The Indian Express calls itself “journalism of courage”. For many years, we believed this pat on the back because as long as the Congress Party was in power, and at some points even when the BJP was in power, the Indian Express showed a lot of courage. It took on Indira Gandhi, India’s most powerful prime minister – present company excused – and did it fearlessly. It took on Dhirubhai Ambani – who was soon to become India’s most powerful industrialist, present company excused – and did it fearlessly. It even managed to cover the Gujarat riots of 2002, held in the domain of then chief minister Narendra Modi, with some level of courage.
It even did a most remarkable investigation into how the Indian Army in 2012, under then General VK Singh (now in the BJP and until lately a minister in the Modi Cabinet) had possibly planned a military coup on Manmohan Singh’s government. The investigation was done by Shekhar Gupta and Ritu Sarin.
https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/web/the-january-night-raisina-hill-was-spooked-two-key-army-units-moved-towards-delhi-without-notifying-govt/
Since Modi became PM in 2014, the Indian Express has remained extremely courageous, one cannot deny that, but largely when it comes to the Opposition, Sonia/Rahul Gandhi and so on. Taking on the ruling BJP, Modi, Amit Shah, er, not so much. It has practically handed over its column space to the BJP fan club, with a mere nod to the other parties.
But this is not actually about the Indian Express. This is about the statements it has carried by Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief or sarsanghchalak as they call their boss. Bhagwat, who has got elevated status from Modi with a dedicated Doordarshan spot for his Dassera speech, was apparently somewhat contained in that space by Modi and Amit Shah. JP Nadda, now Cabinet minister but former president of the BJP, had even said during the election campaign that the BJP did not need the RSS or words to that effect.
Bhagwat has spoken to the Sangh about how arrogance in a “sevak” is wrong, that Manipur was neglected for a year and now had to be dealt with immediately and that “decorum was not maintained” during the election campaign. Is this a return to “journalism of courage” where elliptical criticism of Modi – albeit from the BJP’s boss organisation the RSS – is given prominence?
Who knows, eh?
There is a short clip of a podcast going around social media. It shows, amongst a group of senior BJP/right wing “thinkers”, one self-declared Congress supporter, and Smita Prakash, the editor and owner of ANI, which is apparently Asia’s largest multimedia news agency. This growth and reach is no mean feat, especially given that of all the various legacy media RW/BJP TV channels and journals, hers is the most efficient and at the forefront of BJP/Modi propaganda.
Prakash declares in the podcast that the RW content from the BJP was “minuscule” unlike the Opposition which had trucks broadcasting videos from Youtuber Dhruv Rathee and TV journalist Ravish Kumar. This claim is ludicrous in itself and even more so when it comes from the editor of ANI. Prakash herself went out of her way to promote Modi. As did every major mainstream TV channel, from India Today and News18 to Times Now, NDTV and the Hindi channels. Modi gave “interviews” to some of these where no one questioned or corrected his absurd claims that he was not biological but divine origin and that no one had heard of Mahatma Gandhi until Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film.
And let us not forget Modi himself. His election campaigning – as Bhagwat politely pointed out – was brazen, Islamophobic and filled with falsehoods. No one in the India gets more prominence or publicity than Modi. If he did not do well enough in these elections, which has upset these sections of the RW, it is not because the RW did not do enough.
Maybe Prakash and others might ask themselves why they did not do enough to represent the people of India. Many of whom did not vote for Modi and the BJP precisely because the media’s endless propaganda did not reflect ground realities.
Naah, I joke. Self-awareness is not amongst the RW media’s dominant traits. Otherwise, why would they…