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

 BROKEN NEWS

Published in Newslaundry on February 9, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on January 27, 2023

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

The Modi government has scored a self-goal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joshimath’s story dates back decades. That’s why media must dig deep

Broken News 

Published in Newslaundry on January 12, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/01/12/joshimaths-story-dates-back-decades-thats-why-media-must-dig-deep

A small town in Uttarakhand has made it to the front pages of newspapers, and as the top story in many television news shows. Joshimath, a town of a little under 17,000 people in Chamoli district, is already well-known to trekkers, those wanting to explore the Himalayas, and Hindu pilgrims. But today, its claim to fame is that it is sinking.

It is also in danger of becoming an adjective – a descriptor of what happens when we ignore concepts of sustainability as we pursue so-called “development”. 

Predictably, when the cracks in Joshimath’s buildings could no longer be ignored, the government moved on a “war footing”, as did the media. We watched videos and saw visuals of distressed residents pointing to huge cracks in their homes, read about a hotel tilting onto another, and listened to experts who said they knew this crisis was imminent.

Yet, the roots of the current crisis – of a town literally sinking – have probably not yet sunk in, either to the lay media-consuming public with an increasingly diminishing attention span, or to the people who pushed through plans to build power plants and blast the fragile mountains for roads, despite adequate warnings from experts. 

There is a message here for the media – a message it continues to ignore. Even if you report on a disaster, integrate the perspectives that explain the reasons for it. It’s not difficult to do this. And if it’s done, chances are that more people will understand why many of the projects being pursued in the ecologically fragile environment of the Himalayas spell disaster.

Of course, as always, there are exceptions. Newspapers and digital platforms have carried excellent explainers that an interested reader can plough through (see here and here). But useful as this is, it is not enough. The facts tracing this disaster to earlier policies are clear. They need to be repeated, they need to be integrated in the reporting. 

Few can explain more simply than Dehradun-based veteran environmentalist Ravi Chopra, who headed the high-powered committee looking at the environmental impact of the Char Dham project in Uttarakhand. He resigned last February because their recommendations were ignored. Read his interview in Down to Earth and his op-ed in Hindustan Times that say all that needs to be said. 

Another article in Down to Earth also reminds us that what’s happening in Joshimath today could happen in a number of other towns in Uttarakhand, including the popular tourist resort of Nainital, before too long. The reasons are the same: unsustainable development that pays no heed to the carrying capacity of the natural environment.

The new year has begun with another environment-related story on the front pages, one that gives all of us a sinking feeling. In 2021, of the 50 most polluted cities in the world, 35 were in India. The situation today is likely to be no different, perhaps even worse. Not just Delhi, but in dozens of other small and big cities in this country, residents are choking from poisonous air. You don’t need a viral infection to get lung congestion these days. You only need to breathe the air.

According to the World Health Organisation, 90 percent of the world’s population breathes air that is worse than acceptable limits. But within that, it is people in low- and middle-income countries like India that suffer the most. In any case, India has diluted WHO standards for air quality although revising them is being discussed. At present, what is considered “good” air quality here in India is actually “moderate” or even “poor” air quality according to WHO standards.

Like the Joshimath story, the reports we read do not adequately explain the current air pollution crisis in India. Even as the air quality index climbs higher in city after city, there are some reports explaining the possible reasons: vehicular pollution, construction dust, industrial pollution, etc. 

The factors contributing to air pollution, such as vehicular pollution, have been known for decades. Most readers today would not be aware that in the 1990s, one man fought determinedly for a change in the fuel used in public transport in Delhi. That was Anil Agarwal, who set up the Centre for Science and Environment. The air pollution levels in Delhi at that time were nowhere as bad as they are today. Yet, Agarwal, who suffered from chronic asthma and later succumbed to cancer, campaigned through CSE for a change in fuel used in public transport in Delhi from petrol and diesel to CNG. Several other cities implemented this in later years. The 2010 CSE report, Slow Murder: The deadly story of vehicular pollution in India, is worth revisiting even today.

But despite campaigns by CSE and other environmental groups about the polluted air in our cities, there is little to no outrage about the many projects being implemented that do nothing to address the problem. Instead, more roads are being built to accommodate a greater volume of vehicular traffic using fossil fuels, there is little to no compulsion on the building industry to implement dust alleviating strategies, and the system to keep a check on levels of pollutants emitted by industries and thermal power stations in the vicinity of cities remains impaired despite decades of debate about it.  

