Another Log In the Funeral Pyre of Indian Journalism

“Kya Nathuram Godse deshbhakt the? (Was Nathuram Godse a patriot?)” an anchor asked as part of rapid-fire questions to his guest, singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, who was holding a placard with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options printed on either side. Given Bhattacharya’s previous remarks, he answered in an emphatic ‘yes’.

The captive audience – mostly media students – sitting on the stalls was prompted to clap, and they burst into thunderous applause. The anchor quickly distanced himself and said, “This is your personal opinion; I don’t agree with it.” It was his feeble attempt to save himself from any future accusation of quietly accepting the glorification of Gandhi’s assassin. We all understand that questions do not always carry innocuous journalistic queries – sometimes they carry the burden of ideology.  

However, before the anchor could move to the next rapid-fire question, as one of the five editors invited to quiz the celebrity, I raised my hand and directly addressed the young students: “Are you even aware who you people are clapping for? Do you know who Nathuram Godse was and what he did to earn your applause?” There was pin-drop silence in the glitzy TV studio. “Godse pumped three bullets into the frail body of a 79-year-old unarmed man the world knows as Mahatma Gandhi.” Sensing the gravity of the situation, the celebrity guest immediately flipped the placard and showed the ‘No’ side and said, “I am sorry.”

But the matter did not end there. One of the five invited editors sitting beside me, directly pointed a finger at me and said, as if accusing me of a heinous crime: “He is a Marxist; he is Urban Naxal.” I replied: “Say it aloud that you are for Godse and not for Gandhi. Why are you attacking me?” The exchange led to chaos on the floor, and later I learnt that the entire spat, but for the celebrity guest’s praise for Godse as a ‘patriot’, was edited out. 

That day, I witnessed first-hand how the television news media slowly sow the seeds of doubt in the collective consciousness of the nation and create mind space for hitherto unacceptable things like communalism, condoning Godse’s act of killing Gandhi, othering of Muslims and their harassment by sundry vigilantes, rejecting secularism and so on.

That was my first, but alas, not last, lived experience of why India’s compliant media has earned the unflattering moniker ‘Godi media’.

The proverbial last straw came when I was recently invited to another TV channel to comment on the crackdown on the Gen-Z movement at Jantar Mantar. I was not told that it would be a pre-recorded programme, nor was I informed about the topic of discussion beforehand. Once I reached the studio, I realised that the entire programme was designed to defend the Delhi Police and the Rapid Action Force of the CRPF, who unleashed unspeakable violence on the young people at Jantar Mantar and surrounding areas of New Delhi. And the rather dramatic title of the discussion screamed from the giant video walls: ‘Lahu-luhan khaki par khamoshi kyon?’ (Why such silence over the blood-soaked khaki uniform?). Wives, mothers and children of the injured policemen were invited to participate in the programme, holding photos of their male relatives in bandages.

Among the panellists were a retired judge, a Supreme Court lawyer, a high court lawyer and a retired police officer, and all of them vehemently and collectively asserted that the police were the actual victims of the violence unleashed by the protesters. Obviously, they got unqualified support from the invited families. 

There was no one in the studio to speak for the young protesters who bore the brunt of police brutality on July 20. No one was there to hold the photos of the 21 young NEET aspirants who committed suicide after paper leak and rescheduling of the exam. Neither was there anyone representing the protesters who suffered pellet gun injuries only a few hundred metres away from the country’s parliament. There was not a single person on the panel to talk about why a policeman in Siwan opened fire on the young protesters from an AK-47 rifle, as if he was chasing away a group of armed terrorists.

Being the only journalist on the panel, I thought it was important to question the framing of the topic, and asked why the other side was missing, and why there was no one to speak for the young protesters? Where is editorial balance and objectivity? I also questioned the use of the pellet guns on the protesting students, holding political leadership responsible for ordering the forces to use the lethal weapon. I narrated the story of the 14-year-old Kashmiri girl, Insha Mushtaq, who sustained pellet gun injuries in 2016 and was blinded in both eyes. I said it did not bother many people living outside of Kashmir because they were convinced that the government there was dealing with an armed insurgency and was handling a very delicate situation. “But why is the use of the pellet gun on the young students protesting in New Delhi not bothering anyone?”, I asked.

Then I questioned the absence of the Union home minister Amit Shah from parliament and criticised the high-handedness of the armed forces, at the same time acknowledging that it's the cops who come face-to-face with the agitated crowd, while the politician who actually orders the crackdown remains safe behind his security cordon.

The whole recorded programme was about 40-45 minutes long, but it was edited down to 30 minutes before being put on air. All my interventions in the programme, lo and behold, were edited out lock, stock and barrel, barring a small 17-second clip – that too badly spliced – in which I too appear to suggest that the police were the victims: “The crowd control is the most challenging thing for the armed forces, whether it is in a disturbed area or in a peaceful area. The politician takes the decision and tells the policeman to carry out his orders. So, it's the policeman who faces the crowd. Police become the victim.”

What I witnessed was nothing less than a complete mutilation of internationally accepted editorial practices of fairness, balance and objectivity. I thought that Gen Z protesters at Jantar Mantar had schooled the journalists who obediently take dictation from the authorities, but alas, they don’t seem to have learnt a lesson.

Supporting and even actively campaigning for a particular party or ideology is common for newspapers in western democracies like the UK and US, but completely censoring the other side of the picture is probably practised only in countries where Supreme Leaders reign. The difference is that in authoritarian countries censorship is enforced by law, but in India the compliant media is more than eager to censor itself so as not to upset the people in power.

Having worked as a journalist in the media industry for over three decades, I know the editor is the final authority in such matters. But when stealth editing is done to please the powers that be, the editor knows he is placing one more log on the funeral pyre of ethical journalism.

Rajesh Joshi is a Delhi-based independent journalist. He comments on politics and current affairs. He has worked with the BBC, Outlook magazine and Jansatta newspaper.

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