Backstory: The 12-Day Conflict Revived an Old Adage – Truth is the First Casualty of War
Last week provided me with a snapshot of today’s young mediapersons. It was at a rally in support of Palestine held at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on June 24. An army of cameras had also invaded the space because protests over Gaza had suddenly become a hot button topic for the media. This was not because of a sudden concern about the region but because there was an eagerness to witness another round of police repression against agitators. The day earlier had seen a small group of protestors who had gathered outside the Israel embassy on Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road in the Capital with placards demanding freedom for Palestinians and ceasefire for Gaza. The Delhi Police lost no time to pounce on them, punch them, drag them by their hair, and beat them up incessantly. They were then rounded up and detained for over eight hours. It was 2 am when they were finally set free (‘Watch | Indian Students’ Fierce Stand for Palestine Amid Police Crackdown in Delhi’, The Wire, June 24).
This afternoon news hounds had sniffed out a possible second round of police repression and their cameras were hungry to record every second of the action. Conversations with some of these men and women – representing a range of media outlets from small online portals to major television channels – were an eye-opener. Here was a group of “journalists” who were supremely unconcerned about facts. They had not bothered to independently acquaint themselves with the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict -- all that mattered were the talking points playing out in their heads from a well-rehearsed script: if Palestinian babies are being killed, so too are Israeli babies; Palestinians were terrorists and terrorist sympathisers; Israel was only defending itself; No one can stop Israel, they had the protection of the US and will always emerge victorious.
Some of those we spoke to also admitted, after some prompting, that they had to follow the line given to them by their news editors. Departing from it could have meant the axing of their stories and, possibly, their jobs. No surprises then that their fact finding ended up being fact free; that their reportage ended up as mere cartage.
This also meant that at a time of extreme anxiety at the global level, when missiles crisscrossed the skies and bloodied an extremely volatile region; when Indian nationals found themselves stranded in both Israel and Iran; when credible information was the need of the hour, an old adage came into play: Truth is the first casualty of war.
But for the Indian government and their media minions, it was not truth that mattered but what went by the term “national interest” as defined by the present government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has walked barefoot with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in the waters of Haifa’s Olga Beach; his favoured corporate–Gautam Adani--had billions locked up in Israel, with investments ranging from the Haifa Port to a swathe of joint defence ventures with Israel’s military technology company, Elbit Systems Ltd.
That the general news template for the Indian media is minted in Tel Aviv should therefore come as no surprise. When Israel-Iran hostilities were at their peak, the Man of the Media Match in India was clearly the Israeli ambassador to India, Reuven Aztar, who was part of every prime time television show. His Iranian counterpart, Dr. Iran Leah, came way down in the priority list. So familiar was Aztar’s visage that viewers may be forgiven if they believed he kept an extra change of clothes in every news studio during this period. In all his deliberations, which Indian television anchors received with enthusiastic nods of agreement, he adopted the perfect pitch of victimhood and aggression: “We couldn’t allow a country that has sworn to destroy us to get the means to do that.” No allusion to Israel’s own formidable nuclear prowess; no acknowledgement that Iran was not even close to building nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
You can murder the truth but like murder, it will be out. The horrors being perpetrated under the guise of delivering food aid for starving Gazans sometimes emerge with exceptional clarity. Israel’s longest running newspaper, Haaretz, has reported conversations with Israeli soldiers which revealed that their commanders had instructed them to fire at those coming for food aid in distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. There are now news reports claiming that oxycodone, a deadly opioid, has been discovered in the bags of flour distributed by the Foundation. But with the international media kept out of the Strip at the behest of the Israeli government, getting to the full truth of these violations is impossible.
Israel, as we know, has the world’s most sophisticated, tech-enabled propaganda system in the world. We also know that its use of disinformation has become an intrinsic part of its military strategy. Today, that very same system is working hard to counter the searing conditions of life-threatening starvation in Gaza. Since deliberate, human-made famine does not play well internationally, even among Israel’s traditional supporters, there are now efforts being made to promote a counter-narrative. I watched a recent video put out by The Anchor Post, titled ‘Exposing Gaza: What the World Was Not Supposed to See’. Its smooth-voiced anchor Amir Tsarfati interviews Jacqui Peleg, an Israeli from Tel Aviv who knows Arabic and makes it her business to circulate videos that reveal “truths” about Gaza. Jacqui speaks perfect English. Her family was originally from the UK, she says in honeyed tones. The sole purpose of this particular episode is to convince viewers that the claim that there is no food in the Gaza Strip is just a tissue of lies. Many watching this exchange could emerge convinced that the people of Gaza have been perpetrating a huge fraud on an unsuspecting world by feigning death and starvation when in fact many of them are leading the good life. Incidentally both interviewer and interviewee have served in the Israeli army.