Every year during the winter months, we see photographs showing us what we can see when we look out of our windows. Yet those with the power to take hard decisions – such as suspending all construction activity during the worst days, or restricting vehicular movement – choose to ignore what stares them in the face and invades their nostrils as much as those of ordinary citizens. Could this be because there is no public outrage?

Unlike in Joshimath, where the buildings with cracks face demolition, and the anxious and angry owners of these structures are out on the streets protesting, India’s urban residents seem to have accepted a slow death from poisonous air with apparent equanimity. 

One reason for such a passive response can be attributed to the class factor. The people most affected by the poisonous air quality are the homeless and those who are compelled to do outdoor physical labour – basically the poorest in our cities whose voices are rarely heard. The better-off have windows they can close, with air-conditioning in their cars and homes that allows them to insulate themselves. Possibly, this is one reason why the problem of air pollution has rarely moved the powerful, nor led to drastic changes in the way we view urban development. For instance, as Shoaib Daniyal points out in this article, bus commuters who are the majority in any city rarely get their voices heard over private car owners. 

In this gloomy scenario, here’s a suggestion for the media. What if in all the 35 cities on the top of that list of polluted Indian cities, local newspapers, radio stations and TV channels ran a daily count of not just the poor air quality, but of the number of people hospitalised and dying from respiratory infections? In the last three years of the pandemic, many media outlets did this, tabulating daily the number of people afflicted, hospitalised, or dead due to Covid. Surely, such a proactive step by the media would play a significant part in building up public opinion that could then put pressure on decision-makers to act. 

That’s another item for my wish list for 2023.

Backward districts, health infra: What mainstream media reportage can help change in 2023

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 29, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/12/29/backward-districts-health-infra-what-mainstream-media-reportage-can-help-change-in-2023

The end of the year usually leads to reflections on the year gone by. But let me break with tradition and instead set out a wish list for the kind of coverage we can hope for in the coming year. This could be wishful thinking given that 2023 is an election year with nine states going to the polls. But there’s no harm in hoping.

Even as the media is as usual dominated either by politics or, as in the case of TV news, nonsensical controversies – such as the saffron bikini drama – manufactured out of thin air to get eyeballs, there are some stories that somehow break through. It’s possible that only those of us interested in these issues read them (here I refer to print and the online portals). Yet, the very fact that a few stories of the kind I am going to highlight make it into print, gives us some hope that all is not lost.

The Mumbai edition of Indian Express has started a series on health care in rural Maharashtra. With the possibility of Covid once again rearing its head in India, health infrastructure is a relevant subject as we know from our experience of the last three years. As the redoubtable Dr Gagandeep Kang, Professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore has repeatedly reiterated, healthcare systems that are already stressed perform badly during an emergency – such as the pandemic we have lived through.

For rural India, the absence of adequate health infrastructure has been a tragic reality even as India struts on the global stage claiming to be a power that the world should reckon with. We remain mostly unaware of the extent of the health crisis in much of rural India because, in recent years, mainstream media has turned its attention away from such issues. 

The series in Indian Express, by Rupsa Chakraborty, begins by focussing on one of the poorest districts in Maharashtra, Nandurbar. Some parts of this district touch the banks of the Narmada river, and many Adivasi-dominated villages in this district were submerged in the backwaters of the Narmada following the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat. The story of their struggle for adequate compensation and relocation is well-known. 

The villages that escaped submergence continue to suffer much of the developmental neglect that affected those that had to move. For instance, even today, as reported by the Indian Express, levels of malnutrition and the number of severely malnourished children are higher in Nandurbar than in other districts in Maharashtra. The situation was no different in 1984 when I, then working in the Mumbai edition of Indian Express, first heard about Nandurbar.

Chakraborty assesses the state of the 11 primary health centres set up in the district in the last two years at a cost of Rs 6 crore each. They were brand new two years ago. Today, she writes, their condition is “abject”.

The one she visited in Bilgaon, inaugurated just a year ago in 2021, lacks basic infrastructure like electricity. The medical officer treats his patients using a torch once it is dark. This PHC covers 11 villages with a population of 14,221. The nearest alternative, a better equipped facility at the sub-district headquarters, is 104 km away.

Not just electricity, there is often no water either. After it was inaugurated, the PHC received water from a tanker. But this stopped well before a water connection was installed as late as September this year. Apart from these basic infrastructure deficiencies, the PHC is also poorly staffed, a depressingly familiar story. 

Apart from these PHCs on land, several villages on the banks of the Narmada were supposed to be served by floating dispensaries and water ambulances. Their state is not much better, as described by the reporter. 

She writes, “Over a decade ago, the state government had launched two floating dispensaries to provide healthcare to nearly 20,000 tribals residing in 33 hamlets – inaccessible by road along the Narmada river. These tribals were displaced during the construction of the Sardar Sarovar project…More than a decade later, one of the floating dispensaries has broken down beyond repair and presently lies in a godown. The other, around 20-ft long, is in a rickety shape, with medical staff as well as patients afraid to board it scared that it may capsize any moment.”

The point about narrating these details is that even though the stories are about a particular part of India, they reflect the reality in many parts of this country. Even during the pandemic, although there was some reporting from rural areas, it was inadequate. Most of the focus was on urban India where the media is based. As a result, even today, we don’t have the full story on how people – such as those living in districts like Nandurbar – dealt with the pandemic.  

The last three years have clearly established the need for well-trained health reporters who can understand the science, but also the politics and the economy of health care. For instance, more probing questions need to be asked not just of the government but also of the pharmaceutical industry. And editors need to back reporting that requires going to areas away from the limelight, such as these backward districts, that tell us the real story of disease, health care and survival. 

There are, of course, many more areas that mainstream media should investigate. But to start with, it could look at the state of health care and health infrastructure in India’s most backward districts. Even if the authorities don’t instantly respond to such stories, media scrutiny and civil society pressure represent the only hope for things to change for people living in these areas. 

I cannot end this last column of 2022 without once again reminding readers about journalists who are still in jail. Siddique Kappan, who was arrested in 2020 on his way to cover the gangrape, and subsequent death, of a Dalit woman in Hathras, UP, has finally got bail. But as of writing he continues to languish in jail.

And in Kashmir, Fahad Shah, editor of Kashmir Walla, Sajad Gul from the same publication, as well as Aasif Sultan of Kashmir Narrator, are still in prison under the draconian Public Safety Act.  

A senior Kashmiri journalist told me that up to 50 Kashmiri journalists have had to leave Kashmir and go elsewhere looking for jobs because workinSg in the erstwhile state has become virtually impossible. A Kashmiri journalist told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the media in Kashmir “has reached a breaking point, where journalists are wondering whether it’s worth it to report from Kashmir”.

This then is the other reality that we must remember, and repeatedly highlight, as we go into 2023. We cannot speak of freedom of the press so long as journalists are behind bars just for fulfilling their professional commitments as reporters. Journalism is not a crime.

In rare reports on the Adani empire, a reminder of independent media’s significance

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 15, 2022

Few would have heard the name of TV journalist Govind Wakade. He works for TV18 and is based in Pune. 

Wakade went to cover a function at Pimpri Chinchwad on December 10 where a Maharashtra government minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chandrakant Patil, was speaking. During the meeting, someone in the audience was incensed enough at a remark made by Patil to hurl an inkpot at him. The moment was captured by Wakade on his camera. The clip was shared widely on social media.

The next day, on December 11, Patil claimed that the attack was planned and demanded an investigation. As reported here, he went further by asking: “How did that journalist get the exact angle when the ink was being thrown at me? Who is that journalist? If by tomorrow morning, this journalist is not traced, I will sit on a fast at Pimpri police station.”

The police responded promptly by finding Wakade and summoning him to the police station for questioning. They did not, however, arrest him.

This incident, and the minister’s comment, exemplifies the attitude of those in power towards the media. It also illustrates the reality of press freedom in India, tenuous at the best of times. Today, journalists are at risk even if they are simply doing their jobs, of recording events and reporting them.  

How did we descend to such depths? The annual report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the media landscape in India is scathing.  The government, of course, will ignore it, as it has in previous years. Why should it care that India is ranked 150 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index? All that matters now, it seems, is that India is heading the G20!

The RSF report, however, is worth more than a passing glance. It calls India “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media” with “an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year.” 

Apart from flagging the violence that journalists face, and the very real possibility of arrest, the report also mentions the concentration of ownership in mainstream media. This is often overlooked in discussions about media freedom, but as we are seeing, when media owners and those holding political power come together, the idea of a free press becomes something of a mockery.

To quote from the report again:

“The Indian press is a colossus with feet of clay. Despite often huge stock market valuations, media outlets largely depend on advertising contracts with local and regional governments. In the absence of an airtight border between business and editorial policy, media executives often see the latter as just a variable to be adjusted according to business needs.”

