by the prime minister are not official events. They are organised by his party and he is campaigning as the leader of his party. Yet, these meetings and his statements continue to be given the same treatment as his official engagements. 

But what if, during these election campaigns, he or someone else in high office says something that’s not entirely true, or is exaggerated, or is provocative? Should the press, even as it reports this, also call them out?

Take, for instance, the prime minister’s repeated references to activist Medha Patkar during his campaigning in Gujarat. He terms people like her “urban naxals”, he claimed she and her campaign against the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river are responsible for the lack of water in Kutch, and he has often charged her with being anti-Gujarat and “anti-development”.

His ire grew when Patkar joined Rahul Gandhi for the Bharat Jodo Yatra. This added fuel to his already charged rhetoric as he alleged a conspiracy between the Congress and Patkar to undo the Gujarat model of development.

While all this was reported without question, there was hardly any space given to Patkar or other members of the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Barring a few newspapers, like this short report in Indian Express, the prime minister’s accusations against Patkar went unchallenged. Given that Gujarat now has a generation that has only known BJP governments, knows practically nothing about what happened during the 2002 communal carnage, and will certainly have no knowledge of the history of the struggle for the rehabilitation of the oustees of the Sardar Sarovar dam, it is inexcusable that even this kind of routine effort was not made to give the other side of the story.

That perspective is essential for many reasons. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the questions raised by the NBA about the dams on the Narmada river, including the Sardar Sarovar, played an important part in establishing the importance of incorporating environmental and social norms in any large developmental project. Indeed, the concept that development itself could be destructive evolved around that time.  

Since then, India has adopted the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals that are based on these concepts. Yet, the concept of “sustainable development” has clearly not been fully understood or accepted given the prime minister’s hostility towards people like Patkar who continue to be labelled as “anti-development”. 

It is a matter of record that the Narmada dam oustees, including those in Gujarat, had to fight every step of the way for compensation, resettlement, and rehabilitation. None of it happened automatically. And some of the issues remain unresolved.

Indeed, as this insightful report by Manisha Pande of Newslaundry shows us, the people ousted from their land to build the gigantic Sardar Patel Statue at Kevadia on the banks of the Narmada are still angry and unhappy.  You hear little, if any, of this on mainstream media. 

Elections give journalists an opportunity to go behind the obvious and report.  And during the run-up to the Gujarat elections, there have been many insightful reports in the print media, and on digital platforms. Apart from several excellent reports in Newslaundry, I would like to mention this India Fix column in Scroll, where Shoaib Daniyal illustrates the gaping holes in the much lauded “Gujarat model” of development. The state has high rates of stunting of children, has high levels of infant mortality, and is a low 17th in the all-India ranking on education. The series of reports by Arunabh Saikia in Scroll are also worth reading for the perspectives they provide, such as this one on the Mundra port operated by the Adani group. 

Coincidentally, even as our newspapers were reporting verbatim everything Modi said during the election campaign, in the US, former president Donald Trump did not get off so lightly. This story in the New York Times is an example of what can be done. The paper fact-checked a speech made by Trump when he announced that he would run again for president in 2024. Would any Indian newspaper, or TV channel, ever do this in India? I realise that this is a rhetorical question for which there is only one answer.

Another example of how the media fails to question statements made by politicians is the many thinly veiled threatening statements made by Amit Shah during his Gujarat campaign. At a rally in Mahudha in Kheda district, as reported by Indian Express, Shah said: “In 2002, communal riots took place because the Congress people let it become a habit. But such a lesson was taught in 2002 that it was not repeated from 2002 to 2022.”

The statement was widely reported, even on the front pages of some newspapers, but there was no comment following it. On the other hand, the Guardian in the UK published a strong editorial comment in which it pinned Shah’s statement. It said, “On the campaign trail last Friday, India’s home minister claimed troublemakers had been ‘taught a lesson’ in 2002. This sounded like a signal to Hindu mobs that they could do as they pleased.”