That such a mendacious video can circulate at a time when over 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured (according to the UNICEF), tells you about the death cult that is Israel’s disinformation machinery. Truth is the first casualty of not just war but genocide.
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How the Emergency honed India’s creative imagination
One of the less discussed aspects of the Indira Gandhi Emergency was how it honed India’s creative imagination. Under the 21 months of state-imposed silence, when censors put their inked stamp with the words ‘Not to be published’, on cartoons, the creative imagination of citizens continued to reign free.
As academic Gunjeet Aurora Mehta noted in a 2017 paper, ‘Penning Protest: A Literary Response to the Indian Emergency’:
“This body of literature: fiction, nonfiction or poetry, written both during and after the emergency, form voices of anger, of protest against a system which was used for brow-beating an independent nation into a classroom of puppets who were expected to perform as per government guidelines.”
The very act of writing became an act of protest during that interregnum.
Nothing reflected this more starkly that the unprecedented efflorescence of words that broke out once the Emergency ended. Post-Emergency journalism flourished in unprecedented ways as well as a spate of investigative reports challenging the status quo. There were also sharp analyses of what constituted democratic freedoms at a time when the public sphere was suddenly made aware of the value of such freedoms.
O.V. Vijayan’s Dharmapuranam.
It was in the world of fiction, however, that the essence of those turbulent days came to reside with fictional narratives drawing from journalism and influencing it in turn. While literature in the country’s many tongues flourished across the land, it was fiction in English and in English translation that came to dominate the scene, perhaps because the brutalities of the 1975 emergency awakened memories of those perpetrated by the British Raj. Take O.V. Vijayan’s Dharmapuranam, which was serialised in Malayalam once Emergency ended and was translated into English by the author in 1988 as The Saga of Dharmapuri. Its brutal exposition of political authoritarianism used a broad quill dipped in scatological invective that could often make the reader cringe but which captured eloquently the purple shades of a corrupt and controlling order.
The use of allegory and magic realism seemed most suited to the times. Readers emerging from the long, punishing silencing of the Emergency seemed receptive to this melding of fact and fantasy. As Vijayan wrote in The Saga of Dharmapuri, “The Crisis had come to stay, gently fearsome and familiar like the tiger in the neighbourhood zoo”.
It isn’t surprising that the protagonist in Salman Rushdie’s of Midnight’s Children, Aadam Sinai, is an admixture of the likely and unlikely. Born on June 25th 1975, just as India is gagged through official proclamation made over All India Radio, he is unable to speak much like the country of his birth. But while silence became his speech, his eyes, ears and nose take in everything.
'Rich like Us' by Nayantara Sahgal.
In tandem with allegory, there was realist fiction that sometimes appears like juiced up journalism, a way of creatively reimagining the actual events that transpired during those 21 months. For Nayantara Sehgal, “societies are built as much on what people choose to forget as what they remember.”
Her 1985 novel, Rich Like Us, set in Delhi a month after Emergency, gives us a character so familiar that he appears to live amongst us to this day. Here is a person who believes the Emergency was needed, “The trouble makers are in jail. An opposition is something we never needed. The way the country’s being run now, with one person giving the orders…means things can go full steam ahead without delays…Strikes are banned. It’s going to be very good for business.”
One of the major tropes of the Emergency was the coercive way in which sterilisations were imposed on the poor. Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil in their book, India’s First Dictatorship The Emergency, 1976-77, noted that even as enthusiasm for sterilisations rose among the rulers, so did the fatalities. It quotes newspaper reporters John Dayal and Ajoy Bose who saw what was happening at first hand: “sick women carpeting the floor of the ward’, “stitches broken”, “puss oozing out”.
In A Fine Balance this odious episode in the nation’s history gets transformed into moving prose by its author Rohington Mistry: "The police were snatching people at random. Old men, young boys, housewives with children were being dragged into the trucks." The reader is introduced to the tented sterilisation camp into which people were being dragged screaming: "'Stop resisting,' said the doctor. 'If the knife slips it will harm you only.'"
Looking back, the post-Emergency period was a moment of epiphany, not just for fiction but for journalism in India. Both reportage as well as the poetry and fiction helped to keep memories alive. If today, 50 years later, the Emergency remains the dystopia it was in the popular mind, it may have something to do with the unending stream of words that captured the moment.
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Honest journalism
We received a complimentary letter from Keshab Mansukhani. Much appreciated, sir!
