Category: MEDIA

The Indian Express calls itself “journalism of courage”. For many years, we believed this pat on the back because as long as the Congress Party was in power, and at some points even when the BJP was in power, the Indian Express showed a lot of courage. It took on Indira Gandhi, India’s most powerful prime minister – present company excused – and did it fearlessly. It took on Dhirubhai Ambani – who was soon to become India’s most powerful industrialist, present company excused – and did it fearlessly. It even managed to cover the Gujarat riots of 2002, held in the domain of then chief minister Narendra Modi, with some level of courage.

 

It even did a most remarkable investigation into how the Indian Army in 2012, under then General VK Singh (now in the BJP and until lately a minister in the Modi Cabinet) had possibly planned a military coup on Manmohan Singh’s government. The investigation was done by Shekhar Gupta and Ritu Sarin.

 

https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/web/the-january-night-raisina-hill-was-spooked-two-key-army-units-moved-towards-delhi-without-notifying-govt/

 

Since Modi became PM in 2014, the Indian Express has remained extremely courageous, one cannot deny that, but largely when it comes to the Opposition, Sonia/Rahul Gandhi and so on. Taking on the ruling BJP, Modi, Amit Shah, er, not so much. It has practically handed over its column space to the BJP fan club, with a mere nod to the other parties.

 

But this is not actually about the Indian Express. This is about the statements it has carried by Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief or sarsanghchalak as they call their boss. Bhagwat, who has got elevated status from Modi with a dedicated Doordarshan spot for his Dassera speech, was apparently somewhat contained in that space by Modi and Amit Shah. JP Nadda, now Cabinet minister but former president of the BJP, had even said during the election campaign that the BJP did not need the RSS or words to that effect.

 

Bhagwat has spoken to the Sangh about how arrogance in a “sevak” is wrong, that Manipur was neglected for a year and now had to be dealt with immediately and that “decorum was not maintained” during the election campaign. Is this a return to “journalism of courage” where elliptical criticism of Modi – albeit from the BJP’s boss organisation the RSS – is given prominence?

Who knows, eh?

 

There is a short clip of a podcast going around social media. It shows, amongst a group of senior BJP/right wing “thinkers”, one self-declared Congress supporter, and Smita Prakash, the editor and owner of ANI, which is apparently Asia’s largest multimedia news agency. This growth and reach is no mean feat, especially given that of all the various legacy media RW/BJP TV channels and journals, hers is the most efficient and at the forefront of BJP/Modi propaganda.

 

Prakash declares in the podcast that the RW content from the BJP was “minuscule” unlike the Opposition which had trucks broadcasting videos from Youtuber Dhruv Rathee and TV journalist Ravish Kumar. This claim is ludicrous in itself and even more so when it comes from the editor of ANI. Prakash herself went out of her way to promote Modi. As did every major mainstream TV channel, from India Today and News18 to Times Now, NDTV and the Hindi channels. Modi gave “interviews” to some of these where no one questioned or corrected his absurd claims that he was not biological but divine origin and that no one had heard of Mahatma Gandhi until Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film.

 

And let us not forget Modi himself. His election campaigning – as Bhagwat politely pointed out – was brazen, Islamophobic and filled with falsehoods. No one in the India gets more prominence or publicity than Modi. If he did not do well enough in these elections, which has upset these sections of the RW, it is not because the RW did not do enough.

 

Maybe Prakash and others might ask themselves why they did not do enough to represent the people of India. Many of whom did not vote for Modi and the BJP precisely because the media’s endless propaganda did not reflect ground realities.

 

Naah, I joke. Self-awareness is not amongst the RW media’s dominant traits. Otherwise, why would they…

 

 

Wrong as it is in the ethics quotient, the meltdown of India’s mainstream media after Narendra Modi and the BJP did not do as well in the general elections as they expected, is very amusing.

 

TV anchors and assorted TV people are in a state of anger and shock. Rather than scream at their guests as they usually do to invoke anti-Muslim feelings or provoke anti-Opposition rage, some are turning on each other; others bemoan their fate and still others remain bemused and bewildered.

 

One TV person commented on X (formerly Twitter) that the new “exuberance” of the Opposition was just not allowing the new government (almost the same as the old government) to “breathe easy”. In the land of TV, it is the job of the Opposition to let the government breathe easy and the job of the media to encourage and support the government as much as possible.

 

It’s toss up though as to which factors of this general election upset these media cartoons more: the fall in total BJP seats especially in the state of Uttar Pradesh, or the fall in Prime Minister Modi’s personal standing. Add to these two sad facts the further ignominy of the BJP’s loss in the temple town of Ayodhya, and the sense of loss and despair makes them inconsolable.

 

Not too long ago, Kallie Purie, vice-chairman and executive editor-in-chief of the India Today group said this at an India Today conclave: “The media cannot play the role of the Opposition. Expecting it to do it leads to unfair charges of Godi or Modi media. If the Opposition is in disarray, the media cannot be blamed for it. We cannot present another side equally strongly if it doesn’t exist. We are observers in this boxing match. We are not the players.”

 

This was the situation in March 2024. By June 2024, the mainstream media finds that there is an Opposition and that the Modi government has been, in some small way, humbled despite the overwhelming support of the “Godi” media. The term was coined by TV journalist Ravish Kumar, who quit NDTV when it was bought by the Adani Group, and means “lapdog” media, for those who came in late.

 

The fact that a media mogul can make such a clear, confident defence of bias demonstrates once again how completely the Modi-verse had dominated and controlled the media.

 

In the latest issue of India Today magazine, this is what Aroon Purie, Kallie’s father and the overall boss of the group when I worked there a few lifetimes ago, had to say about the election results:

“Besides all these factors, there is the intangible. The pervasive sense of fear in society. People talk in whispers in drawing rooms. When meeting government ministers, even in private conversations, they switch off their phones and ask you to do the same. Business people fear getting on the wrong side of the government. Academics are afraid of expressing their opinions freely. NGOs face a hostile environment. Since all the exit pollsters were wrong in one direction, I suspect they got their predictions messed up because people did not tell them the truth about who they were voting for out of fear and said ‘yes’ to the ruling dispensation. A free press is essential for a vibrant, functioning democracy. If the press is closely monitored and ‘guided’ to cover countless government events and criticism is muted in fear of retribution, then we all get far removed from ground reality. This is true of other ruling parties too. Perhaps the past regime would not have faced this electoral fate if it hadn’t lived in its echo chambers. The autonomy of institutions has been undermined. Enforcement agencies are being used as instruments of terror. Loosely drafted, draconian laws like PMLA and sedition are being used casually. With countless rules and regulations, cases can be filed without much substance. It is well known that, in India, the process is the punishment, and very few cases are ever closed. This is not new, but has been accelerated and adopted as routine practice.”

Make no mistake, Purie Pater Familias, is clear at the end of his editorial that he still believes that Modi is the best man for the job. But his comments on the importance of a free press are quite entertaining as is his assertion (not quoted here) that we also now have an Opposition which has to be accepted.

Purie Sr’s comments on the disastrous exit polls – which his own TV channels promoted quite shamelessly – are also good fun.

There is no call to extrapolate anything from this. India Today and the others in TV’s Lala Land are very likely to continue with their adulation of Modi and their promotion of Islamophobia. But it is also slightly likely that they will be forced to occasionally jump off their master’s lap and go and have a sniff and lick elsewhere.

For us, who have no hope from them, sit back, get yourself some popcorn, and watch hyper-dramas unfold.

 

Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.