Shouldn’t such an obvious statement from none other than India’s home minister, responsible for law and order, have drawn a comment from the Indian media? Tragically, the answer to this question is also obvious.

 

3,500 km but who’s watching? How Big Media dropped the ball in its coverage of Bharat Jodo Yatra

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on October 13, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/13/3500-km-but-whos-watching-how-big-media-dropped-the-ball-in-its-coverage-of-bharat-jodo-yatra

As journalists, we can support or oppose a political party, like or dislike a politician. But that is an individual choice. In our capacity as journalists who report on events, we are compelled to put aside our personal prejudices when we report. At least, that is the ideal and that is what we are trained to do as journalists.

We know, of course, that such an ideal scenario barely survives today. With a nation so deeply divided along political and religious lines, especially in the last eight years since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the centre and in several states, we have seen these divisions reflected in media coverage.

An ongoing example of this is the Bharat Jodo Yatra, or what is being called Rahul’s Yatra. Rahul Gandhi has set off with a group of Congress supporters and others not in the party to walk roughly 3,500 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Just the concept of a group of people undertaking such a journey, irrespective of who they are, should pique the media’s interest. Even more so when the central figure is a leading opposition politician, one who has been the focus of much derision from the governing party.

Yet, if you want to know what’s happening with this yatra, you must look hard to find reports. There are reports, but they are skeletal at best, simply stating the route the yatris are taking and quoting either Gandhi after his daily press conference or some other Congress leaders.

You can also watch the yatra on YouTube on the official feed of the Congress party. Unfortunately, this consists of endless footage of people walking with flags. The camera is always focused on Gandhi who leads from the front. There is no commentary. Every now and then, you see him hug children or the elderly or someone who has been in the news, like the mother and sister of murdered journalist Gauri Lankesh.

But that’s it. You don’t get a sense from these reports of the places the yatra has touched, or of the people watching from the sidelines. Who are they? What are they thinking? Is this just a tamasha they feel they cannot miss? Do they even understand the concept of Bharat Jodo? These are some of the obvious questions that come to mind, especially if you are a journalist reporting on such an event.

But in the mainstream media, much of this remains unanswered.

Instead, the media features the usual discussions on whether the yatra will yield political dividends, whether it will work as a public relations exercise to refurbish Gandhi’s image as he has been frequently accused of not being a serious politician, or why the yatra is spending so many days in one state and not in another. While such speculation is unavoidable given the rapidly declining political stature of the Congress party – and the fact that even if Congress spokespersons insist this is not “Rahul’s yatra”, he is the most obvious focus of it – there is one more reason why the reporting must go beyond this.

For instance, when reporters are sent out to cover elections, they report what politicians say and speculate on the hold of one party or another. But going out into the field also gives them an opportunity to get the pulse of the public, to speak to ordinary people, to understand the issues that concern them, and to convey this to readers. Such reporting has been on the decline in recent years as media houses cut back on investing in news gathering. But there is still enough of it to provide a granular feel of the issues that concern people during an election.

Covering an event like the Bharat Jodo Yatra ought to be seen as a similar opportunity. How many photographs can you keep seeing of Gandhi beaming at some young girl or boy who has rushed up to him (carefully curated, of course), or of his bending down to tie his mother’s or some other yatri’s shoelaces? There is surely more to this yatra than that. 

To find such reporting, you must look hard and literally search the net. It is possible, of course, that regional language papers have been giving it more detailed coverage as the yatra traverses these states. And it is more than likely that the Delhi-based “national” media will wake up to it when it hovers closer to the national capital. But so far as mainstream English language newspapers are concerned, the reports with the kind of details one is looking for are so few as to be missed entirely.

As always, the independent digital platforms fill the gap in reporting. For instance, Shoaib Daniyal of Scroll wrote about the people walking with Gandhi. The profiles give you a hint of the variety of individuals who must be part of the exercise. He writes: “One of the biggest benefits of reporting on the big political palooza that is the Congress’s cross-country Bharat Jodo Yatra is seeing the diversity of the people who participate in India’s political system.”

