By Ranjona Banerji
The Prime Minister of India, on his state visit to the United States of America, had to face the press. Something he does not do in India and initially refused to be part of. The acceptance by the Indian government reportedly came after much backing and forthing. The White House apparently insisted because a joint press conference is the way they roll in the strange US version of democracy where politicians take questions from a group of journalists. Do you remember this phenomenon?
All right, press conferences happen all the time in India. Just not with Narendra Modi. The negotiations led to Modi agreeing to two questions. One from an American journalist, the other from an Indian. The American journalist from The Wall Street Journal asked Modi about discrimination against religious minorities.
The Prime Minister said he was surprised at such a question. And his long and convoluted answer basically said this: “India is a democracy. A democracy is about human rights. If there were no human rights, India would not be a democracy. And India is a democracy.”
A fine example of syllogism. An even better example of how Modi has handled the media in his nine years in office. With bombastic nothings. No counter-questions allowed, so there was no way to present the Prime Minister with evidence of the daily human rights assaults on Muslims, Dalits, Christians, Tribals…
The second question from an Indian journalist was about climate change. Although Modi’s first answer has got plenty of traction, his second answer, which was largely ignored, was even worse. One might even call it close to a falsehood: “we do not believe in the exploitation of nature”.
It is hard to remember a government, since the environment became a global concern, more hellbent on exploiting nature than this one.
The Prime Minister’s pet project, the all-weather Char Dham Yatra road, is an ecological disaster. The collapse of the town of Joshimath thanks to the road and to hydro projects. The permissions to cut forests and build townships across the fragile Himalayas of Uttarakhand.
The constant diminishing of the powers of the National Green Tribunal. The silencing of citizens’ voices. The systematic targeting of environmentalists. The snatching of tribal rights to suit mining companies. The list goes on and on.
Again, no counter-questions.
The exercise itself was pointless.
Because for the bulk of the mainstream media, life is about publicity for Modi anyway. Thus, the clothes, the menu, the dancing NRIs, the chants, the hoopla was all that mattered. The Indian media knows that what the foreign media did or did not do is immaterial. Its own future is secure as long as it carries on its pro-Modi song and dance. Therefore Barack Obama’s interview to Christiane Amanpour where he said: “Part of my argument would be that if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, then there is a strong possibility India at some point starts pulling apart. And we’ve seen what happens when you start getting those kinds of large internal conflicts,”, upset social media warriors more than the Indian media.
Obama can be safely ignored and CNN dismissed. Even if several TV people joined the media because of Amanpour. All opposition to Modi in the US was dismissed by TV as a Congress-Rahul Gandhi “toolkit”.
But little birdies cheep of change within sections of the media. The exit of the very toxic Rahul Shivshanker from the very toxic Times Now has set off a chain of speculations. That the BJP’s loss in Karnataka has made the mainstream media realize that if they want news from the South, they need to be less Modi-centric.
Well. Maybe the earth will also change its axis.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.