Soon after Prime Minister Modi addressed Kisan Sammelan (Farmers' conferences) held across Madhya Pradesh via video conferencing on Dec 18 last, a leading news channel carried a follow-up story showing how farmers were tutored by the MP BJP govt. The bite showed despite farmers saying they supported farm laws they also supported farmers' agitation. Paradoxically, farmers were just echoing what they were tutored but it at the same time couldn't conceal their support to protesting brethren. This telecast was never repeated apparently under govt pressure.
Modi government has repeatedly tried to exercise total control over media ever since it came to power at the center. Remember, how eminent TV journalist, Punya Prasun Bajpai hosting Masterstroke on ABP News was made to quit after he unveiled the fictional claim about farmers income doubling during Modi regime. Bajpai Masterstroke spoke to some women, who were said to be big beneficiaries, but later revealed the truth that nothing of the sort had happened.
Modi govt was so incensed over this revelation that it started disturbing ABP news channel relay between 9 PM to 10 PM when Masterstroke used to be telecast. It pressurized ABP management to mend ways and stop defaming PM Modi. ABP Managing Editor Milind Khandekar was asked by the management to control Punya Prasun Bajpai and gave directions what should be carried and what not be. Happenings in the ABP news room were so disturbing that Bajpai was forced to resign four months later on August 1, 2018.
This is not all. Modi govt did everything to suppress the information about Covid-19. So much so that on 31 March, a week after lockdown, it asked the apex court to “direct” media to publish nothing about the epidemic “without first ascertaining the facts from the mechanism provided by the government.” This tantamount to censorship, and to forcing journalists to publish only government-approved information. The supreme court did not acquiesce but it however gave some relief to the government, ruling that to "avoid causing panic,” the media must “refer to and publish the official version about the developments” including the government’s daily bulletin.
On 25 March, A few hours before lockdown, Prime Minister Modi personally asked the owners and editors of the 20 biggest mainstream print media to publish “positive stories” about the crisis and to “act as a link between government and people.”
On 29 March, it had emerged that the epidemic in India had officially gone from limited “local transmission” (in which carriers are identified and their contacts can be traced) to “community transmission” (in which it is no longer known who is carrying and transmitting the virus).
But Modi government continued to publicly maintain that India was still in the lower phase of limited local transmission. In reaction to this flagrant disinformation, 20 journalists covering health issues addressed ten
key questions to the government on 30 March about its handling of the crisis and the lockdown. But they received no response.
The health ministry officials at a press conference told reporters they would only take questions from Asian News International and the state TV broadcaster Doordarshan, both well known for supporting Modi govt and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
Throughout the country, several media organisations and journalists have been the targets of judicial proceedings and harassment. Take the case of The Wire, an independent news website. It was formally accused in April of
publishing “fake news” about Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, because it reported that he attended religious gathering on 25th March. The site’s editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, was investigated under articles 188 and 505 of the penal code for disobeying an “order duly promulgated by a public servant” and for “making statements with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public.
In Lucknow, a local BJP leader filed a complaint on 7 April accusing a reporter, Prashant Kanojia, of making “objectionable remarks” on social media about Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in connection with their handling of the lockdown. The police investigated Kanojia under various sections of the penal code for defamation and offences committed with intent to cause fear or alarm among the public.
On 7 April, a reporter of Damodharan TV was arrested from a suburb of the Chennai, following a complaint filed by a local doctor after the reporter filmed a pharmacy employee selling medicine to patients without prescriptions. He was charged with deception, forgery, and preventing a public servant from discharging their duty.
Online reporter Pawan Choudhary was arrested from Jamalpur, in Bihar, on 6 April over his social media coverage of Covid-19 developments in his neighbourhood, Keshopur, and was imprisoned in the adjoining city of Munger.
Threats To Murder Journalists
Journalists covering the Covid-19 epidemic were the targets of cyber-harassment. The victims have included freelance journalist Vidya Krishnan, who has been subjected to an online hate campaign, including many calls for her to be murdered or gang-raped, ever since The Atlantic, a US monthly magazine, published an article by her on 27 March criticizing the “callousness” of India’s handling of the pandemic.
“The threats of physical violence, rape and torture have been compounded by the health ministry’s insistence on describing any critical reporting as ‘fake news’,” she said. “Almost all science journalists in India are getting trolled for 'unpatriotic' coverage. In my case it got a little crazier because I am Indian and I am writing for Western publications against the Indian government.”
Another freelancer, Mumbai-based Rashmi Puranik, was subjected to online attacks orchestrated by BJP activists after she posted a tweet criticizing the prime minister’s call for people to light candles to combat the coronavirus. She received many extremely obscene messages and, after she filed a complaint, one of these activists was finally detained by the police in Nashik.
All these happenings point out that democracy in India is in darkness.
(Chander Sharma With Inputs From Net)
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