There was a time when they told you in journalism school that the profession was all about breaking the silence and letting stories flow from the hidden cracks and crevices of the empires of power. A line, sometimes attributed to George Orwell, was cited to drive this home: “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.”
Today, these schools would do well to inform their idealistic young students that journalism is about not putting out in the public domain something that someone within the power structures does not want publicised. Everything else is sedition.
The time-honoured means of silencing the media are of course well known and have been documented and commented upon often enough. This straddles the entire spectrum from corporate capture of media companies; gags on reporters on instructions from the management; mass deployment of advertising revenues to ensure noise-free coverage; filing of FIRs to discourage investigation; promulgation of legal instruments to outlaw news gathering.
All this has become tragically familiar. But to understand the evergreening of this effort and the new, sophisticated ways with which the Narendra Modi government and its agencies are silencing the media, we would need to revisit the two Mahakumbh-related stampedes that occurred at Prayagraj on the early morning of January 29 and at the New Delhi Railway station on the night of February 15.
If the story makes the government uncomfortable, the story will be made to disappear
The Prayagraj stampede which occurred during one of the most auspicious moments at the Sangam on January 29 did not displace the media’s pre-determined script for very long.
A report in The Times of India on January 30, just a few hours after the stampede, carried the headline, ‘Undeterred By Stampede, 7.6 Cr Take Holy Dip’. The news report was designed to keep up the carefully manufactured Maha Kumbh atmospherics amidst the chaos and tragedy:
“…the pilgrims were undeterred by the news of the stampede and the route diversions put in place by the administration following the tragedy. They walked long distances for the dip. All roads leading to the mela area witnessed a heavy inflow of devotees, so much so that the entire stretch of a road was not visible at several areas…”
How was that reporter so sure that the “crowds were undeterred by the news of the stampede”? Did the reporter determine, for instance, whether the pilgrims had proper, up-to-date information on the stampede, or was it just guess?
Distraction and diversion appeared to be the way forward for both the Uttar Pradesh government and its media minions. A few days after the disaster, NDTV was carrying headlines like, ‘”Unforgettable”: 118-Member Foreign Delegation Takes Dip At Maha Kumbh’.
India Today, meanwhile, was testing out the “conspiracy angle”. PTI’s report on the King of Bhutan, Jigme Wangchuck, taking a dip along with chief minister Adityanath, was carried on multiple channels and newspapers. The story was designed to wash away any lingering memories of January 29 and to signal to the world that all was well.
True, the Prayagraj stampede was to return to prime time a fortnight later. But this time in the form of choreographed outrage directed at Mamata Banerjee for daring to describe the Maha Kumbh as a “Mrityu Kumbh”. Predictable chat show expressions like “minority appeasement” and the like, were bandied around, with one saffron clad seer calling the chief minister “pagal”, even as a shrill Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson termed it “vulture politics” that directly attacked her faith.
If the death tolls are alarming, clamp down on the actual numbers
To this day we don’t know the exact number of those who died at Prayagraj on January 29. The figures “30 dead and 60 injured” provided by the Uttar Pradesh Police were the ones that the mainstream media chose to run with. Some added, for abundant caution, terms like “at least” and “more than” because the police data somehow seemed too pat, especially as other journalists, less yoked to power, had counted at least double that number of dead bodies. Another piece of information that was intriguingly missing from the narrative was the number of those who were untraceable.
People at the Kumbh Mela. Photo: X/@MahaKumbhMela.
If the numbers were vaporised out of the reportage, so were the very sites of death and destruction. Before a proper forensic examination could be even conducted, bulldozers were brought in to carry away mangled human remains and personal effects of the dead, making it impossible to do a proper reconstruction of the sequence of events that had led to the calamity. News did come in of another stampede, albeit a smaller one, but here again the prompt cleaning up operations removed any evidence of it.
So the “30 dead” number, it will continue to remain the official one. When asked about it in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, chief minister Adityanath reiterated it and defended his government’s decision to suspend post-mortems of the dead because they went against people’s “traditions and faith” (‘’People Said ‘Don’t Do Post-Mortem”: Yogi Addresses Maha Kumbh Stampedes at UP Assembly’, The Wire, February 20). As for mainstream media, they seemed just fine with this breathtaking short cut.
But then the BJP has never been enamoured of transparency as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic. For a sharp exposition of stampede politics, watch ‘The Wire Wrap | Delhi Stampede, Vikatan Cartoon, New CEC Appointed’ (February 20) and the ruling party’s data-free politics, read ‘An Era of Darkness: How No Data Helps BJP’s Politics’ (The Wire, February 11).
If the story goes against the establishment’s interests, place hurdles in reporters’ access
By the time the New Delhi Railway Station stampede had occurred a fortnight later, it appeared that the Modi government had learnt several lessons from the Prayagraj events. Here you had pro-active attempts to keep all media attention at bay. As bodies were taken to the Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Hospital, yellow police barricades ring quickly fenced it and police personnel stopped mediapersons in their tracks as they sought to go in.
