Pressing for Freedom

On June 8^th, two plain-clothed police officers entered the house of Delhi-based freelance journalist Prashant Kanojia and whisked him away. No questions were asked, no explanations given...His offence? Sharing a video on social media on which a woman claimed to be in a relationship with U.P.’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and expressing her candid desire to marry him.

The same day as Kanojia was picked up from the capital city, the U.P. Police detained two more journalists, Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla. Even though India’s journalistic fraternity protested against the arrests, and Anant Bagaitkar, the President of the Press Club of India  also strongly condemned them, these three cases are reflective of a disturbing trend in India. `It is an authoritarian misuse of law’.

It should come as no surprise, that India’s global standing vis-a-vis freedom of the press has slipped by two more points in the span of one year, bringing it down to rank 140 amongst 180 countries according to an annual survey carried out by RSF, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders. Within a span of one year, with at least 6 journalists killed and several beaten up,  many removed from their jobs at the behest of the bureaucrats, and many others detained for posting things not favorable towards the ruling party and its entourage, it is no brainer that our status dropped below that of Morocco, UAE, Qatar, Bhutan, Gambia and 135 other such countries. In reference to India, what caught the attention of the RSF staff was the alarming rate of hate-campaigns and threats waged on social media against journalists who dare to bring to light the failures of the government, or expose the Hindutva slant of its staunch supporters.

Over the years a steady decline in some of the most prestigious media-houses has been observed as editorial content is compromised to accommodate the political preferences of the sponsors. At the end of the day, it is the integrity of the written word that is made the sacrificial lamb, as more and more of our communication channels are reduced to becoming the mouthpiece of the government, where voices of dissent are quickly quashed. Be it the untimely egress of popular editor-in-chief Bobby Ghosh of Hindustan Times, or ABP’s premature termination of the Masterstroke anchor Prasun Bajpai’s contract, or the dismissal of Aakash Banerjee as a Times of India blogger, they were all elicited directly by orders either from the I&B ministry or the PMO. For something uncomplimentary to PM’s golden-boy image was shared with the public by the respective media.

Bobby Ghosh, who in a matter was 14 months galvanised Hindustan Times, and took it to a new height by his visioneering skills, was asked to resign following a behind-the-door meeting Mr Modi himself held with Shobha Bharthia, the chairperson of HT. As for Bajpai, exposing the official diktat which preceded his departure, he writes, “From being told not to take Narendra Modi’s name or show his picture on any of the my shows, critical of the government, to a sinister blacking out of Masterstroke, was nothing short of censorship...” And Aakash Banerjee, the blogger with the Times of India, after his controversial remarks on Modi, was asked to discontinue. A senior official from the organisation, not wanting to be named, confided, “The company had eight crores of advertising money at stake...so, naturally, they wrote several letters of apology to the ministry, and dropped the blogger.”

The noted French journalist and author, Albert Camus once said, “A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”