The darkness of Indian media

I deleted my Facebook account a few months back because that social media was blocking me off and on. Initially it blocked me for a day each. Then it became three days, seven days, and so on until they blocked me for a whole month. The reason: I was satirising the ills that plague my country. The evils that I questioned were ostensibly promoted by Facebook which had no issues with the various individuals as well as agencies that advocated sectarianism openly on the platform. Facebook views me as an antinational person because I want peace and harmony in the country!

This is the tragic situation in the whole country. Sane voices are stifled and sheer madness is promoted as patriotism. Media is one place where you see it blatantly in practice.

India has been sinking pathetically in the ranking of press freedom ever since Modi took charge as Prime Minister. Now the country stands at a low of 150 out of 180 nations in the press freedom index. Modi has taken India close to despicably illiberal countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

When the Prime Minister’s closest friend and corporate honcho, Mukesh Ambani, owns over 70 media institutions in the country which are followed by over 800 million citizens, and another honcho [Adani] is swallowing a media like the NDTV, the country has little reason for optimism with respect to media freedom.

Modi’s India hates media criticism of the government. Modi is scared of criticism altogether. Funny when we know that he presents himself as the bravest citizen of the country with swashbuckling bravado. Facades can be comic as well as grotesque at the same time.

Too many journalists have been punished in various ways for being critical of Modi. The Prime Minister makes use of such agencies as the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department, and the Central Bureau of Investigation to raid and/or harass his critics. Many critics are arrested as antinational people and thrown behind the bars. Some are even killed.

But Modi remains a hero for the majority of Indians. His heroism is a fabrication. Fabricated by a humongous propaganda machinery which consists mostly of the media.

It is easy to manipulate the media today because the media has gone digital. According to a recent study by Reuters, 78% of Indians now rely on smartphones for news. Globally that figure is 85%. Social media play a vital role in such a situation. A lot of people get their news and other information from Facebook and such places. News is fabricated in such places which are nothing more than commercial ventures meant for making profit. Facebook has no moral commitment to any value. It is sheer commerce. Truth dies a thousand deaths on that platform every minute. And governments celebrate those deaths. Indian government has much to cheer in this regard. You find hundreds of thousands of tweets/posts which are just copy-pasted by paid agencies of the government. Utter falsehood which becomes truths merely because they are repeated ad infinitum blindly and senselessly.

India has become a country of falsehood and hatred under Modi’s leadership. Good people go to jails as criminals occupy seats of power in the legislatures. As eminent journalist, Siddharth Varadarajan, said recently in his 21^st Narendran memorial lecture in Thiruvananthapuram, India is grappling now with “attempts to demean, belittle and outlaw dissent and protest” and media is the first victim of those attempts. What we now have in the country is a mockery of democracy with open horse-trading of elected politicians going on throughout the country like a farce scripted in hell. As long as our media remains a slave, a lapdog, there is little hope for democracy. Dictatorship will masquerade as democracy here.

Darkness has engulfed the country’s media, said Varadarajan in his lecture. But there is light on the other side. There are still some media agencies clinging to truth bravely and fighting for the light. Let us not think that those who are in the light are a tiny minority, he exhorted. We are many. We shall not succumb to the forces of darkness.