At the Ramnath Goenka journalism award function Narendra Modi tried to project himself as a champion of media freedom when he said no future leader in India would ever be allowed to impose another Emergency. Ironically enough, this grand proclamation was soon followed up by the announcement of a one-day ban on the NDTV Hindi channel ‘NDTV India’. The channel was accused of leaking out ‘strategically sensitive’ information while covering the anti-terrorist operation in the wake of the Pathankot airbase attack, and the ban was announced as a punitive measure to enforce media discipline in matters of ‘national security’. In the words of I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu, the interests of the nation must take precedence over the freedom of the press.
The excuse dished out by the government to punish one of the most credible Hindi channels known for its critical coverage of contentious social, cultural, economic and political subjects did not obviously hold water for anybody except perhaps the most die-hard supporters of the Sangh parivar. The concerned information was all in the public domain and almost all channels aired similar footage while reporting from the site and covering the operation. It was quite obvious that the real reason lay elsewhere – the NDTV India coverage of Sanghi thuggery on various pretexts and the growing protests against this assault on democracy has been an eyesore for the thought police of the Sangh brigade.
But as has happened with many recent cases of Sanghi offensive, the NDTV ban has also backfired, evoking considerable public opposition and significant protests within the media forcing the government on the backfoot. The case has now gone to the Supreme Court, but meanwhile as a face-saving arrangement, Naidu ensured a meeting with Prannoy Roy before announcing that the ban has been put on hold till the ‘representation’ made by NDTV is duly ‘examined’. It is of course a limited and temporary ‘respite’ in a specific case, but nonetheless a significant victory that will inspire every defender of democracy in the ongoing resistance. We must of course remember that there are many other cases of attacks on the media – the ban on the Kashmir Reader, a Srinagar-based English daily, that has been in force since 2 October and continuing attacks on journalists in Bastar for example – that have not attracted as much attention and generated as much protest and solidarity as the NDTV case. There can be no selective defence of media freedom and the battle must be waged consistently.
Ever since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, we have seen the government’s desperation to control the cultural and intellectual discourse in the country and systematically subvert the freedom of expression and stop the flow of critical ideas. From the planting of trusted Sangh loyalists in key posts of various institutions to the crackdown on students and teachers in IIT Madras, FTII, Hyderabad central university, JNU and other places to the persecution of human rights activists and restrictions on media operations – the pattern has been quite clear. This is the basis on which students have been charged with sedition, every critical questioning of the government’s Kashmir policy and handling of Pakistan has been dubbed an insult to the army reflecting complicity with Pakistan, and demand for judicial inquiry in the case of the Bhopal fake encounter is being branded as an act of appeasement of Muslims in the interest of ‘vote-bank politics’.
While accusing the entire opposition of politicizing issues of national security, the BJP is openly asking its cadre to use the surgical strike for votes in UP elections. Even as the one-day ban on NDTV has been put ‘on hold’, the Chhattisgarh police has booked professors of Delhi University and JNU in a case of ‘murder of an adivasi’. Delhi police who has shown utter inertia and inaction in the case of JNU student Najeeb Ahmad who has been missing for more than three weeks following an assault by ABVP activists inside the JNU campus unleashed its fury on protesting students and citizens including Najeeb’s mother. We saw the Delhi police behave similarly in the case of retired soldier Ramkrishan Grewal who took his own life to protest against the non-implementation of the OROP scheme on which the Modi government always pats its own back.
The Modi government and the entire Sangh brigade seem to be working on a conscious strategy of testing the waters and keeping the pot boiling so they can keep the people divided along as many fault lines as possible even as they unleash their regressive agenda in its entirety. But in the process, the government is creating a series of flashpoints and once the people start recognizing the links and identifying the common threat, the battle-lines can all converge in a common battlefield. The Sangh brigade believes it has the freedom to define the nation and everything pertaining to it – from nationalism to national security to every other national interest – and the Modi government has the luxury to impose an undeclared emergency and suppress all dissent in the name of national security. Let us tell them loud and clear that India shall never brook another Emergency, declared or undeclared, and the destroyers of the country shall never be allowed to teach us on patriotism and national security.