“An airtight border” between the business side and editorial began crumbling a while back. I can remember from my time in the Mumbai edition of a national daily newspaper several instances where instructions came directly from the owners to the editors. For instance, reporters on the health beat were told that nothing critical should be reported about a particular hospital because the owners of the publication also served on the hospital’s board. Similarly, a news story quoting from an independent investigation into violation of workers’ rights by a leading multinational in Mumbai was dropped at the last minute because the company representative spoke directly to the owner who then instructed the editor. The newspaper received generous advertising from this company. This was in the 1980s. 

Today, not only are media houses treading on eggshells when it comes to the government, but they are also selective about writing critically about powerful business houses, especially those in complete sync with the current government. You see this every day in the choice of stories mainstream media chooses to highlight, and those it ignores.

On December 12, the Washington Post ran a frontpage story with the headline: “In Modi’s India, an empire built on coal”. It is highly unlikely that any of India’s leading national dailies would have run this story on their front pages, or even inside. The story caused something of a buzz on social media. Yet, those outside the social media realm, and who don’t read international publications, would not know of this investigative report because it was not reflected either by way of a comment, or a report in mainstream Indian media.

The story’s focus is a coal-fired power plant in Godda, in Jharkhand, that is part of the expanding empire of Gautam Adani. It reveals how rules were changed to accommodate the setting up of the plant which is scheduled to supply power to neighbouring Bangladesh courtesy of an agreement between our two countries. 

For an audience outside India, the story shows how India continues to use coal for power generation even as the world is moving away from fossil fuels due to the ugly reality of climate change. In India, the story illustrates how when people holding political power and private business work together, there is no obstacle too great that cannot be overcome. 

In this case, the private business happens to be owned by Gautam Adani, who is, as the Post reminds us, not only “the largest private developer of coal power plants and coal mines in the world”, but also “the second-richest person on the planet, behind Elon Musk” whose earnings have doubled just in the last three years. 

For those who follow some of these issues closely, much of what appears in the Post story has been reported before. The advantage the Post had was that it could cover the Bangladesh angle which an Indian publication would find difficult.  

In 2019, Scroll carried a detailed three-part investigation into the same power plant in Jharkhand. But these reports did not receive the kind of attention that has been accorded to the Washington Post story. 

The reports in Scroll in 2019 by Aruna Chandrasekhar are meticulous in their detail. They are well worth reading because they illustrate the kind of journalism that we need today but is sadly missing because media houses will not invest in the in-depth reporting that brings to light facts otherwise obscured. 

Her reports highlighted how the Jharkhand government, then ruled by the BJP, amended its energy policy in such a way that Adani got a higher price for the power generated. She spoke to the villagers who lost their land to the project, and also reported how converting the project into a special economic zonefacilitated saving of taxes and additional profits to the company. 

Holding the powerful to account does not relate only to the government. It also means the economically powerful, whose interests often coincide with those holding political power, as in the present case. That is why these stories on the Adani empire are so significant. They are also a reminder, yet again, of the importance of independent media, because even the most powerful will not be able to erase the facts recorded in such reports. 

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.

 

A question of judgement: Lessons for independent media from the Meta-Wire affair

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on November 4, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/11/04/a-question-of-judgement-lessons-for-independent-media-from-the-meta-wire-affair

The Meta-Wire affair, as it has come to be called, has thrown up many questions that touch on editorial processes, the survival of independent media, and the response of the state to criticism.

The Wire, an independent digital news portal, has publicly admitted that it erred in running a series of stories that implicated tech giant Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The stories made the false claim that Meta gave Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s IT cell, the right to directly take down posts on Instagram that he finds offensive. 

In its apology on October 27, the Wire acknowledged that the “internal editorial processes which preceded publication of these stories did not meet the standards that the Wire sets for itself and its readers expect from it.” However, it did not issue an apology to Malviya or Meta. Two days later, Malviya filed a case against the Wire for cheating, forgery, criminal defamation and criminal conspiracy. The Delhi police followed this up with raids on the homes of the Wire’s editors and its office.

In the meantime, the Wire has also filed a case against its researcher Devesh Kumar for “forgery and fabrication”.

