Ranjona Banerji: Muzzle & Rule!​

By Ranjona Banerji

Freedom of the press and freedom from government control remains a matter of deep concern for the media in India, regardless of film stars, gold medals and the everyday news cycle. There are clear attempts by the current dispensation to muzzle the media. Yelling and screaming on television that other governments have done this before done does not help the issue. In any case, as one BJP spokesperson pointed out to us last week on NDTV, “The government has all the reason to be a regulator. The Indian media is too free.”

After trying to suppress print and broadcast journalism on the shibboleth that the government was trying to stop purveyors of “fake news”, then taking the order back (and pretending that Prime Minister Modi had jumped in to stop Smriti Irani), the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has now turned the eye of Mordor on internet journalism. A panel is to be set up full of bureaucrats and government functionaries to “delineate the sphere of online information dissemination which needs to be brought under regulation, on the lines applicable for print and electronic media”.

No one from the internet media is on the panel. Thus, by inference, the planned regulator will be above and beyond.

It has been clear quite soon into this current government’s formation that a mass of journalists rooting for the BJP found their voices. They have supported this government through almost every twist and turn and held the Opposition to account for every transgression. Apart from that, the BJP also depends on or has found the support of several internet warriors. Websites like OpIndia.com started as volunteer ventures while NitiCentral had strong financial backing. OpIndia was subsequently bought by Swarajya.com and NitiCentral could not sustain itself.

These are just three examples of purely rightwing websites. Although Swarajya is professionally run by experienced and well-known journalists, with a somewhat wider focus and occasional criticism, OpIndia appears to be run by somewhat venomous children. It could do with some editorial inputs from the worthies at Swarajya, one thinks. That apart, it will be interesting to see whether this new “control” department stretches to such websites or only to those critical of this government. When the “editor” of Postcard News was arrested, many rightwing, BJP and government voices spoke up in defence of the site which pushed out not fake news so much as highly imaginative made-up rubbish, specialising in a fantasy Hindutva world which is surrounded by enemies like the Constitution, other non-BJP-supporting Indians, Dalits, religious minorities and so on.

It is evident by now that “fake news” is the entry point into media control. Let us ignore for now that the biggest purveyors of “fake news” in India are pro-BJP/RSS rightwing websites, though not all of them are actually run by journalists. Instead, the fight against government control has to become stronger. Why should a panel of government employees decide on regulations for internet media, without any input from news websites themselves? The very idea is reprehensible and unacceptable.

(It is another matter that the nature of the internet makes total control very difficult unless we want to emulate China.)

The fight is on.

Meanwhile, there is this very interesting viewpoint from the Congress’s Manesh Tewari, a former I&B minister himself: scrap the ministry.

https://thewire.in/media/the-time-has-come-to-abolish-the-ib-ministry-once-and-for-all

​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal​