Indian Media Stands Unmasked and Exposed

Jaspal Singh Sidhu

Since Independence, the Indian media has been a carrier of flag-waving patriotism. Anything that infringed New Delhi’s project of ‘nation-building’ invariably fell into the ‘anti-national’ category deserving no sympathy or critical appreciation from the media. The Indian periphery- deep south, far west, Punjab, Kashmir, and north-east—have already experienced hostile press at some or other point of time in the past 70 years.

But earlier that jaundiced approach of the Indian media was least pinching for the liberal democrats as well as to the left thinkers and ideologues who have always been visualizing and pursuing the goal of seeing the partitioned Indian sub-continent as a ‘strong Indian nation’. The BJP and its Moditva politics have recently added another factor to their popular notion. The new addition-- a hyperbole laced with violent implications-- is that ‘Indian nation’ should be ‘great and strongest’ enough to “settle past scores with its ‘enemies’ and crush them”. Such ultra-nationalism is, otherwise, just an intensification of the earlier brand nationalism which wanted India to be a stronger nation in Asia. But the liberals and a larger section of the Left never sought that veneer of ‘secular democracy’ should be shattered. They, however, oblivious of the fact that ‘populism’ of the earlier Congress rulers in the name of ‘strengthening India’s territorial unity and integrity’ was pivoted around the Hindi heartland and cow-belt entailing majoritarian religious-cultural ethos. Liberals and secularists’ tacit acceptance of nationalism of the Congress brand was bound to throw of Hindutva nationalism. Three decades-long of the Congress party rule after Independence had, thus, prepared a fertile ground for ultra-nationalism. In other words, an earlier brand of ‘nationalism’ required for building India as ‘a nation-state’ on the European model, was just twisted to create ‘Hindu Rashtra’- the strongest version of ‘nation-state’. Previously the Congress chose to tackle growing dissent in the country’s periphery, not through the political process of ‘give and take’ as per the requirements of the federal set-up of India but sought to suppress the dissent using dubious tactics and militarily oppression. During post-Independence turmoil, the media stood by Nehru’s policies of retaining intact the previous centralised British administrative set-up and keeping up a tight grip over the territory India had inherited from the British. Historical events thereafter vouchsafe that Nehru had reluctantly agreed even to reorganise Indian states on a linguistic basis fearing that such move might not lead to balkanisation. Nehru as prime minister ruled India during its formative period of 17 years after Independence. He pursued the practice of holding regular meetings with editors of national dailies who had been least critical of Nehru’s policies.  

Fixed up in such nationalistic mould, the Indian media, later on, helped the proponents of ‘strongest India’ in spreading ‘hate’ against the identified ‘enemies’. The BJP’s that political move polarised the society and inculcated fear among citizenry through the propagation of communal slogans that raised the bogey of ‘imminent threat to the nation’. Votaries of ‘strongest India’ projected Muslims, minorities, Dalits and a section of Left as ‘enemies’ while consistently targeting Pakistan aiming to consolidate the majority. As a result, tension and fear stalk every section of India society. Indian society now sits on the edge of the volcano. While minorities and Dalits are facing genuine existential threats, the majority too is gripped with an imaginary threat to the nation. That is why, we find mainstream Indian media- both print and broadcast- remaining uncritical to the peddlers of fear and rather becomes propagandist for the Modi regime. The media refrains to question the Pulwama and Balakote episodes and the regime’s flaunting against Pakistan.

In the fresh case of Kashmir, the media turns out to be more supportive to the degradation Jammu and Kashmir status and least bothered about what happened to those millions of people who got caged in their houses following the heaviest deployment of the military with no or restricted communications with the outside world for past two months. Obsessed with’ India first’ the mainstream Indian media rarely came out with facts about what trials and tabulations are being faced by the entrapped Kashmiris. To know some iota of truth about them one has to switch over to BBC and other foreign media. Similar media blockades Punjab witnessed during the troubled period in the 1980s. Similarly, the truth about the scary developments in the north-east remained elusive in the media ever since New Delhi initiated its so-called counter-insurgency program five-six decades ago.

Indian Media’s legacy: “Independence saw qualitative and quantitative changes in the character of the press in India”, observed eminent journalist GS Bhargava. “It was a transition from a cause-oriented service to a profit- yielding quasi-industry”. During pre-Independence, the British-owned Anglo-Indian newspapers like Times of India and Statesman were being run on commercial lines with advertisement support from the British commercial interests –collectively called Clive Street in Calcutta. Since these newspapers opposed the nationalist movement, they got the patronage of the British Indian government in forms of bulk purchase of copies and subsidised newsprint. After Independence, these newspapers including Pioneer and Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore came into the hands of Indian traders who were yet to become industrialists in the real sense. Indian owned newspapers like The Hindu, Hindustan Times, National Herald, Sainik and Aaj (Hindi) et al were financially tottering during the British period but they brought out nationalist news and comments. To circumvent draconian Defence of India Act with an array of press laws for pre-censorship, the All India Newspaper Editors Conference (AINEC) got associated with the British Press Advisory System to “avoid a clash with authorities” during the 1940s.

That tendency of ‘avoiding a clash with authorities’ came to stick with the Indian mainstream press which, later, rather turned into an ‘association with the authorities’ after the Independence. Such transition was natural with Indian traders becoming the media owners. With the transition of media owners from the traders to industrialists further cemented the media houses association with the authorities. The industrialists could survive and thrive only with the support from the government and patronage from the rulers of the day. The media houses gradually became media monopolists too and began toeing the Indian establishment line.

Moreover, the industrialists always prefer a larger market of Indian expanse to operate. And that is why they stood for a centralised unitary India which coincided with the goal of earlier Congress rulers who sought to retain Indian unity with a strong centre by hook and crook. Pre-Independence idealism of the Press for preserving freedom and promoting democratic values as its ‘mission’ got slowly faded with the media houses moving towards industry and later to assume a bigger scale of corporate houses.

That journey of the media houses to the industry involved fierce competition among newspapers for raising their respective circulations to earn maximum revenue from advertisements.  Times of India was the first one to indulge in that unethical ‘price war’ reducing the rate of its copy just to Re 1.50. Other media houses also reluctantly followed suit which resulted in sky-rocketed their circulations in lakhs in the early 1990s. It is worth recalling that in 1952, the First Press Commission had noted down that there were 330 dailies in the country with a total circulation of 30 lakhs.

In the 1990s, the Indian mainstream print media witnessed spectacular growth and also a notable hike in advertisement revenue.

With overdependence on advertisement revenue and slashing of newspaper prices, the print media became more responsive and attuned to the requirements of givers of advertisements-the industry and the government and almost ceased to be accountable to readers and subscribers who were the least contribution to the newspaper’s income. It is thumb rule everywhere in the capitalistic regime that maintains a semblance of ‘free press’ the Industry always work in tandem with the government of the day. This is more applicable to the electronic media which, now, happened to acquire more prominence than print media in India. 

Viewing against the above background, the mainstream media now requires “business executives’ in place of ‘editors’ to mobilise more advertisement revenue and to remain on the positive side of the government of the day. Interestingly, the revenue model itself conditions the media --officially characterised as ‘entertainment and news industry’-- to toe not only the government line but to carry the political agenda of the rulers which may be xenophobic or hysterical.

In other words, one can say the mandate of the mainstream media has become ‘nationalism’ (India-first) which has taken over the previous journalistic mandate of working for preserving democratic and civil rights in a parliamentary democracy.

Ironically, similar developments have also taken place in Western mature democracies too. In the US, journalistic integrity also witnessed a sharp decline and of late, the media has become a ‘willing tool’ of the state. The US media now chooses to remain mum particularly when America following its imperialistic policies sends troops to other countries on the pretext of crushing ‘terrorism’ or curbing threats to the world’s peace. It is a known fact that US military expeditions had resulted in severe destruction of indigenous societies and heavy bloodshed of civilians after the Second World War. Barring two investigative stories that captured the public imagination in the 1970s the US press has not gone for any other larger expose. The Watergate expose by Washington Post forced President Nixon to step down and publishing of Pentagon paper by the New York Times uncovered the barbaric bombing on civilians in Vietnam. The post 9/11 period witnessed the enactment of various black laws by the US establishment that infringes on the civil rights of the citizens. But all that escaped critical eye of the media there. The US media rather went on nationalistic over-drive when President Bush sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. The US media persons rather became embedded with the invading troops and whipped up phobia against Islamic nations. The US having supremacy with near-monopoly over information network in the world, gets its news and features published in a larger section Indian media too. In this way, the US media has been supplementing ‘Islamic phobia’ to the Indian media which has already been dominated by those working journalists who are pushing up Hindutva ideological agenda.

Media scholars such as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argue in the US context that “when it comes to the national interest, the issues of economic, military, and foreign policy the press is more conservative than liberal and more lapdog than watchdog.” This observation is fully applicable to the Indian media too.

The Indian media seemingly ‘goes to war’-- as media critic Anthony Dimaggio averred in some other context-- when New Delhi takes up the Kashmir and Pakistan issues and passionately follow the Indian establishment line.

Even otherwise, Herman and Noam Chomsky observed that “the mainstream media inculcate and defend the economic, social and political agenda of the privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serves this purpose in many ways: through a selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of the issues, filtering the information, emphasis, and tone, and by keeping the bounds of debate within acceptable premises”.

Anthony Dimaggio study on the American media is quite applicable to the Indian media that propaganda of the Modi regime is not physically forced on the editors and journalists, rather they “willingly adopt such propaganda by restricting the public debate to the spectrum of agreement or disagreement expressed by the political elite”.

As the darkness has enveloped the Indian journalistic sky, still there are some grey areas, some swathes of ‘alternative media’ are visible but only to those who wanted to fight against proponents of ‘rashtravaad’.