Another report, also in Scroll, has greater depth, perhaps because it is written by a non-journalist. Ramani Atkuri is a public health professional based in Bengaluru. She joined the yatra with a group of friends. She explains, “For me, joining the Yatra was a personal protest against the state of the nation today, and a chance to show solidarity with someone standing up against it, especially the hate and divisiveness. It was also a protest against the shrinking of our freedoms. I guess there comes a time we must each stand up and be counted.”

In Karnataka, Dhanya Rajendran of the News Minute has been tracking the yatra. Her reports provide both the political and the larger atmospherics of the yatra, as in this video. Even though it is essentially an interview with Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh, we also hear other voices, both sceptical and supportive.

Occasionally you come across a story that tells you about the places the yatra is passing through. For those not familiar with the southern states, many of these places are just names. Yet each point on the route has a history, sometimes of conflict between religious groups, sometimes between castes. Has there been a negative reaction from the dominant groups here? If so, was there any display of hostility? It would have been interesting to know. But largely, that aspect has remained uncovered by the media.

Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj India is a supporter and participant in the yatra. But he is not a Congress worker. And his perspective remains interesting because it explains, perhaps, why so many from civil society, such as Ramani Atkuri quoted above, have set aside their reservations about the Congress party and decided to join the yatra at various stages. 

Yadav spells out why he believes the yatra should be viewed as more than a political tamasha. Even if one does not agree with all he writes, his opinion is worth more than a glance. An important point he makes, for instance, is that this is an actual padyatra, where participants, including the leading lights, are physically walking every day up to 26 km. This is unusual as the routine “road shows” by politicians consist of them driving to a spot where the media is present, talking to “ordinary” folk for photo ops, and then driving on. Their feet don’t touch the ground for very long.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra still has a lot of ground to cover. And as I said earlier, it is entirely possible that the so-called “national” media will wake up to it when it enters their territory in the north. But till then, we can read and watch some of the better reporting on the Bharat Jodo Yatra so that it also becomes the Bharat Samjho Yatra.

Why Rahul’s speech should remind Big Media of the other India

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 3, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/02/03/why-rahuls-speech-should-remind-big-media-of-the-other-india

Rahul Gandhi's speech in Parliament on February 2, in response to the union budget, made it to some front pages﹘Indian Express, Telegraph and Hindustan Times, but not the Hindu or the Mumbai edition of Times of India.

While the Hindu ran it across two columns on page 8, TOI did not report it at all in the edition I checked. It was an important intervention, whether you agreed with what he said or not. Then why bury it, or ignore it altogether?

The newspapers that did report Gandhi's speech picked his key point about there being two Indias, one of the rich and the other of the poor.

This is not even a debatable issue any more given the statistics in the Oxfam report on inequality in India. The top 10 percent of the country control 77 percent of its wealth. And between 2018 and 2022, India has apparently produced 70 new millionaires a day, states the report.

That other India, of the poor, was barely represented in the media as a whole on the days following the economic survey and the budget. Many pages, with colourful graphics and illustrations, were devoted exclusively to reporting and comment on the budget. Typically, the most space was given to the responses from industry and the markets.

How many newspapers sent out reporters to speak to poor people to find out whether the budget means anything to them or not?

In the 1980s, when neither private television channels nor social media existed, print media made it a ritual to get the views of the aam janta on the budget. Of course, quite often this vox populi consisted of a quote from the cigarette and paan vendor outside the respective newspaper office. But at least an effort was made to find out what ordinary people thought.

Today, it is evident that media houses calculate that these voices will not sell their product. So why devote space to them?

On the day the budget was presented, I spoke to two men who can be found on a pavement in one of Mumbai's upmarket localities. Shankar is a cobbler, originally from Satna district in Madhya Pradesh. Srinath sells bananas and is from Allahabad (now Prayagraj) district in Uttar Pradesh. Both men have been around for over two decades. Shankar has a room elsewhere; Srinath sleeps on the pavement next to his stall.

