Why Godi Media May Be Hurting Modi

HMV as a music label has long ceased to ring a bell in India. But His Masters Voice – or rather Voices – continue to make a din. Replacing the global brand in dominating the airwaves instead are a raucous bunch of television anchors who do the bidding of their masters.

The noise they raise is anything but pleasant to the ears, or our sensibilities. In doing the bidding of their bosses, ethics and principles that once defined journalism have been drowned. The channels the anchors represent, as also many of the mainstream papers, today follow the diktats of those in power so obediently that the spectacle they present is nothing else but revolting.

Of course, they have reasons to do what they do, despite making a cartoon of themselves. They cater to a definitive audience aligned with a particular political ecosystem. It guarantees viewership or readership – whichever is applicable to them – alongside largesse in the form of a steady stream of government advertisements. The news organisations thrive as do the journalists, secured in their jobs by bending over backwards.

Also read: 'We Are in an Era Where the Media Has Itself Become a Threat to Democracy'

Of course, in the face of it, the arrangement in place at present with a pliant media is advantageous to the ruling dispensation. The propaganda helps in drowning any dissent just as it assists in distracting the public from pertinent issues the government has mishandled or brought upon itself by its hubris.

Remember the farmers’ agitation? When the three bills that sought to bring about changes in the manner business was conducted in the agricultural sector were hustled through the parliament without any discussion or debate, large sections of the media – subservient and at perennial service to those in power – hailed them as a masterstroke. Those opposed to the bills, including the protesting farmers, were mercilessly attacked by the media as anti-nationals and Khalistanis.

But what largely escaped attention during the episode is the media's limitations in changing either the discourse or the mood on the ground. The farmers stood their ground and the government finally had to bite the dust, withdrawing the bills. It is a different matter that the media – aptly named the Godi Media for sitting on the government’s lap – hailed the retreat too as another masterstroke.

So, propaganda helps, but clearly up to a point and no further. But the biggest disservice that the pliant media does is to portray a picture that may be far removed from public perception. They also deny the government from getting a real sense of what the actual ground realities could be.

The ongoing protests by some of the top women wrestlers over alleged sexual misconduct by a Bharatiya Janata Party MP could be another example. By all accounts, the whole of India is horrified at what is playing out – from the government’s initial inertia in acting on their complaints to the gut-wrenching photographs of the grapplers being mishandled by the Delhi police.

Police stop protesting wrestlers from marching to new parliament building on May 28. Photo: Twitter/@SakshiMalik

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But the pliable media in its misguided mission to please the political masters has been unrelenting. While many have underplayed the protests, some in fact have gone ahead to portray the protesters as part of some political conspiracy. “Ek Khap, Ek Akhada…” ranted an anchor attempting to paint the protesters as pawns in a bigger political game. Another derided the wrestlers on prime-time, insisting the sportswomen owed their medals more to the money spent by the government on them rather than their own mettle.

Also read: By Crushing Wrestlers’ Protest, Did Modi Government Birth a Broader Rebellion Against Itself?

But have any of these raving and ranting succeeded in diminishing our collective outrage? The answer is a resounding No.

The government too seems to have realised this now, though months have lapsed since the protests first broke out. However messy, the government finally has woken up to the need to wriggle out of a sticky situation that threatens to besmirch its reputation. Senior ministers’ meetings with the wrestlers and the promise to file a police chargesheet within a deadline are all for optics to retrieve what could be an already lost cause.

But pause for a while to ponder what if the entire media – Godi Media included – had held up the mirror as it is required for them to do, and told the government from the very beginning that it must side with the wrestlers to get them justice? It would have saved Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party the embarrassment that it has invited for itself now.

No matter how powerful, unburnished feedbacks are important for everyone to stay along the proper course. It helped lesser mortals like me while heading a newsroom. A particularly sycophantic staff would enthusiastically nod in agreement to whatever I said. So much so that he would have even said that it was a great idea if I had told him that I was planning to jump out of the window.

It would help Modi and his ministers to make a distinction between what is sane advice and what is sycophantic. It is more important since they are in a rarefied world where they are mostly surrounded by a chosen coterie who are not necessarily truthful. Hangers on in the corridors of power normally do feed the leaders with what they want to hear, just as was the case with a regional satrap a day ahead of an important state election. The minister was told his party would sweep the polls and he went to sleep soundly. When he woke up, his party was routed.

A free and independent media could be a trustworthy source of honest feedback – good or bad, allowing the government to take corrective measures. Sadly though, the current dispensation has deprived itself of such a candid channel by virtually silencing all reasonable voices.

The government, it can be presumed, does not listen to the alternative media since the position it takes is often adversarial. With a penchant to hear what it wants to hear, it prefers the Godi media instead, despite possibly being led up the garden path. Meanwhile, its credibility is dying by thousand cuts.

Ruben Banerjee is the former Editor-in-Chief of Outlook magazine.

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