By Ranjona Banerji
On May 28, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated his biggest vanity project yet: India’s new Parliament building.
A couple of km away, were India’s medal-winning wrestlers, sitting at Jantar Mantar demanding that their complaints of sexual assault were taken seriously.
And thereby the divide between India’s different versions of free and fair journalism was on stark display. With two starkly opposing images.
Television was largely obsessed with the Prime Minister. There he was, being given the ‘Sengol’ by men of religion, a device to further his own sense of self. Pomp, circumstance and ego were on full display. The fact that the President of India, our de juro Head of State, was absent didn’t really upset anyone. Sometimes we are proud of this titular head, sometimes dismissive.
At Jantar Mantar, the wrestlers were violently removed by the Delhi Police. State brutality, especially against women showed its might. No protests during the inauguration please or else, face the consequences. Even worse, the man accused of sexual assault and harassment by these wrestlers proudly took his place in Parliament, as a BJP MP.
https://thewire.in/women/protesting-wrestlers-are-facing-institutional-betrayal
The next morning, newspapers like The Telegraph, Mid-Day, some editions of the Times of India focused on the manhandling of the wrestlers. Others like some main editions of the Hindustan Times played it super-safe by concentrating on the PM.
The ‘legacy; media thus behaved as we expect it to behave.
Social media, in which I include news sites, feeds of various media houses and Whatsapp forwards, set the standard for that day. If you are addicted to your Whatsapp groups, chances are you saw a whole range of opinions which castigated the wrestlers, applauded their mishandling and then photos of them smiling in a police van, with suggestions that they were all acting.
Welcome to the dangers of the internet. The faces of the wrestlers were manipulated into smiling by various digital methods. Disinformation is rife as are the ingenuous who believe anything, especially if it suits their political ideology. Sadly, world over, it is the right wing who fall prey to the most disinformation and are the most likely to create and spread it.
Wrestlers detained in Delhi: AI image of ‘smiling’ Vinesh & Sangeeta Phogat viral
Many commentators have stated that this terrible treatment of our sportspersons is a blot on Modi’s image and will have consequences, but I wonder. The extent to which the mainstream media kowtow to the Modi brand of publicity and the quick spread of lies by the BJP’s formidable IT factory provide a massive double block to the truth.
The threat is not just from the BJP however. Rightwing ideology has a firm grip on its right to spread lies in the internet. Twitter for instance has pulled out of the European Union’s code to fight disinformation. This writing has been on the wall since billionaire tycoon Elon Musk brought the bird site and upended its checks and balance systems.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65733969
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/05/29/bye-bye-birdie-eu-bids-farewell-to-twitter-as-company-pulls-out-of-code-to-fight-disinform
This is our future. Manipulated news, no pushback from the traditional mainstream media and more people falling prey to lies and propaganda.
If you want “hope” that the media has some slivers of conscience left, I was suitably amazed to see a whole lot of mealy-mouthed support for the wrestlers and condemnation of an unnamed government by The Print.
Protests about the violence in Manipur was covered by the Times of India.
ANI, the Modi government’s favoured news agency, had the Chief of Defence Staff countering the BJP-led Manipur government’s claim that “insurgents” had been shot by the authorities. The CDS said the violence had nothing to do with counter-insurgency.
And then there is this front page from The Telegraph and this photograph of the wrestlers on the ground from The Hindu.
But in spite of all this, I would not hold my breath. Right now, the propagandists still rule.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.