​By Ranjona Banerji
Slowly, very, very, slowly, some sections of the mainstream media have picked up on the extremely courageous Caravan investigation into the circumstances around the death of Judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya. (http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/shocking-details-emerge-in-death-of-judge-presiding-over-sohrabuddin-trial-family-breaks-silence , http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/loya-chief-justice-mohit-shah-offer-100-crore-favourable-judgment-sohrabuddin-case, and
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/video-testimonies-late-judge-bh-loya-family-raise-disturbing-questions-regarding-death)
Kannada newspaper Vartha Bharati had the story on the front page, Manorama in both English and Malayalam, Madhyaman (Malayalam), Deshabhmani (Malayalam, CPI mouthpiece), Mathrubhumi (Malayalam), Gujarati website meranews.com and thestate.news (Kannada) were the first few.
Along with websites like scroll.in (apologies for overlooking scroll.in’s immediate reaction to the Caravan story in my last column), thewire.in(including a podcast by veteran journalist Vinod Dua) and jantakareporter.com, these were the first to follow up with the Caravan and Niranjan Takle’s investigation. Since then, the Hindu reported that Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi had asked for a probe into Judge Loya’s death, quint.com re-asked Caravan’s questions around the death and newslaundry.com commented on the media silence (after this column).
https://scroll.in/article/858833/why-the-supreme-court-should-take-questions-around-the-death-of-a-cbi-judge-seriously
https://thewire.in/199414/jan-gan-man-ki-baat-episode-155-evm-tampering-judge-loyas-case/
https://thewire.in/199393/watch-justice-shah-suspicious-death-judge-loya/
As far as TV goes, Ravish Kumar of NDTV India was the first to pick up on it followed by Sreenivasan Jain on NDTV 24/7. The Telegraph, Calcutta reported on the press conference held by the NGO Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, where several rights activists asked for a judicial probe into the death of Judge Loya.
https://www.ndtv.com/video/news/prime-time/prime-time-with-ravish-kumar-on-cbi-judge-s-death-472887
https://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/reality-check/investigate-death-of-judge-handling-amit-shah-case-says-justice-ap-shah-472961
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/glare-on-shah-case-judge-death-188194
These are the various news agencies that social media and an internet search will take you to. But if you are assiduously scouring your morning newspapers or watching TV intently for someone, anyone to take the story further, as of now, only disappointment is what you will get. The work on the death of Judge Loya needs a lot more work as far as the media is concerned. Last night on NDTV, veteran journalist Neerja Chowdhury commented that questions could be asked as to why the family took so long to reveal their suspicions. Although the statute of limitations usually runs further than two years – which is when they approached Niranjan Takle – even a rabid pro-government journalist can take that up.
But any real journalist – and I use the word real unashamedly – would delve further. Question the CBI, question the judiciary, question the Maharashtra police, question the RSS worker who apparently accompanied the judge to hospital, question the hospital, the staff at the government guest house where the judge was staying, track down the mysterious relative who received the body after the post-mortem – the discrepancies are almost endless.
Should one be sympathetic to the caution being used by journalists and media houses? Is the fear of what can happen to you if you investigate something that has a connection to BJP president Amit Shah so enormous that it squashes all your journalistic instincts? There is no need to make any implication. But there is much which needs to be examined.
I hear on social media a lot of clamour about why other political parties are not responding or responding vociferously enough and many of these questions are being asked by journalists. But that is outside the ambit of this column. The focus is on what the media has and has not been doing.
And once more, when it comes to anything which shows the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its leading lights in even slightly unsavoury hues, we see a cowering mainstream media pussyfooting around the matter. The onus here rests with editors. Not columnists or opinionaters, not with reporters who await instructions (and there are several who work on good stories only to have them shot down by their bosses), but with the editors who make the decisions.
So far – at least at the time of writing this – most of India’s biggest newspapers and most-watched television channels have been silent on the matter. It is not as if they are not critical of the government or of the prime minister at other times. But when it comes to the BJP president, there seems to be a long pause before there is any action.
Without pointing finger and attributing motives, that pause will bring us down.
​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal.