When you play the game of “who’s the nationalist of them all”, when you paint your rivals as anti-national and yourself as the mightiest leader of the patriotic pack, the strategy can come back to bite you at times.
But one may miss that memo if one is getting one’s news from a section of India’s big media.
Look at what happened in the case of the Congress’s allegation that hours after the horrific terror attack in Pulwama which claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was engrossed in a film shoot for Discovery Channel in Uttarakhand’s Corbett National Park.
The Congress Version of Modi’s Itinerary
On Thursday, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala addressed a press conference where he pointed to a rather shocking timeline of Modi’s movements in Corbett on February 14. He alleged that the PM was busy with the filming until well after the attack took place at 3.10pm. Quoting local newspapers and brandishing photographs, Surjewala said that Modi continued to enjoy a boat ride with the camera crew and also that he was having tea and samosas at the PWD guest house at 6.45pm.
“It’s horrific that as our jawans were getting martyred in Pulwama, the Prime Minister was busy doing self-promotional photo shoots,” he said.
In other words, in the Congress's version of events, while the families of the jawans were mourning their dead, the Prime Minister had calmly carried on with a film shoot for a foreign television channel, smiling and preening for the cameras as if this were just another day. It suggested that Modi had either been uncaring of or oblivious to what had happened in Pulwama in its immediate aftermath.
Now this is pretty damning for the leader of a party which projects itself as the sole upholder of 24-carat nationalism. A leader, who, incidentally, rushed off to Seoul in South Korea to receive a “peace prize”, even as violent mobs were attacking innocent Kashmiris in the wake of the Pulwama atrocity.
National Dailies’ Lop-Sided Reporting
Of course, social media heaved with the cut and thrust of the Congress’s triumphant “exposé” (Rahul Gandhi’s tweet with pictures of Modi in Corbett got thousands of retweets and armies of Modi bhakts jumped in to junk them as “fake news”); online news portals picked up the press conference and reported it in full; and many television channels also gave it prime time attention.
But the next day, on February 22, most of the country’s national English language dailies were remarkably low key in their coverage of the Corbett story.
The Times of India didn’t even have a whiff of it on its front page. A small three-column report on the bare bones of Surejewala’s press conference was buried in Page 16 of the paper with the headline: “PM was busy shooting film after Pulwama strike: Cong”. The alleged timeline of the PM’s activities in the national park that afternoon was omitted.
Right below that report, however, TOI carried the BJP’s detailed rebuttal.
Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who had evidently been deputed for damage control, had clarified that contrary to what the Congress had implied, the PM had been reviewing and monitoring the situation constantly and that he had in fact left Corbett soon after the attack. The paper reported the minister’s version of the timeline of the PM’s movements and also his criticism of the Opposition party, which he said was “attempting to weaken the morale of the country”.
Walking a Fine Line?
Other papers tried to walk a fine line. For example, Modi’s film shoot did make it to the front page of The Indian Express, but only just — tucked as it was inside a report titled “Gross security failure, says Cong, gets surgical strike’s Hooda to head panel”. It was a cursory mention and if you weren’t in the habit of reading every word of every report in a newspaper, you were likely to miss that one para which referred to Modi continuing to shoot in Corbett.
Or take The Economic Times. It reported both sides of the story on its “Pure Politics” page, but the headlines gave no indication of the charge that the Prime Minister had chosen to tarry in the national park even after the Pulwama strike. “PM Modi was angry about being told late: Govt sources, Prime Minister held constant calls & meetings to review the situation” said the strap, while the headline declared blandly (and without too much sense), “No more political pause over Pulwama”.
The Hindustan Times too was dexterous. The news was given adequate play on Page One of the paper in a lead story headlined, “Cong, BJP begin war of words on Pulwama”. The strap said: “PM did not call off film shoot on Feb 14, BJP hits back saying Cong stands exposed”. However, this report was almost entirely hidden by the flap which heralded the Prime Minister's upcoming cash handout to 20 million farmers. In other words, news about Modi’s largesse and benevolence neatly overlay the other news where the Opposition party had slammed him for his apparent insensitivity in not calling off the film shoot in Corbett.
The Hindu, which has been hitting the headlines with its investigation into the controversial Rafale deal, also reported the Congress’s charge on its front page. Not as a lead story, but reporting it in full inside.
Where Is Independent Journalism?
Did India’s English language big media need to be so circumspect about covering this piece of news? Yes, the allegation reflects poorly on the Prime Minister, but that is what allegations by the Opposition are all about. And, in fact, there was no need to take either the Congress or the BJP’s word for what the PM did or did not do in the immediate aftermath of Pulwama.
With all the resources at their disposal, what prevented these mainstream newspapers from doing some digging on the ground to find out if Modi had indeed lingered there, boating and filming even after 40 jawans had been blown to bits in Pulwama?
What stopped them from finding out if he did get the news of the attack late, as one government source claimed?
That would have meant something. It would have meant living up to the fine words on their mastheads.
(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author based in Delhi. She tweets at @ShumaRaha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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