PM has never hidden his disdain for an independent media

Hardly a week passes by when there are no reports about filing of FIRs and criminal cases against media persons. The trend has been on the increase over the last five years but has reached a critical and dangerous level now.

It is in fact becoming difficult to keep a track of such cases filed by governments across the country. The national media reports some of the cases if they pertain to big shots but the numerous cases being filed against journalists in smaller places generally go unreported.

One of the most recent cases concerns a senior and respected journalist who had earlier made a name for himself in television. Cases have been filed against Vinod Dua in not just Delhi where he is based but in remote areas of the country for sedition or for waging a war against the nation! The charge is that he had made a reference in his blog about which, in turn, was based on an article published by former union minister and prominent Congress leader P Chidambaram!

Another case reported last week was about filing of a case against Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times, for commenting on her Facebook page that tribal communities must stop discriminating against the others.

In yet another instance, the Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR against Supriya Sharma, executive editor of ‘Scroll’ for reporting that some residents of prime minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi, had to remain hungry during the initial days of the lockdown down.

Funnily, the charges against her have been filed, among others, under sections related to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. She has been also charged under a section which provides punishment for “negligent act likely to spread infection of diseases dangerous to life”.

It is true that some of these cases have also been filed by non-BJP state governments. That too is despicable.

But the fact that such a tendency seeps from the top and at times done at the behest from the top.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never hidden his disdain for an independent media. He is steadfast in his pledge to not answer any question from the media. While no ruler likes to hear his or her criticism, the tendency is now to file charges and harass independent media persons.

Obviously those reporting to him, including party spokespersons, also feel it is right to insult media and harass media persons doing their duty. We Indians are proud of our democracy and its independent institutions. What the bhakts don’t understand is that they are doing a great disservice to the nation by trying to actively suppress independent views.

This is all the more important now because the prime minister is surrounded by people who don’t have the courage or the intellect to tell him what’s going wrong. Each time the government does something, right or wrong, the cheer leaders try to give a standing ovation.

The bhakts in the meantime come out with ridiculous arguments that a section of media is critical of the government because the “freebies enjoyed by them in the past” had been taken away by their great leader. This argument shows the intellectual bankruptcy of the critics.

How silly of them to think that not taking media on his foreign trips is a grudge that media holds against him. Such an argument is an insult on the integrity of independent journalists, many of whom have spent their lives in the profession and have sacrificed for the sake of integrity and high values. There is, however, no point in arguing with them because they refuse to listen or try to understand.

In the same vein, a major attack on the freedom of the press was recently initiated by none other than Prasar Bharti, a supposedly independent public service Broadcaster financed by tax payers, which declared that Press Trust of India, news agency supported by major media houses, had reported a news which was “detrimental to national interest and undermining India’s territorial integrity”.

The news report in question was an interview of the Chinese ambassador to India. Prasar Bharti has threatened to withdraw its subscription to PTI which would mean its certain death.

Such an attitude must worry every true patriot who loves his or her country.

Editors Guild of India, comprising eminent editors, recently came out with a statement that “the use of criminal provisions of law against journalists has now become an unhealthy and despicable trend that has no place in any vibrant democracy. It needs to be resisted as well as eliminated…. the increasing frequency of such misuse of laws by the authorities is tantamount to shooting the messenger and destroying a key pillar of India’s democracy”.

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