By Ranjona Banerji
The immense sly viciousness of criminal defamation laws remains a weapon against a free media in India, handed to those who do not want to be questioned by a malevolent system.
The Wire finds itself a target once more, as do a number of independent journalists, researchers and academics. The pharma company Bharat Biotech, maker of the Covaxin vaccine for Covid-19, has filed a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against The Wire and others for articles about the vaccine. A court in Hyderabad has also ordered the news website to take down 14 articles on the vaccine.
According to the legal website Bar and Bench, the people named in the case by Bharat Biotech, are the three founder-editors of The Wire, Sidharth Bhatia, MK Venu, Siddharth Varadarajan, andd Neeta Sanghi, Vasudevan Mukunth, Shobhan Saxena, Florencia Costa, Prem Anand Murugan, Banjot Kaur, Priyanka Pulla, Seraj Ali and Jammi Nagaraj Rao.
Most articles deemed critical of Bharat Biotech have questioned or highlighted problems with their clinical research on the vaccine, the fact that it was given emergency permission before it completed the basic protocol demanded worldwide from other pharma companies and the continued stalling of presenting its research. The efficacy of the vaccine was not the target; the process was.
Effectively therefore both the defamation suit and the order of the Ranga Reddy district court mean that no one can question a large powerful and influential organisation about anything, even if there is tremendous potential risk to people’s health and people’s lives.
The Wire has issued a statement on the court order. The first fact that jumps out is this: “The Wire and its editors were not served any notice or intimated in any way about these proceedings. At no stage were we contacted by Bharat Biotech or its counsel. The Telangana court’s order, which we have learned about only through Bar and Bench, has been passed without giving The Wire an opportunity to be heard.”
Thus criminal intimidation and stealth are the weapons being used here, to stop a critical and free press from doing its primary duty: informing the people.
https://thewire.in/media/the-wire-court-take-down-bharat-biotech
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Another means of intimidation is the relentless assault on social media and using the usual government tricks of raids and investigations by agencies like the Enforcement Directorate. These have been targeted at journalist Rana Ayyub, a constant thorn for being Muslim, female and an outspoken critic of the BJP and Modi government. Much to the annoyance of the Modi government, the United Nations Human Rights Council has also stepped in and the Wall Street Journal, for which Ayyub writes, issued a page in support of Ayyub headlined: “The Free Press is Under Attack in India.”
The screenshot is from The Telegraph, Kolkata.
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The free press has been under attack with relentless precision since 2014. The free press has capitulated to those same rightwing and fascist forces with endearing brainlessness since 2011.
The coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has thus created some quite funny situations in the Modi-captive media. On the whole, the BJP and the Indian rightwing is very pro-the USA. And the Soviet Union, with its old relationships with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and India over the decades, has been dismissed and excoriated for its leftism and so on.
But two things have happened to skewer the pitch. The first is Modi’s love for former US president Donald Trump who seemed to be in the thrall of Vladmir Putin. Add to that the fact that Putin seems to either scare or excite Narendra Modi. So now Modi’s media is all pro-Putin and anti-America or Biden’s America.
The US rightwing pro-Trump media is also in a really funny flip when you consider its longheld position of finding reds under every bed, applauding Hoover’s assault on leftist Hollywood and so on. Now it finds itself supporting Russia and Putin.
The Indian media has also followed suit. Modi has issued a wishy-washy statement which is obviously being sold to Indians as high diplomacy.
And the humanitarian fiasco of Indians stranded in the Ukraine being fobbed off by the embassy is being presented as “serves you right”, since these evil stupid citizens did not fend for themselves and now expect the Government of India to help.
Meanwhile, the mighty Indian media had no clue the Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent and now relies on foreign news services.
This ain’t Kansas and it ain’t Oz either, Toto. It’s a whole lot worse, whichever way you turn it.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal