Skip to main content

India: The Media Question


India occupies a very low rank on the World Press Freedom Index: 150 out of 180 countries. In 2002, the rank was a passable 80. Now India enjoys the company of countries like Turkey (149), Sudan (151), Tajikistan (152), Belarus (153), Azerbaijan (154), Russia (155), Afghanistan (156), and Pakistan (157). The ranking is worked out on the basis of political context, legal framework, economy, sociocultural context and safety. India’s rank fell consistently year after year especially after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister.

The latest assault on media by the Modi government is what is euphemistically called “survey” of the BBC offices. Everyone knows that the raid (which is what it is) is occasioned by the documentary that the media house produced recently about Modi - India: The Modi Question. We have seen ample examples of media houses being targeted by the government for being critical of Modi. A well-established channel like the NDTV which was doing a remarkable job of journalism with integrity was brought to its knees by Modi. The shocking irony is that an utter chiseler like Gautam Adani became the boss of that channel. A lot of other media agencies have been victimized by Modi recently: Dainik Bhaskar, The Quint, News Click, The Hindu, Greater Kashmir, Alt News, and many other publications and TV channels were assaulted by various government agencies in different ways for refusing to kowtow to Modi.

India is on a dangerous path. There is no opposition worth the name. When the opposition is so effete, the press becomes all the more important. The press should act as the spokespersons of the citizens. The press should ask the questions that the citizens would love to ask. But Modi does not want a free press in the country. He has not even cared to give a single press conference so far. He gives Mann ki Baat instead. What the country wants are not facile platitudes, however. A leader who talks smoothly and acts vindictively is the ultimate national fraud. The least one will expect from a leader is harmony between his creed, word and deed. The question here is: is it about fraudulence or dictatorship?

Modi’s close friend, Mukesh Ambani, owns over 70 media outlets. Imagine Gautam Adani owning an equal number. What kind of information can we expect from such media? What is the use of such media which will do nothing more than propaganda work for the government?

 

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 17, 2023 at 5:56 AM

    Hari OM
    An important question, that. I fear things are ramping up over your way... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2023 at 11:32 AM

      The going is getting tougher and the tough are facing extinction.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeFebruary 17, 2023 at 11:48 AM

    Bleak future if any

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2023 at 1:01 PM

      The catastrophe of dictatorship has little light to cheer us.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

Are human systems repressive?

Salma I had never heard of Salma until she was sent to the Rajya Sabha as a Member of the Parliament by Tamil Nadu a couple of weeks back and a Malayalam weekly featured her on the cover with an interview. Salma’s story made me think on the nature of certain human systems and organisations including religion. Salma was born Rajathi Samsudeen. Marriage made her Rukiya, because her husband’s family didn’t think of Rajathi as a Muslim name. Salma is the pseudonym she chose as a writer. Salma’s life was always controlled by one system or another. Her religion and its ruthlessly patriarchal conventions determined the crests and troughs of her life’s waves. Her schooling ended the day she chose to watch a movie with a friend, another girl whose education was stopped too. They were in class 9. When Rajathi protested that her cousin, a boy, was also watching the same movie at the same time in the same cinema hall, her mother’s answer was, “He’s a boy; boys can do anything.” Rajathi was...
12 comments
Read more

Roles we Play

When I saw the above picture of Narendra Modi in the latest issue of India Today , what rushed to my mind instantly was a Malayalam film song Veshangal Janmangal … Life is a series of roles dressed up for the occasion. There are different costumes for celebrations and mourning, and there are people who can shed one and move into the other instantly. Are your smiles genuine? Do your tears mean sadness? Or, are they all costumes that suit the occasion? Are you just an actor who plays certain roles? Is the entire cosmos just a gigantic theatre for you? Where can we find the real you beneath all the costumes you keep changing day in and day out? Have you relinquished dharma in favour of cravings? Truth over expediency?  
8 comments
Read more