One particularly intrepid reporter wrote on social media platform X at 1.20 am, February 16: “So basically the media is banned from entering inside the LNJP hospital where the injured have been taken. What is the government trying to hide? Telling @smaurya_journo on the spot. #NewDelhiRailwaystation”.
At the station too the Railway Police personnel were out to put a lid on any coverage. The experience of Saumya Raj of MoliticsIndia, testifies to their rough and ready censorship. She reached the station as soon as she heard of the stampede and began to interview people there. Before long, the police had descended, snatched her device and demanded that she delete her recordings. When she stood her ground, they changed their tune and pleaded with her to do this otherwise their jobs would be on the line. Raj chose instead to broadcast this entire interaction, good for her.
Crowd at the New Delhi railway station. Photo: Screengrab from video on X/@SachinGuptaUP
By early morning, Bajrang Dal cadres with their saffron scarves were also conspicuously present around the hospital. They claimed that they were there to help the relatives of the victims and donate blood, but blocking media coverage was also clearly part of their responsibilities. A Wire video report, ‘Ground Report: Chaos at LNJP Hospital After New Delhi Railway Station Stampede’ (February 17), captured a moment when one of these cadres actually grabbed a mobile phone.
A detailed account of what it was like to cover that event was published in The Hindu on February 21, ‘Covering a stampede’. Its writer, Alisha Dutta, recalled the misinformation that swirled around the incident: how the chief public relations officer of the North Railways first claimed that the incident was only a “rumour”; how the Delhi’s lieutenant governor redacted his initial public statement; and how the railways minister had first posted on social media that the situation was “under control”.
It was this, she observed, that had led to the inability of many newspaper houses to communicate the facts the next morning. The February 16 headlines did indeed capture the hesitancy to put out the facts. Take this one from Asian Age: ‘Chaos at Delhi rly station due to heavy Kumbh rush’.
Both The Hindu and the The Indian Express used the words “15 feared dead” in their respective headlines, prompting news commentators like Basha Singh to ask why was the word ‘feared’ was used when the deaths had been confirmed very early on. She was right. The Times of India had no hesitation in putting out ‘15 killed as Kumbh rush leads to stampede at New Delhi stn’.
If the story potentially ignites public outrage, neutralise public outrage through prompt and targeted action
One of the most conspicuous new additions to the Modi government’s array of interventions to manage situations that involve large scale deaths and injuries emerged after the railway station stampede. Dutta took due note of the speed with which post mortems were conducted. Even as people were searching for their missing relatives, some post-mortems had been completed, and all evidence of the stampede removed.
Simultaneously, relatives were strongly discouraged from relating their experiences to the media. She watched one man, who had lost his daughter, relating his experiences to the police. As soon as he had finished his recording, he was taken to the mortuary to see his daughter’s body. The post mortem was completed, the body released, and the man given his compensation of Rs 10 lakh in cash within an hour. By the next morning when Dutta went back, the bodies had been handed over to the grieving relatives and they had been sent on their way. This was a cover-up conducted with breathtaking efficiency.
Also read: After Stampede, Cops Roam New Delhi Railway Station, Trains to Kumbh Popular as Ever
Meanwhile, the Indian Railways wants the media to wait until its “high-level committee report” on the incident came out before putting out further information on the stampede. In other words, all coverage is required to match the “official version”.
How do we resist the government’s news suppression tactics?
The Indian state is constantly refining its tactics of obsfuscation, disinformation and plain repression. After all, when the Railways asks X to take down 36 videos of the incident and files FIRs against various handles, what else is that if not naked repression?
Given this reality, journalists would do well to up their game. Many have already done so. It was heartening to see prompt rebuttals from alert citizens and mediapersons to the official narrative. When the railway minister posted on X on February 15 at 11:52 pm: “4 special trains to evacuate this unprecedented sudden rush at NDLS. The rush has now reduced,” Atul Modani, a chartered accountant, responded: “What do you mean by SUDDEN, don’t you know Mahakumbh is happening in India and Railways failed to provide infrastructure and trains?…Don’t shy away from responsibility, dozens have lost lives.”
What do you mean by SUDDEN , don’t you know Mahakumbh is happening in India and Railways failed to provide infrastructure and trains ?
Thousands of videos available on Twitter regarding heavy rush in trains and stations since weeks now.
Don’t shy away from responsibility,…
— Atul Modani (@atulmodani) February 16, 2025
Similarly, independent journalist Arvind Gunasekar raised a pertinent question: “Tickets were issued at the counter by your Ministry at the same railway station. Didn’t they know how many tickets were issued? Didn’t your Ministry estimate the crowd based on the tickets issued? What measures were put in place to manage the crowd?”
Tickets were issued at the counter by your Ministry at the same railway station.
Didn’t they know how many tickets were issued ?
Didn’t your Ministry estimate the crowd based on the tickets issued ?
