By Ranjona Banerji
A group of journalists met at the Delhi Press Club, or the Press Club of India that is, to say this: “silence will kill journalism, we must speak up”.
The immediate trigger is the attack on journalists by a mob who were part of an audience at a ‘Hindu Mahapanchayat Sabha’ in Delhi, as well as the arrest of journalists who covered the leak of a Class 12 English exam paper in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh.
They might as well have added the journalists in Madhya Pradesh who were forced to strip down to their underwear by the police after they protested the arrest of a filmmaker.
Silence will kill journalism.
It’s an intriguing thought process here in the India of 2022.
How much journalism do we see around us and how much is straightforward propaganda for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its policies of hatred?
This “Mahapanchayat” was organised by various offshoots and cohorts of the RSS and speakers are well-known for their “hate speeches” against Muslims. Which is why they were invited to speak. Most of the journalists attacked by the mobs were Muslim. These journalists were arrested by the Delhi police.
https://thewire.in/media/watch-how-the-attack-on-journalists-at-the-hindu-mahapanchayat-in-burari-unfolded
Subsequently, the “hate speech” makers, long-time offenders, were also arrested:
https://www.siasat.com/narsinghanand-chauhanke-booked-for-hate-speeches-at-hindu-mahapanchayat-2302251/
Journalists who reported on the exam paper leak were also arrested.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/ballia-police-nabbed-scribes-to-hide-failure/articleshow/90716540.cms
And these are the journalists who were arrested and forced to strip:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/madhya-pradesh-protesters-including-journalist-forced-to-strip-down-to-undergarments-inside-lock-up-photos-go-viral/articleshow/90713142.cms?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=TOIDes
That’s Delhi, UP and Madhya Pradesh.
A Hindu priest in Lucknow is on video calling for people to rape Muslim women. Police are “investigating” the matter. Lucknow is in UP.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/on-camera-hatemongers-rape-threat-to-muslim-women-in-up-amid-cheers-2869943
There is another viral video of a “reporter” from Sudarshan News, a BJP propaganda channel whose owner Suresh Chavankhe is one of the “hate speech” makers at the Hindu Mahapanchayat, haranguing a shop manager at a Noida branch of Haldiram’s, the snacks manufacturer, over the use of Arabic, misunderstood as Urdu, on their packaging. Noida is in UP.
https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/04/06/how-to-deal-with-sudarshan-news-reporters-learn-from-haldirams-store-manager
Two things are clear from these incidents. The first the consistent and constant assault on Muslims by people connected to the RSS-BJP and the other is attacks on journalists who try to expose any official wrongdoing, by the public and the police.
Nothing is new here.
What is new is a large bunch of journalists acknowledging that “our silence will kill journalism” and that “we must speak up”.
Because what we have also seen right now is official assaults on two prominent journalists who are known to speak up against Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP. Both Rana Ayyub and Aakar Patel were stopped from leaving India. Both had been invited to speak on the state of India. Both had to go to court. And luckily both these times, the Indian judiciary stood up for the law. It’s not easy to speak up and it takes a lot of courage to stand up to tyranny.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/delhi-high-court-junks-circular-that-grounded-rana-ayyub/cid/1859139
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/court-directs-cbi-to-withdraw-look-out-circular-against-former-amnesty-india-chief-aakar-patel/article65300345.ece
As someone who has tracked the death of journalism in India for a few years now, I want to laugh and cry.
Laugh because the tense used in the Press Club of India statement is so very wrong. There is no “will” for the kill. Death blows have been struck, most from within our own community and we are in our last throes.
And cry because it has taken so long for a few people to make a public announcement.
https://www.newsclick.in/Our-Silence-will-Kill-Journalism-We-Must-Speak-up-say-senior-journalists-Burari-attack
I am now waiting for the usual bunch of brainless suspects to make various historical connections to earlier attacks on journalism in order to ameliorate the situation for the BJP and Hindutva forces. Nehru, Indira Gandhi and so on will be blamed, the BJP will claim precedent and today’s attacks will be justified because political parties now in opposition did similar things in the past.
I am also wary of how long this epiphany will last. The bulk of the India media is either in cahoots with the Hindutva project or is under the thumb of the RSS-BJP. Islamophobia is rampant across TV channels. The Indian police, which breaks its own laws at the best of times, is now even more hellbent in choosing political patronage over India’s laws. And the mobs have been emboldened to attack because they know they will be saved.
The sad truth is that our collective silence over the past eight years has killed journalism. Some sad remnants remain, tatters flying in the wind, ready to be assaulted by mobs and stripped by the police. Propaganda channels masquerading as journalists harangue people and corporates who do not toe the Hindutva line.
But speak. Please join the few of us who have always spoken and speak. If we’re all loud enough, maybe someone will hear?
Now I’m laughing. And crying.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.