The most obvious questions that arise are about the Wire’s editorial processes. The platform is run by three experienced editors: Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu and Sidharth Bhatia. How could they have allowed these stories to run in the first place? Why were they not put through the kind of rigorous editorial scrutiny expected of investigative stories that name a specific individual and an institution? Given that Devesh Kumar, who investigated these stories and lined up the so-called “evidence”, was not a journalist but on contract to the website for tech input, why did the editors buy his story without double-checking every detail?

The Wire’s editors have still to provide adequate answers to these questions. In their statement, they also admit that an obvious learning from this incident is that the “editing process for any investigative story should involve multiple layers of editors. We are instantly putting in place appropriate protocols to ensure this happens.”  

But such an editing process for investigative stories is a standard practice in any respectable publication. Why did the Wire not have this in place earlier? 

Any editor ought to know that a story that implicates an individual – in this case a person who belongs to a powerful political party – must be handled with even greater rigour because of the possibility of a criminal defamation case. This does not mean that you cannot, or should not, take on the powerful. In fact, the phrase “speaking truth to power” means precisely that the media must be prepared to take on the risks involved in exposing the wrongdoings of the powerful. But such reporting comes with a cost.

If there is even the slightest doubt, the axiom “when in doubt, leave out”, that we are taught as journalists, is the best one to follow. This is even more pertinent today as technology has allowed the proliferation of fake news to such an extent that even people who are not particularly tech-savvy are able to manipulate information and visuals and put out false narratives. Today, the gatekeepers in the media need to be even more sceptical and cautious when offered “scoops” that expose the powerful. Given that the Wire does not have the funds to fight protracted legal cases, it is unclear why such precaution was not taken. Besides, this is the least a journalistic organisation must do to retain credibility if it positions itself as an independent news organisation.

Apart from questions around the Wire’s journalistic processes, there is more that needs explaining. Although Malviya filing a case against the Wire after its first story was almost a given, the Delhi police’s response to conducting “raids” on the Wire office and the homes of its founding editors, as well as deputy editor Jahnavi Sen and head of business Mithun Kidambi, came across as excessive. As several lawyers have pointed out in this report, the police could have summoned them and asked them to surrender their electronic devices. 

Devesh Kumar, in an interview to Times Now, says he too has surrendered his electronic devices to the Delhi police, but will not say anything more than what has already been stated publicly by the Wire’s editors. He confirmed he is not on the staff of the Wire and accepts the mistakes he made. He also said he handed over the documents on which the stories were based to the Wire’s editors.

The news portal has been criticised for passing off all blame onto one individual, even though it is obvious that a series of this kind was a collaborative effort. In fact, the first story had Jahnavi Sen’s byline and the second had hers and Siddharth Varadarajan. Kumar’s name was mentioned only in the third story. Although people at the Wire say this was done to protect Kumar’s source, this explanation does not pass muster because Kumar defended the story online and eventually did share a byline.

The Wire also failed in following an established journalistic norm of seeking a response from persons or organisations named in its stories. Even if Malviya or Meta did not respond to their queries, the portal would have been on more solid ground.

Therefore, the Wire has no defence on why it failed on so many counts editorially. 

At the same time, we must acknowledge that by retracting the stories and admitting its mistake, the Wire has at least begun to acknowledge the scale of its mistakes – something we rarely see in a large section of mainstream media. Mainstream media also makes mistakes. Yet we seldom see an apology. The reason the Wire is facing so much flak, even from people who support it, is because it has set higher standards for itself.

That said, we must  also recognise that we live in a country where media freedom is constantly under attack, and we are governed by a dispensation that has no time for critics, however small their reach might be. The Wire has been consistently critical of the current regime. This has been evident in its reports and its opinion pieces. That the portal is a source of irritation for a government that prefers the media to sing its praises is more than evident. And that ideally, it would like such irritants to disappear altogether is also obvious.

Unfortunately, the Wire-Meta affair has given this government the opportunity to cripple it, and it is unlikely to stop until it succeeds. 

What lessons should independent digital platforms draw from this incident? Their presence in India’s media ecosystem is crucial because they provide the space for incisive reporting and critical comment that is largely absent in much of mainstream media. 

But given the power of the government to move against critics, it is incumbent that these platforms double down on rigorous journalistic processes so that the chances of a repetition of the fiasco by the Wire are minimised.  

In a strong editorial, the Deccan Herald mentions the recent remarks of prime minister Modi at a meeting of state home ministers, where he said that it was time to destroy “urban naxals” and Maoists holding pens. The warning for critical and independent media is clear.