What measures were put in place to manage the crowd ?
As per Delhi Police,… https://t.co/u16E3DzPzG
— Arvind Gunasekar (@arvindgunasekar) February 16, 2025
It is only if ordinary people and the media stand up publicly for credible information and hold the powerful to account, will there be some resistance to this government’s disturbing weaponisation of information flows.
+++
Govt says Vikatan website not blocked. But that doesn’t mean you can access it
The Vikatan blocking has certainly touched a nerve. The impunity with which the BJP’s top honcho in Tamil Nadu can write to the minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan, as if to a family member, requesting that he do something about Viketan’s latest issue which carried a cartoon that deliberately “defame(s) our Honourable Prime Minister Thiru Narendra Modi avi,” is staggering.
So now India has to conform to the aesthetics, political myopia and censor’s writ of the state president of the BJP, K. Annamalai, who signed off on that letter as a man “ever in the Services of Nation”. If that was not shameful enough, the alacrity with which the ministry did his bidding was equally so. But it was done in such an opaque way that it allowed the ministry to claim that no takedown orders had been issued by it.
The Vikatan logo (L) and the cartoon published on February 10.
As The Hindu reported, “Different internet service providers and telecom operators displayed varying messages explaining the website’s inaccessibility.” Interestingly, the Bharti Airtel Limited’s network put it bluntly, stating that the website was taken down on the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s orders.
What was the offensive cartoon all about, anyway? It showed a shackled prime minister sitting quietly by US President Donald Trump, who wears a large and very smug smile. By any token there was nothing objectionable about this sketch, yet those “ever in the services of Nation” usually have a very heightened sense of injury to the image of those they accord a non-biological status to.
As noted editor N. Ram told the Wire, “What they have done is utterly illegal and deeply concerning” (‘“Extra-Constitutional”, “Fascist Tendency”: Govt’s “Block” on Vikatan Website Sparks Outrage’, February 17). He pointed out that in fact the cartoon was a particularly sharp comment, given the prime minister’s conspicuous silence over the US government’s inhumane treatment accorded to Indian citizens sent back to India. “As editorial comment and satire, the cartoon was perfectly legitimate journalism – it was a symbolic depiction of the PM’s hands being tied as he sat for talks with Trump at the White House”.
Ironically, the public outrage that greeted this latest evidence of government censorship was so overwhelming, and even people who were clueless about the existence of this hoary Tamil magazine got to know about it and view the supposedly objectionable cartoon. The episode only affirmed the need for citizens to speak up and resist any censorship bid by the government. Arundhati Roy put it well: “I stand in solidarity with Ananda Vikatan…If we allow the government to illegally move to censor speech, ANY speech without protesting, they’ll take away our voices, cage us and throw away the key.”
§
Readers write in…
In Pakistan, journalists and judges under threat
A letter from Roshmi Goswami, co-chairperson, and P. Saravanamuttu, bureau member, South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders: “SAHR is deeply alarmed by the spate of severe threats and intimidation directed at journalists and legal enforcement agents working on false blasphemy cases in Pakistan…The latest incident reported is the threat and intimidation directed against Munizae Jahangir, a senior journalist and an anchor, Co-Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and SAHR bureau member. It is reported that in recent times the people of Pakistan have been victimised upon being framed on false blasphemy charges to extort money…However judges who have given bail to those accused on blasphemy charges have also been threatened online. SAHR notes that Sindh High Court Justice Iqbal Kalhoro also became the target of such intimidation. Justice Kalhoro granted bail to eight individuals accused of blasphemy. More recently this month, Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Sardar Ijaz Ishaq faced threats and was the target of a hate campaign by extremist groups after he ordered the setting up of the commission to investigate allegations of the misuse of the blasphemy law.
“Several journalists reporting on the incident have been threatened by the gang. Islamabad-based journalist Aizaz Syed also faced a barrage of threats after he broadcast a critical analysis of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a religio-political party whose members have been in the forefront when it comes to acting as complainants in blasphemy cases. Previously noted journalists Ahmed Noorani and Nayyar Ali have also been threatened by extremist gangs for tackling the issue of false blasphemy charges on the youth.
“SAHR believes that silencing a journalist or intimidating a member of the judiciary is equivalent to a blatant violation of freedom of expression and a breach of democratic values of people in the country. SAHR believes that this trend of threats and intimidation will gradually strain the judiciary and the integrity of the legal system. SAHR firmly calls upon the Government of Pakistan as well as the provincial administration of Lahore to immediately set up an effective and impartial investigation into this incident and hold the perpetrators accountable. SAHR also strongly advocates to the relevant government authorities to foster an environment conducive for the journalists to engage with professional integrity while preserving their personal safety. Finally, SAHR reiterates the call repeatedly made by the human rights community at national, regional and global level to the Government of Pakistan to repeal the draconian blasphemy laws and safeguard the rights and freedoms of the people as enshrined in the Constitution.”
Write to [email protected]