Neither had any idea what I was talking about when I asked them about the budget. Did they know that this happened every year, I asked. No, said both.

I explained briefly what it was about. Srinath, who is always ready with a philosophical comment to any question I ask, said, “What difference does it make to our lives what these politicians say? We are barely surviving.” Shankar echoed these sentiments, adding that in his village, people had no work. He had no option but to continue to sit on that patch of pavement and work as a cobbler.

I know two is not a representative sample. But any conversation, even if it is not for a story, with that other India reminds us that for a vast majority of this country, the hectic and loud discussions on television, or the learned op-eds in print on the annual union budget, mean very little.

What Gandhi said will be debated, and ironically the responses to his speech by ministers and spokespersons of the BJP will be reported at length even if what he said was barely covered. But apart from the slanging matches that have predictably followed Gandhi's speech, surely the media can occasionally turn its eyes towards that other India? Speaking to people like Shankar and Srinath might not make for scintillating copy. But talking to them acknowledges that they exist, that they are as much a part of this country as the experts we quote.

K Sujatha Rao, former union health secretary, in her op-ed in Indian Express on February 2, makes a telling comment that ought to be a cue for a media follow up. She writes, “Inequalities have widened. An estimated Rs 70,000 crores have been spent by the people in this short time for medical treatment that the government ought to have provided.” The period she is referring to is the Covid pandemic. The Oxfam report quoted above reiterates this by pointing out that health care in India is virtually a luxury good, only available if you can pay for it.

Yet, given that health reporting has now become one of the most important beats in the last two years, you have to work hard to find the stories that tell us about the state of public health care. Most often such stories can only be found on independent digital platforms.

Take, for instance, this story by Parth M N on the Pari website. He reports from UP about a community of Musahars, the lowest even amongst scheduled caste communities. His story tells us not just about the lack of adequate health infrastructure, but also about deep prejudice, where a Musahar woman is forced to deliver her child on the pavement outside a hospital because the staff will not admit her.

Another woman tells him how many of them preferred to stay at home when they took ill during the second wave of the pandemic last year rather than go to a hospital. “Who wants to be humiliated when you are already scared of the virus?” she said.

Parth also spoke to Muslims in nearby villages who tell their own stories of discrimination and being compelled to go from one hospital to another to get emergency treatment. As a result, most of them have built up debts due to medical expenditures.

Illustrating Sujatha Rao’s point about the money people have been forced to spend during these pandemic years, Parth writes, “In many of UP’s villages across nine districts, people’s debt grew by 83 percent in the first three months of the pandemic (April to June 2020). The data was gathered through a survey by COLLECT, a collective of grassroots organisations. It recorded that in July-September and October-December 2020, the increase in indebtedness was 87 and 80 percent respectively."

This is the type of granular reporting that is sadly missing from the English print media today, barring an exceptional story. As a result, that other India is vanishing from our consciousness, even though it represents the majority of the citizens of this country.

In the past, election coverage gave journalists an opportunity to understand the real problems that people faced in rural India.

Today, you read endless reports about caste and community calculations and the strengths and weaknesses of various political parties and politicians in the fray. While this has to be reported, do people reading these stories know anything about the region being covered? Do these places have their own histories? What are the sources of livelihood? Is there availability of water? What about public health care facilities? Are they within reach or do most people pay private doctors and fall into debt? And what about environmental issues?

These issues can be integrated into the reporting on elections. They give the reader a picture of parts of India that are otherwise routinely ignored. They come into our line of vision only if there is a major calamity. And, of course, during an election.

Such stories make for much more interesting reading than the routine and predictable. Yet, once again, it is hard to find such reporting in mainstream media. On the other hand, independent digital platforms like Newslaundry, Wire and Scroll are doing this with fewer resources.

While at least some people have appreciated Rahul Gandhi’s reminder of the other India in his speech, it is likely to be forgotten soon. As election day approaches, Big Media is in full form speculating about winners and losers. In the meantime, the Shankars and the Srinaths of this country will still be there, just barely.