“Congratulations to @thewire.in on its ten glorious years. The Wire has flourished in an environment of sycophancy, with honest journalism, that questions authority. They’ve dug deeper than other news platforms and unearthed many truths. Hats off, guys! “
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Unearth Dharavi’s resettlement flaws…
This was from Karunanidhi Kannan, a resident of the Dharavi slum, Mumbai, on the flawed rehabilitation plan for this neighbourhood.
“I am writing to highlight the betrayal and potential displacement faced by Dharavi’s slum dwellers due to critical flaws in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. An RTI revelation, as reported, exposes the absence of Railway Surplus Land for rehabilitation, raising serious concerns about transparency and fairness. As a directly affected resident, I urge The Wire to investigate and amplify the voices of Dharavi’s community. We are at risk of losing our homes and livelihoods due to mismanagement. There will be many who would support your investigation, provided confidentiality is maintained and responsible reporting assured. Thank you for your commitment to impactful journalism.”
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From sensitivity to sensationalism
Veteran journalist Sumanta Banerjee responds to ‘Backstory: Could There Have Been More Substance, Less Sensation in Reporting the Crash of Flight AI171?’, June 14:
“It has been rightly pointed out in this piece that the basic difference between the style of coverage of events by the Indian and Western media is between being ‘sensitive’ to tragic happenings on the one hand (as practiced by Western media), and ‘sensationalising’ such happenings, as most of our Indian media tend to do, whether they are print or television.
“I think there has been a fundamental shift in the style of reporting in the Indian media since the days when we were journalists in an earlier era. Today, gory details are specifically highlighted to capture the attention of readers and viewers.”
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Remember the Constitution
Assam-based Sudhir Kumar, who calls himself a “citizen of India”, would like to share with readers a letter he has sent to the Supreme Court of India:
“Respected Hon’ble Supreme Court, With utmost respect, I write to you not only as a concerned citizen but as someone who still believes that the judiciary is the last bastion of hope in a democracy that is fast eroding…
“Over the last 11 years, we the people have witnessed repeated assaults on democratic values by those in power. Most recently, the electoral processes have been compromised and several laws, amendments and administrative changes have been introduced that appear to weaken transparency, accountability and free and fair elections--the very foundation of our Republic.
From the Electoral Bonds scheme (which your hon’ble bench rightfully struck down) to opaque voter data practices, from arbitrary use of government machinery during elections to silencing of dissent, civil society, and media, the trend has been consistent: concentration of power and erosion of checks and balances.
“Today, I request the Supreme Court to:
- Strike down or review all amendments and rules that hinder electoral transparency, compromise the Election Commission's independence, or disproportionately benefit ruling powers.
- Reinforce judicial oversight on the conduct of elections — ensuring they are truly free, fair, and equal for all citizens and candidates.
- Remind the current Executive — including the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and Election Commission — that they are not above the Constitution, and that the rule of law must prevail.
“The Indian Constitution empowers the judiciary not just to interpret laws but to safeguard the soul of the Republic. The current environment--rife with institutional capture, suppression of facts, and legal manipulation--demands bold judicial intervention.
“I appeal to the Hon’ble Supreme Court: show your constitutional strength and send a clear message--that in India, power flows from the people, not to a few individuals who seek to control and manipulate it.
“Let this not be remembered as a time when justice remained silent while democracy withered.
Let this be the moment when the Court reasserts its voice — for We, The People.”
End note
Most media institutions, desperate to keep the bottom line of their establishments healthy and sustainable, seek side revenue streams like adding sponsored content to the editorial mix (clearly marked, of course). But nothing can quite beat ANI’s business model. It has now admitted in court that it earned Rs 45 lakh (yes, the poorer amongst news portals can only drool over such a sum) by getting YouTube journalists to shell out money. Its trick is to exploit a loophole in YouTube’s copyright rules that lays down that if a media account on YouTube infringes someone’s copyright, it could invite a strike. If the account ends up with three strikes within three months, it could find itself terminated. ANI has been monitoring these strikes and threatens those fearing termination to make deals with it, creating a nice nest egg for itself.
There is an aspect here that is often lost. The fact is that ANI has a close and mutually beneficial relationship with the ruling party and government. This means that it is allowed generous access to government and BJP events. It gets interviews with news makers and is allowed exclusive briefings. Political news portals therefore have little option but to carry its footage. Surely the fact that ANI has an unfair advantage over other news platforms should be taken into account before such strikes are made? What after all, is the meaning of “fair use” if even short excerpts taken from ANI’s reportage could lead to YouTube portals ending up with termination notices?
Write to ombudsperson@thewire.in.
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