Few know that on August 15 this year, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Indian government. It requested that proper consultations with media publishers be ensured when the Parliamentary Committee reshapes the latest Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill that is rather opaque so far. The Bill as it stands today, according to CPJ’s Asia Programme coordinator, “could have a chilling effect on press freedom in India.”
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The earliest draft of this dreaded Bill was prepared in 2018, on the eve of general elections, at the instance of the Election Commission. The aim was to ‘initiate a multi-stakeholder engagement process to take stock of the critical gaps in the extant section of the Representation of peoples Act of 1951’ which could no longer cover various kinds of non-print digital media. But as Forster had once observed, in India every hole has two exits. When discussions with various stakeholders – political parties, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and major online platforms got going, multiple holes and loopholes surfaced.
Should the exercise address the legacy media and its e-avatars, or also include the new kids on the media block like Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and Twitter (now X), termed till then as ‘intermediaries’? The NBA (National Broadcasters’ Association) was quick to point out that for a uniformly applicable Bill, the rights, duties and responsibilities of not only the print, but all electronic and digital media would also need to be clearly redefined. And that would take time.
At this point the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology officials submitted that the so-called intermediaries were only carriers not independent creators of news content. They could, therefore, continue to be governed by the existing Information Technology Act, not (the dreaded and complex) Section 126 of the Representation of Peoples Act that forbade promotional news for 48 hours before voting. The intermediaries said in case they were informed of carrying dubious and objectionable content, they needed only to warn those that had created it and failing to receive a satisfactory answer, take the item down.
So a revised draft Bill was submitted in January 2019. But its contents remained unknown until July 2019 when an RTI elicited an answer that finally put onto public domain. By the time the contents were made available to the Election Commission, there was only a tiny window left for its enforcement. So despite lingering misgivings, the status quo prevailed. The draft Bill, we learnt, had to wait for parliamentary clearance which could only happen after election results would have helped create a new parliament.
In 2019 the Modi government registered a historic win. But between 2019 and 2024, an undreamt of evolution of communication tech took place, spurred further by the COVID-19 years when most communication had to happen online. This changed news dissemination patterns radically and in 2024 the election results revealed that the new media had become a parallel source of communication between rival parties and the new voters. So while youth and women in particular were targeted on old media, they registered a dissatisfaction with the incumbents. Thus, BJP, despite its advertising blitz with multiple women’s empowerment offers, its proximity to media barons, Doordarshan and even independent news channels on TV, failed to arrive with a full majority in the House. In contrast a new opposition coalition now presents a formidable force in the parliament and demands debates and discussions before it will allow any proposed Bill to become law.
In 2019 the legacy print and Tv media, flush with government advertising had enormous persuasive powers. No more. Young consumers’ attention and advertising revenues have turned more and more towards the fast-paced online portals and podcasts for a young, mobile India. Also although literacy levels have risen steadily, the move is clearly away from the print to the traditional Indian oral ways of communication. The young are reading less and watching mostly live streamed news and entertainment round the clock. Older TV broadcasting is down from 200 million homes in 2019 to 176 million, according to the annual FICCI-EY report, and this has reversed flow of revenues from print to digital. A wave of consolidations and mergers has created several new mega media groups that consist of both Indian and non-Indian players. So fact is today three technologies are competing in the new media market and search engines, the internet, satellite and cable are shaping and distributing news differently.
In such times a Broadcast Bill itself appears as a misnomer. It was framed way back in 2013 soon after which a new government took charge and made clear its wish to force fit a tight censoring of government unfriendly news and morally questionable, ‘anti-national’ content in media. But by now the digital media is a hydra-headed entity. It has introduced tech savvy young individual bloggers, vloggers and podcasters and public influencers with millions of followers.
So it was just as well that the old opaque version of Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill of 2018 did not become law and has been referred to a Parliamentary Committee. The Committee faces an immensely complicated task. Its priority should be to restore order in the categories of news as it is today and prevent the new law from becoming a weapon for retributive injustice and destruction of free public information. This means, as the CPJ has requested, ensuring that the new Committee consults not only government technocrats but also representatives of media bodies and content producers and portals. The Committee must also consider the implications of AI-led news and go through a transparent working process and make the contents of the new Bill on line to the public.
Greying potbellied leaders may still be a big deal in politics but trying to look young is being rejected quietly the world over. Mass migrations from and into India have chalked out hybridised global definitions of free media and democracy. News and entertainment are unavoidably global and can be dubbed in many languages. Meanwhile, both Google and Meta have rejected the work from home patterns that proliferated since COVID. Older media bodies that seem to control news cycles from home with a much pared down staff are fast reaching the end of their core competence. Old style panel discussions, exit polls, conspiracy theories and self promotion by ridiculously overdressed politicians seem comic and boring to young viewers who are hugely attracted to TikTok spoofs and rural reels with singing in dialects.
What an overworked and stressed younger generation is open to, is a sort of community media rave party. This has created a demand for stand up comedians and Dastan Goi baithaks and stories by literary greats being shown alongside bite-sized news. Live streaming of news by mavericks with desi cutting chai gossip attitudes is overtaking all those overly made up godi anchors speaking shuddh Hindi or propah English. Deshbhakti films no longer rock. But gritty serials like Paatal Lok, Panchayat and Mirzapur do. This is the media pot producing real influencers that all political parties wish to engage come elections.
Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.
Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
