By Ranjona Banerji
It was nine days ago that veteran journalist Prashant Tandon interview former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik for his YouTube channel, DB Dialogue.
Malik spoke candidly about Rahul Gandhi’s allegations against the Adani Group, about the response of the BJP to Gandhi, briefly about the Pulwama attack and elaborated on the abrogation of Article 370.
This interview was explosive enough as it is.
Then it was picked up by Karan Thapar for The Wire and taken further. The Wire interview was explosive because Malik made it clear that the official version of the Pulwama attack on February 14, 2019 when was filled with massive holes. A convoy of CRPF personnel was ambushed and 40 of them died. Several questions were raised at the time, which were then silenced.
Malik also made it clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hushed him when he, Malik, brought up these lapses. Including the fact that the CRPF had requested air transport which was denied. Further, Malik claimed that Modi is not very well informed and is not really bothered about corruption.
There are several other damaging allegations made by this senior politician, who has been given many important posts by the BJP.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/pm-narendra-modi-silenced-me-on-lapses-leading-to-pulwama-attack-says-former-jk-governor-satya-pal-malik/cid/1929844
In another world and another time, these two interviews and the subsequent follow ups would have taken down a government. But as we have seen over and over again in India since 2014, nothing of the sort happens.
And nothing happens because not only does the Opposition not unite to grab an opportunity but the mainstream media plays down allegations and controversies which pinpoint Modi and the BJP. It does not matter if extremely serious issues of national security or massive corruption or questionable favouritism are raised. Like the revelations about the Adani Group in January this year were downplayed – even if the group itself suffered and so did the markets – to ensure Modi safe passage through this current term.
If we start at Adani, then move on to the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi after his questions about the Adani Group’s finances, to Malik’s allegations and from then on to the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, we find ourselves with a journalistic gold mine of information and controversy.
But not in India.
In India, the media has ignored 1, 2 and 3 for the most part. Those who have covered the issues do not have the strength or the reach to make major political impact. Or we have scrambled to protect the government in power, especially Modi’s personal image as a know-it-all do-gooder saint and blame everyone else, particularly long dead prime ministers. This strategy has worked well over the past 10 or 11 years and continues to be effective. The only way the media in India will be effective as a pillar of democracy is when Hindi and regional language mainstream television channels accept and fulfil their prime responsibilities of speaking truth to power.
And when it comes to 4, law and order in Uttar Pradesh, we celebrate its collapse, police inefficiency and extrajudicial killings as forms of extreme nationalism to further a Hindu cause.
The UP chief minister is presented as some vigilante superhero, breaking all laws with unspeakable courage to ensure “justice”. It bothers no one in mainstream television that every rule of jurisprudence is broken with impunity. Anyone who asks questions is labelled, as ever, anti-Hindu, pro-Pakistan and anti-justice.
Am I being unfair?
The mainstream media coverage and especially television of the chase and arrest of gangster-politician Atique Ahmed was given full C-grade Bollywood masala film treatment.
The killing of Ahmed’s son in an “encounter” was treated like some major act of bravery by the UP police.
The subsequent shooting of Ahmed and his brother by three men, while they were in police custody and shown live on television, blurred every line between reality and fiction.
We have so internalized the narrative that questioning this government is anti-national and increasingly anti-Hindu, that every transgression, failure, act of incompetence, act of cruelty and extreme suffering is accepted as stepping stones on the road to some glorious future.
And none of these atrocities would have been possible without a corrupted and coopted media.
Did you hear about the deaths of at least 13 people due to complications of extreme heat as they waited for a speech by Union Home Minister Amit Shah? Have you at least accepted that it was their own fault and not that of the organizers?
Wait for it.