भारत में पत्रकारिता और सरकार

After securing the co-option, cooperation, and capitulation of vast chunks of big media, an image-obsessed government is turning the screws on the bit players 

in an interview to the BBC shortly after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002

1  Chief Minister Narendra Modi was asked: “When you look back, do you think there is anything you should have done differently?” His response was clear and unvarnished: “Yes, one area where I was very weak, and that was how to handle the media.” 

2 Both the question and the answer were contained in the BBC documentary that was barred from being aired in India in 2023.

3  The raids that followed on the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai following the broadcast of the documentary elsewhere in the world showed that Mr. Modi had learnt his lessons well in nine years as Prime Minister.

A warning shot

बड़े मीडिया के विशाल हिस्से का समर्थन, सहयोग और समर्पण हासिल करने के बाद, एक छवि-ग्रस्त सरकार छोटे खिलाड़ियों पर शिकंजा कस रही है। जैसा की newsclick के मामले में हुआ था।  

यहां बेड़ियों में जकड़ने के लिए कानून का एक टुकड़ा; डराने के लिए वहाँ सुबह-सुबह की दस्तक। पांच राज्यों में सेमीफाइनल से पहले 2024 के आम चुनाव करीब हैं, यह उन कुछ लोगों के लिए एक चेतावनी है जो अभी भी "बुद्ध और गांधी की भूमि" में पत्रकारिता का अक्षम्य अपराध कर रहे हैं।

"मुझे वह आदमी दिखाओ और मैं तुम्हें अपराध दिखाऊंगा," यह दावा जोसेफ स्टालिन के क्रूर गुप्त पुलिस प्रमुख लावेरेंटी बेरिया को दिया गया था, यानी, वह किसी के भी खिलाफ मामला बना सकता था, यहां तक ​​कि निर्दोष के खिलाफ भी। 

बोल्शेविक की किताब से सीख लेते हुए, एक राजनीतिक प्रतिष्ठान जो 1975 की ज्यादतियों का जश्न मनाता है, उसने प्रशंसनीय खंडन की कला में महारत हासिल कर ली है।

Every attack on press freedom is painted as anything but:

•  it is about money-laundering (NewsClick, NDTV); 
• 
  
• it is about income-tax evasion (BBC, Dainik Bhaskar); 
• 
  
• it is about national security (MediaOne); 
• 
  
• it is about glorifying terrorism (Fahad Shah); 
• 
  
• it is about disrupting peace (Siddique Kappan).
• 
  

Indira Gandhi और मोदी की तुलना 

 At least Indira Gandhi had the courage to formally declare an Emergency — and the censors sat alongside journalists in the newsroom, not the Prime Minister’s office.

NewsClick  केस में क्या हुआ 

The police landing up without a copy of the FIR or a list of the offences committed. Seizing the phones and laptops of the “suspects” despite every court saying ‘don’t’. 

A case of economic offence turning into a conspiracy to undermine the republic. 

And the 73-year-old founder of the portal being arrested under a law made for terrorists. 

So many questions can be asked, but just one is enough: exactly whose activity is “unlawful” here, the second estate’s, or the fourth?

“If anyone has committed anything wrong, agencies are free to carry out investigations against them under set guidelines,” were the gratuitous words of the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur. 

But when the “suspects” are questioned about the protests 

१ 

• against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 
• the Delhi riots that followed, or the farmers’ agitation on the farm laws,

 २ it reveals a perverse mindset which is so used to unfiltered propaganda 

that govt sees  journalism not as a public service, but as an avoidable hindrance / बाधा . 

३ And it ticks all the boxes of media capture — harassment, intimidation, vendetta, vilification.

इंद्रा गाँधी का आरोप और बीजेपी की सीख 

1 When Indira Gandhi always said,  the “foreign hand” to brush away her every failing, India was literate enough to guffaw at it.

 

2 But in Bharat, when the state accuses a website

of “Chinese links” and peddling Chinese propaganda, the WhatApp University admins cannot find the smarts to ask, what is illegal about it, even if true?

 it means journalists do not have the intellectual wherewithal to empathise with  ? 

• peasants and pensioners, 
• women and workers, 
• the poor and the marginalised, 
• Dalits and the disenfranchised, 

thinking of govt 

1 “In furtherance of this conspiracy to disrupt the sovereignty of India and to cause disaffection against India, large amount of funds were routed from China in a camouflaged manner and paid news were intentionally peddled criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government,” reads the comical FIR, 

2 with scant understanding of what “paid news” is, oblivious of the Reserve Bank of India-mandated 26% limit on foreign funding of digital platforms,

 3 and mocking the ₹49 crore that Chinese companies donated after COVID-19, including to the PM CARES fund, no less.

Contempt bordering on hatred

 When the White House press corps can be disdainfully kept waiting in a van while the U.S. President is bumping fists in the Prime Minister’s residence, or when a BJP-ruled government with blood on its hand can be blithely allowed to proceed against the Editors Guild of India for ferreting out the facts in Manipur, it points to a systemic contempt for the news media bordering on pathological hatred.

 in  Emergency 

But, for public consumption, every June the tweets should read: “We must not forget that dark period of Emergency. Censorship was so stringent that nothing could be published without approval.”

we can ask question 

एक सरकार, जो मीडिया के माध्यम से खुद को प्रचारित करने के लिए हजारों करोड़ रुपये खर्च करती है, वह बाहरी लोगों को कुचलने और दुनिया की नजरों में बदनामी लाने पर क्यों आमादा है? 

और जो सरकार समय-समय पर भारत की बढ़ती ताकत के (स्व-सत्यापित) प्रमाण पत्र जारी करती है, वह विश्व प्रेस स्वतंत्रता सूचकांक में अपनी रैंकिंग सुधारने में इतनी उदासीन क्यों है,

 जहां वह अब 180 देशों में से 161वें स्थान पर तालिबान द्वारा संचालित अफगानिस्तान से नीचे है? (2014 में, यह 140 पर था; 2022 में, यह 150 पर था।)

उन सवालों का जवाब बताता है कि मक्खी को मारने के लिए स्लेजहैमर का सहारा क्यों लिया गया। 

जब उत्तर प्रदेश के एक भाजपा मंत्री ने ट्वीट किया कि पत्रकारिता 'महाभारत' के समय शुरू हुई, तो एक फिल्म निर्माता ने तीखा जवाब दिया: "और 2014 में समाप्त हो गया"।

 source the hindu