As members of the two houses of Parliament gathered for the opening of the winter session on Monday (December 1), prime minister Narendra Modi opened proceedings with a sharp jibe at the opposition, urging them to stop lamenting electoral losses and focus instead on “real issues” that can be robustly debated in the Lok Sabha.

Outside the halls, reporters gathered around Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury who, while on her way to the Parliament had rescued an allegedly stray puppy, and brought it along in her car as she was dropped off to Parliament. Their question to her after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Jagdambika Pal had  objected, was about why she had defied protocol and brought a dog to parliament, even though the puppy in question had not set a paw outside the car. In the smog of the poisonous air we breathe, and the skilled samosa (or bhajji) making and e-retail delivery jobs we find, puppies are of course, a serious political concern.

The prime minister’s comments were quoted, and headlined verbatim, uncritically, while Renuka Chowdhury was forced to defend the act of rescuing a puppy she claimed to have spotted on her way to the Parliament, and accused of creating unnecessary drama to make a point about the recent Supreme Court order on stray dogs. No matter that the stray dog issue has also become polarising among concerned citizens nationwide.

In the wake of the opposition's rout in Bihar, the puppy could be seen as a metaphor for the motley crew that tried, and failed to beat the BJP at what the Congress President Rahul Gandhi alleged was a fixed match. Frantic and untethered, left to the mercy of fate, an insensitive media and a hostile political class that wants nothing more than to see it gone. And, juxtaposed against each other, the contradictions in the way mainstream media approaches and reports on the ruling dispensation and the opposition could therefore, not be starker, or more absurd.

The uncritical headlining of the PM’s tautological comment, and report after report highlighting his “strong message” to the opposition – don’t be negative, criticism should be “within limits” (who defines those?) don’t for a minute consider that the opposition does actually have something worthwhile to raise in Parliament – whether it is about stray dogs, or about the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) programme, which is now seeing Booth Level Officers fall like ninepins from the stress of meeting targets and deadlines.

The allegations of electoral misconduct in Bihar, right from depositing 10,000 rupees into women’s bank accounts, to the sudden spike in the number of voters on the rolls, and a lack of diligence under the Election Commission’s SIR are not small charges. It is inconceivable and frankly astounding that a healthy media in a vibrant democracy such as ours would not want to get to the bottom of these allegations and instead frame nightly news discussions and morning paper headlines in a manner that suggests these charges are nothing more than nuisance value.

Reams of newsprint and hours of airtime have been spent on blaming the opposition for poor leadership, a lack of unity or a lack of strategy ; and accusing them for exactly the same things as the BJP does –negativity, a lack of patriotism and such like. Apart from an odd columnist or commentator here or there, big news houses haven’t once stopped to ask why these charges are not being investigated more thoroughly. A few independent journalists with even fewer resources are holding up the flame of good reporting.

I remember a time when the opposition’s accusations against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of corruption in the 2G scam, the coal scam, the Commonwealth scam  among others were the topic of nightly news bulletins and debates demanding accountability from government. The Lokpal agitation that catapulted the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP's) force once was premised on a legitimate demand for clean government and accountability. The media’s dogged stories about all the corruption scandals became the bedrock for that movement.

It wasn’t just corruption though. After the street protests demanding better safety for women in Delhi turned riotous and violent in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape case, the media hauled the government over the proverbial coals for the manhandling of protesters. The questions were so many, and the criticism so vocal that the UPA government ultimately fell under the weight of its own poor defence and division.

The same media that once questioned the UPA is now terming protesters 'motivated, urban naxals'

The memories of a strong opposition whose legitimate questions were amplified on behalf of the public by a reasonably strong, independent minded media surely are not so faded? Where is that media today? Instead, when Delhiites gasp to breathe and take to the streets to demand clean air, the same media that questioned the UPA once for trying to silence protesters in 2012 and 2013 is leading the charge against citizens for being “motivated, urban naxals”. This is the language our prime time anchors speak.

The framing of questions seeking reactions to the latest move to have the government's sanchaar sathi app pre-installed into smartphones manufactured in India is a case in point. We all know the fine line between national security and privacy. A surveillance state demands that people fall in line on the former, compromising on their own privacy willingly or otherwise, in the bargain. But does the Indian public really want the government poking around in every aspect of their lives lived on their smartphones? From what you watch on YouTube to who you send messages to on WhatsApp, to family chat groups and debates, what games you may play or whether you’re cheating on your spouse or not – big brother will know everything. Several politicians and rights minded citizens will likely raise these concerns over privacy, but will they find a voice on the 9 pm news on Television – that is the real question.

Maybe they should go back and watch some of their own broadcasts from a decade ago, and ask themselves what role an uncritical, adoring press is playing today in the weakening of a political opposition in the country. The opposition exists for those who are looking, it is the amplification of their questions that does not. Blaming the weakness of a political opposition alone for the manner in which democratic and constitutional institutions are being diminished is not just lazy, it is misleading. A weak media and a weak opposition go hand in hand. One cannot be strong without the other.

Maya Mirchandani is Associate Professor of Practice, and Head of Department of Media Studies at Ashoka University.

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