By Ranjona Banerji
The assault on free speech by the Narendra Modi government does not stop, regardless of adverse reactions, anger, Constitutional impropriety, criticism, international opprobrium. The reasons are not hard to seek: by dint of his “popularity”, Modi has been given a free pass to override our most fundamental of democratic rights. And it is the Indian mainstream media which has played a major part in removing its own reason for existence.
For instance, just watch the narrative over the Gujarat High Court turning down an order from the Central Information Commission that the details of Modi’s educational qualifications be revealed. The court not only quashed the CIC’s order based on a Right to Information application filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal but also fined Kejriwal Rs 25,000.
Delhi University, from where Modi has his Masters in “entire political science” according to the certificates revealed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, amongst other BJP luminaries, claimed that Modi’s education details are not of public interest.
It is true that educational qualifications or lack thereof do not debar any of us from contesting elections. It is also true that the prime minister’s affidavit filed with the Election Commission appears to have certain, let’s call them discrepancies, starting with the fact that “entire political science” is not a known subject. And that the School of Open Learning at Delhi University from where Modi has got his BA degree has claimed it has no data on students who graduated in 1978.
The media narrative, rather than focus on the information given to the Election Commission, and mismatch of facts, has either ignored the issue completely. Worse, they have chosen to focus on whether education is important at all. The rest of the time we’re going on about the importance of education, in case anyone has forgotten. Others have fallen into that familiar pit of “revealing” how many people from Opposition parties have lied about their educational qualifications or lied about anything. The underlying intent is clear: if one politician has ever lied, this gives a free pass to all politicians to lie.
This is how the accretion disk around a dictatorship is built. Not always by the swallowing of massive stars or other black holes. But by building up power and at the same time, silencing all opposition.
The past week has seen a media blitz of the Prime Minister dressed up in safari gear wandering around a National Park to mark 50 years of Project Tiger. This is nothing about a massive PR exercise and has no bearing on tigers, wildlife, forests or anything at all to do with the environment. The rest of the time when government directives bypass all checks and balances to allow rampant development in vulnerable ecological zones, you rarely see the mainstream media anywhere there at all.
The past two weeks has also seen massive communal conflagrations. In states where the BJP wants to make a mark. Some in areas which have managed to avoid Ram Navami processions and Ramzan without hurting each other and destroying properties in the past.
How has the mainstream media reacted? The obvious way is to blame the state administration in non-BJP ruled states. The other is to blame Muslims for reacting to provocations. The third is to become triumphant about India as a Hindu nation. The fourth is to further inflame sectarian hatred and social divisions.
And meanwhile, there are real problems which are routinely ignored by the media. Unemployment. Rural distress. Low spendings. Low manufacturing. Ditzy markets. Insufficient foreign funding. A low monsoon forecast. Agriculture. Massive healthcare issues.
But these issues are not as sexy as the privilege following the world’s most popular leader around, giving him some free publicity, and never asking any questions.
Of course, going by our recent track record, ask a question and pay a fine?
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.