A fortnightly column from The Wire's ombudsperson.
Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha, while in police custody in Tripura. Photo: By arrangement
As we arrive at the last month of the calendar, it becomes useful to flag yet again the one big concern that figured in various ways throughout the last 11 months: shrinking media freedoms. So steadily, even stealthily, have they been dismantled that the average person remains unaware of the creeping shades of the prison house.
Consider, for instance, media access to Parliament. Once taken for granted, today even those with valid passes have been denied entry to the country’s central arena of democratic discourse for the last five sessions and the recent protest staged by journalists in Delhi indicates the widespread angst that this treatment has caused (‘“Arbitrary”: Journalists Slam Restrictions on Their Access to Parliament Building’, November 3).
In the seven years of the Narendra Modi period, it is the triad of 2019, 2020 and 2021 that together constitute a particularly significant phase in state-directed media strangulation. If we were to use the analogy of an actual manual strangulation, this period has seen pressure being increasingly applied to the neck of the subject. The actual point of choking may not have been reached; the media may still find the strength to flay their limbs about in a bid to save themselves from imminent asphyxiation. But the question remains, for how long?
The year 2019, we know, saw media repression bearing the marks of concertina wire, prison bars, the internet ban, and a totalising surveillance becoming the reality in the Kashmir Valley. These strategies were to be deployed in other parts of the country in the months that followed, notably at the Singhu border to discipline protesting farmers. Kashmir has always been the black box of Indian journalism and this column has argued that any observer of the Indian journalism needs to grasp what is going on in this region (‘Backstory: The Kashmir Model to Discipline Indian Media’, February 13, 2021) to understand the government’s intentions and strategies of media control. It was in Kashmir that the use of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against journalists was first normalised. It was here again that the police acquired the full powers to function as super-censors of journalistic work.
The next year, 2020, saw the COVID-19 pandemic being treated as the perfect smokescreen to control media coverage through a variety of means including the pressurising of proprietors, the nudging of courts into ensuring a clamp on independent reporting, and ministerial meetings to cogitate on a set of rules to discipline a defiant online media. In the meanwhile, those who dared to expose the laxities, corruptions and perfidies of the government in its handling of the pandemic found themselves in prison or thrown out of their jobs.
Social media is bold.
Social media is young.
Social media raises questions.
Social media is not satisfied with an answer.
Social media looks at the big picture.
Social media is interested in every detail.
social media is curious.
Social media is free.
Social media is irreplaceable.
But never irrelevant.
Social media is you.
(With input from news agency language)
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