The arrival of social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already got us into a tailspin. Half of the time we are figuring out what is fake news, misinformation and disinformation, the last being a mischievously crafted information produced in rooms swarming with bots ready to send out blistering retorts each time anyone dares question Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the Home Minister, Amit Shah.
That the two names are today hyphenated and called out simultaneously tells us that in new India, the PM is equivalent to the US President.
If this is the state of the country, then in most BJP-ruled states too, the Chief Ministers calls all the shots. In Assam, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s is the only face that occupies prime time television. The voices of other ministers are muted or too insignificant for the media to pay them any attention.
One naturally wonders at the collective responsibility of the cabinet and why the other ministers are receding to the background. Is there an unwritten code that addressing the media is the onus of only the CM, lest other ministers speak in a different tone and undercut the Chief?
Sycophancy or Censure?
This dire need by those in government to project a positive image of themselves is not a new phenomenon except that it was never so blatant in the past. And the media too is complicit in that it has taken these new frontiers in its stride. Asking uncomfortable questions which is the brief of any self-respecting media is no longer par for the course.
Forget about investigative journalism. Journalists are today more concerned about guarding their backs because there is no one to protect them. In India’s disparate North East, with seven states ruled either by BJP governments or in coalition with it, there is no media fraternity. There is no North East Journalist’s Forum of any kind to stand in solidarity with journalists who are needlessly persecuted for questioning the power holders in any of the states.
There are press clubs in every state and they flex their muscles or whatever is left of those muscles from time to time when politicians hit a journalist below the belt.
This happened recently when the Deputy CM of Nagaland pointed his finger at a particular journalist of a TV channel at a public meeting in Wokha, accusing him of misreporting certain facts about a joint Assam-Nagaland eviction drive where alleged illegal migrants were ostensibly evicted. The Deputy CM quite veritably roared at the journalist and told him never to come to any function where he is present. Such behaviour is unprecedented and the Kohima Press Club was quick to come to the defence of their colleague.
But these are new developments that have started to put the media on notice.
Conform or perish seems to be the new watchword. In such a situation even columnists have been told to tone down their language and write in a manner that does not hurt the image of those in power. The questioning and critiquing role of the media has all but shrivelled.
Considering that the media including all forms – newspaper, web portals, electronic, YouTube etc, never had a revenue model other than relying largely on government advertisements for their subsistence and in metros on corporate houses, this was bound to happen sooner than later.
This is the reason why all news media are today behind a paywall but the number of subscribers is just not enough to meet establishment costs such as paying salaries to journalists. This has actually pushed us media persons to the wall,and we don’t have the solidarity it takes to take on the government for trampling on the constitutional right to free speech.
Threats Galore
This writer was contributing a bi-monthly column to a newspaper in Assam, for which I had been writing for over a decade. In my column—the last one—sent on 6 August to the newspaper, I was critical of the so-called drive against ‘illegal migrants’ that targeted Bengali-speaking Muslims and was inhumanly conducted, leaving people homeless.
All I argued against was the manner in which the eviction drive was conducted and asked if it was done according to the law.
I also critiqued the intelligentsia of Assam for remaining silent in the face of such gross injustice suffered by people on account of their religion. Undivided Assam was part of the Bengal province before Partition after which East Bengal which adjoined Assam became East Pakistan. It is possible that those Muslims are spillovers of the post partition period or that they were cultivators who worked the land to produce rice and other crops for the Assamese gentry.
The newspaper staff sent me a message that the management had rejected this article and that I should only be writing about the state of Meghalaya, to which I belong.
This is the first time, ever, that anyone ever told me to “mind my own business” and not poke my nose at what happens in another state – something that runs counter to what journalism is all about.
I know enough about the politics of the seven states to write about them. I can do my research wherever there are gaps in my knowledge but to be told point blank that I cannot write about another state is a new chapter in the annals of journalism.
However, this is perhaps the new normal we have learnt to adapt unquestioningly. I wonder, therefore, if we are still a democracy today? If questioning the government of the day or critiquing government policies or even a satire on a government functionary is construed as sedition and FIRs are lodged faster than a missile then we are treading on eggshells and the fact that the journalist fraternity countrywide has not come together to condemn such bellicosity only shows that the ‘divide and rule’ policy left behind by the colonialists is alive and kicking today.
The FIR filed by the Assam Police against Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar of The Wire for reportage on Operation Sindoor and another one against journalist Abhisar Sharma of Assam, shows that the media is being strictly policed and the sedition law has been resurrected under a new avatar - Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
The broad language of this new law allows potential for misuse because it criminalises acts that excite secession, rebellion, or threaten India’s sovereignty, unity and integrity. In 2022, the Supreme Court had suspended the use of Section 124A (sedition), citing its misuse to suppress dissent. The government had at the time said it would repeal this colonial law. But the introduction of Section 152 in the BNS only confirms that the Modi Government does not intend to do away with this oppressive law.
Under these circumstances, can the media unearth wrongdoing by the political masters? When large sections of the media have capitulated, what can the rest do? These are issues that need to be debated at length but we don’t seem to have the drive or the commitment to do so. The question then is – where do we go from here? Are we mere reporters of events and puppets dancing to the tune of the ruling regime?
(The writer is the Editor of The Shillong Times and a former member of NSAB. She can be reached at @meipat. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)