The Supreme Court’s judgment striking down electoral bonds as unconstitutional has led to…
What do you want me to say?
Because as far as the bulk of the Screaming Media is concerned, well… it’s not silence but it just as well could be.
So we have some plain bread and butter reporting: the court said this, the government said that, the petitioner said the other thing. There’s a little welcome history about the scheme: what it wanted to achieve, what its provisions said and such.
There is not quite as much on the Centre’s submission to the court that citizens do not have the right to know.
What can our captive media say about this?
They have capitalized on this notion for the past 10 maybe more years. The citizen does not have the right to know anything that significantly impacts her. Rather, the citizen must be fed a constant diet of hatred against some communities and ideologies and at the same time a non-stop glorification of one particular person and perhaps a few others.
Here’s a look at TV channel websites between 10.30 and 11 this morning.
The Times Now website had the news of the Supreme Court striking down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional low down on the list (farmers, crimes, a Bharat bandh possibility, and plenty of Bollywood stuff dominated the headlines). The focus of the coverage was not on the court judgment, but rather on how much money each party got from electoral bond funding.
News18’s opening page had nothing on the Supreme Court judgment. A distressing case of sexual assault allegations against a Trinamool functionary in Bengal, the farmers and how they were wrong and greedy, and Bollywood news were displayed prominently.
The India Today website led with the farmers, the role of Qatar as a global negotiator, cricket and crime. There was however a link to electoral bonds, which provided bog standard reporting on the subject.
NDTV’s landing page was very similar to India Today’s, except there was nothing on the Supreme Court judgment.
This gives one a clear idea that the judgment has upset the Central government to such an extent that it has not formulated a proper response for its captive media channels and nor for its Rs 2 trolls, who were every quiet on social media yesterday. I did not get even one tweet asking me to “deal with it aunty” or “keep quiet” or the usual threats of bodily harm, although the older I get the more those have reduced.
The only responses were from popular outliers. A YouTube video maker who shills for the BJP, about how political parties other than the BJP have also received electoral funding from the bond scheme. And interestingly, both a former journalist and a former corporate honcho argued that secrecy was important because of possible vindictiveness of political parties. It was unclear why two loud BJP and Modi supporters would latch solely on to the vindictiveness angle when the BJP has been in power for so long.
For the general public, a 223-page judgment is laborious reading. These a few links from digital and print news sites which aid comprehension:
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/mc-explainer-electoral-bonds-demystified-conditions-benefits-validity-and-more-12277871.html
https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-electoral-bonds-1scheme-249553
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-supreme-court-struck-down-electoral-bonds-scheme/articleshow/107710972.cms
I will repeat here what I say all too often. This is a landmark judgment. An important government scheme has been knocked down by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India as unconstitutional. Whatever your politics, it is the most important news of the day, week, month. The media would be going to town on this, if it hadn’t picked a side and surrendered its basic right of showing truth to power.
It is surprising to many that the Supreme Court has batted for the citizen of India and her right to know.
Sadly, it is not surprising to anyone that the bulk of the Indian mainstream media has chosen to suppress this news.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.