Indian media trapped in web of confusion

An illusion of freedom prevails with corporate interests and political masters writing the script

The perceptions outside the boundaries of India over the freedom of the Press collide like two hostile billiard balls. One school of thought underscores a freedom that is now running away with itself and becoming almost destructive in nature. Never have so many written so much about so few, as they do today. Although India has over 80,000 newspapers and over 850 television channels and 500,000 bloggers on social platforms, the pie is not equally shared and the monopoly of a small cluster at the top of the pyramid is a sharp steeple with no room for intruders at the exclusive top.

There is another school that believes the media has never been so endangered as it is today and the illusion of freedom, courtesy the deluge of ‘news’, fake and real from social platforms, conceals the pathological destruction of honest ‘watchdog’ media. In Modi’s watch, the media is being emasculated.

People in India and India watchers abroad choose the ball they wish to clasp according to their affection for Narendra Modi or a lack of it.

The over-riding fear of those who are in the anti-Modi corner is that too much power is being vested in one person and this sort of adulation inevitably leads to chaos and anarchy, however well-intentioned the individual might be. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On this canvas the raids by the Indian CBI agency on NDTV’s Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika on a $8 million loan taken eight years ago from the ICICI bank do give off a whiff of suspicion that it is highly unusual for the CBI to raid anyone for a private loan activity.

There is also a general belief that the swoop on the offices and the Roys’ home was a direct result of the dismissal of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra by NDTV anchor Nidhi Razdan from her show.

On the face of it, though stranger things have happened, it is a bit of a stretch. Sleepy Sambit is a nice guy but he is not such a heavyweight that within days the national BJP machinery would rise to avenge the ‘embarrassment’ of his being kicked off a silly little shrill talk show where he badmouthed the channel he was on and merely underscored the slippery slope of Indian TV debates and how nonsensical they have become.

If, indeed, there is evidence to show there is a connect, then that is a dangerous portent. We would have to believe that Prime Minister Modi’s party is now dividing media into ‘them’ and ‘us’ and if you are not with us you are the enemy, giving credence to TV anchor Ravish Kumar’s words in the aftermath that fear walks the streets of Delhi where media folks are concerned.

Is media ready to accept that assessment yet? It is a quantum leap of faith or lack of it in the fourth estate’s role in a democracy and before it makes that jump a certain frontal introspection is necessary.

Not just necessary but vital for if the traditional watchdog is being blindsided the ranks have to ensure it has no ticks.

So, it makes good sense before media get too huffy, that it asks itself this question: hasn’t it diluted its own ranks with dross? The label of ‘media’ is now so loosely hung on dubious necks that we have Mr Fix-its, bagmen, third parties and intermediaries and even agents masquerading as pressmen and using that vague membership to undue advantage, all of it nothing to do with journalism. Add to it paid hacks working in consonance with PR mice, who use every tactic possible to kill, block or rework stories and Indian media is compelled to admit that some of the rot resides within.

With so much decay in standards having been permitted over the years one cannot seek refuge in the traditional harbour of being media. That has become an armour and a shield and a convenient excuse. If we get caught we immediately link it to a vendetta and an interference in doing our job. Freedom of the Press is not without limits, and sans accountability turns rabid.

Since I haven’t read the 28 page indictment against the NDTV bosses far be it for anyone to second guess their guilt or innocence.

Suffice to say that such a raid is unnerving and a scar on the Indian media’s psyche and the fact that the Press has been incredibly free these 70-odd years gets a lot more knotted with every such assault.

One of the reasons why the Press (as opposed to the newfangled media) was able to withstand government pressure all these years after independence was that its practitioners were not wealthy. This may sound absurd but their wealth was their craft and their role as keepers of the flame. That relative poverty was a saving grace. Today, journalists have holdings and investment portfolios and engage in dealings with corporates and individuals and banks and government doles and subsidies. All of which have made them quasi-businessmen looking for business-matches not engaging in the art of journalists.

In that conversion it is conceivable that laws will be broken, hanky-panky engaged in and compromises made. It is the nature of the beast. And the happy ‘untouchability’ we, the media, have bestowed this upon ourselves because we believe press is not integral to law. All too often we feel we are above its considerations.

Even for the sake of argument if we assume that the Modi brigade is now into vindictive mode, how does going for the top echelons of media positively affect him? For one, it makes him a despot and sets the whole estate against him or at least wakes them up to a 1975 possibility of big brother intruding on their turf.

It also makes the CBI come off like his personal property.

Has he become so arrogant and singular he would actually encourage such a message? On the contrary, he truly gives NDTV a fresh lease on life, more grist for its mill and a nicely rounded halo of martyrdom.

There is just no win in it for Modi except if we see it through the prism of future imperfect and suspect that there is more selective chastisement to come.

In which case as it sets up defences let the media also do some housecleaning and weed out the white ants and weevils from its cupboard.

That act of pest control will make for a stronger stand.

The label of ‘media’ is now so loosely hung on dubious necks that we have Mr Fix-its, bagmen, third parties and intermediaries and even agents masquerading as pressmen and using that vague membership to undue advantage