The Supreme Court is considering a matter that could have a major impact on that section of the media that has been incessantly promoting hate speech, community propaganda and defamation of Muslims.
Last month, Sudarshan News, a television channel, aired a trailer for a program, ‘Bindas Bol’, in which the host claimed to reveal how Muslims have “infiltrated” civil services, calling it a form of ‘jihad’.
A request (Firoz Iqbal Khan against Union of India and Ors.) Under article 32 of the constitution, he moved in search of appropriate instructions from the Supreme Court, while also requesting a pre-broadcast court order.
In keeping with its traditional reluctance to impose prior restrictions on the publication or transmission of opinions, the court refused to suspend the transmission. Interestingly, on the same day, the Delhi high court suspended the program and ordered the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to consider whether there was any violation of the Program Code under the provisions of the Cable Television Network Regulation Act of 1955.
Later, the ministry allowed Sudarshan News to air his show while running the channel to make sure the show was consistent with the show’s code. However, after four episodes of this show aired between September 11 and 14, the Supreme Court granted a court order on the show’s broadcast until the petition is resolved.
Justification of the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s initial restraint in imposing a pre-broadcast injunction was consistent with its position that prior restriction of the media generally violates freedom of expression under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, except in certain cases. cases in which “ statements in the media that impair or obstruct or interfere with the administration of justice in a particular case pending in the Supreme Court or in the superior court or even in the subordinate courts ”, as held in Sahara vs. SEBI.
In the present case, however, once some episodes were aired, the Supreme Court determined that the circumstances had changed. The bank headed by Judge DY Chandrachud observed that the broadcast episodes reflect a ‘capricious disregard for the truth’ on the part of the news channel. For example, the broadcast program claimed that Muslims are given nine civil service exam attempts, as opposed to six for Hindus, which is false; Furthermore, he claimed that the age limit for Muslims is 35, while for Hindus it is 32, again a false statement.
The court called the attempt to portray Muslims as conspirators with the aim of infiltrating the public administration as “insidious”, and found that “the drift, the tenor and the content of the episodes is to lead the community to public hatred and to discredit “. “At this stage, prima facie, it appears that the court has the intention, object and purpose of the episodes that have been broadcast on television to vilify the Muslim community,” the court noted in its order.
Specifically, it found that the broadcast episodes violated Rule 6 (1) (c) of the Program Code, which prohibits programs that contain an ‘attack on religions or communities or visual elements or words that disparage religious groups or promote community attitudes. ‘; and Rule 6 (1) (d) which prohibits the transmission of any defamatory, deliberate, false and suggestive innuendo and half-truths.
Even when the petition is before the court for an additional hearing and may have a significant result in terms of regulating hate speech in the media, Indian television owners, editors and presenters would do well to consider the fate of hate media around the world.
Lessons from history
In the years leading up to World War II and once the war began, the Nazis used the media in the form of newspapers and magazines to fuel anti-Semitic propaganda, ultimately leading to the genocide of the Jews.
Julius Streicher, Nazi editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer He was one of those individuals who harnessed the power of the media for sinister ends. He was found guilty by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. The Court held that Streicher’s articles and editorials published in Der Stürmer it incited the murder and extermination of Jews and constituted crimes against humanity. Upon reading the judgment, the president of the court observed:
In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, it infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism and incited the German people to active persecution. Each issue of Der Stürmer, which reached a circulation of 600,000 in 1935, was filled with articles of this type, often obscene and disgusting.
Streicher was hanged in 1946.
More recently, in 1994, the world was stunned by the massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda. Here too, the mass media, in the form of radio and newspapers, were used as a tool to incite hatred against the Tutsi people and ultimately their genocide.. Radio Télévision des Mille Collines (RTLM) and Kangura The magazine was instrumental in inciting the genocide of the Tutsi people by the Hutus. In 1990, Kangura published the Ten Commandments of the Hutu. The first of them warned Hutu men about Tutsi women and considered any Hutu man who married a Tutsi woman a traitor. RTLM, also known as Radio Machete, openly incited the Hutu people to attack and inflict violence on ethnic Tutsis.
At the end of 1994 almost 800,000 Tutsis were massacred. In 1995, the United Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try people accused of the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2003, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Nahimana et al (media case) condemned Ferdinand Nahimana, founder of RTLM, his deputy, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hasan Ngeze, owner and editor of Kangura, for genocide, incitement to genocide, conspiracy and crimes against humanity, extermination and persecution. Nahimana and Ngeze have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Barayagwiza received a 35-year sentence.
Referring to the RTLM broadcasts, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda observed:
“Asking the listeners to exterminate the lnkotanyi (i.e. traitors or enemies who deserve to die, used to refer to Tutsis), who would be known for their height and physical appearance. Habimana told her followers: “just look at her little nose and then break it.” The identification of the enemy by her nose and the desire to break it vividly symbolize the intention to destroy the Tutsi ethnic group ”.
The future?
Great parallels can be drawn between the current state of the Indian media and the cases of media-generated hatred discussed above. Night after night, on many television channels, there is a constant attempt to portray the Muslim community as an enemy; in fabricating hatred in people’s minds by resorting to falsehoods and fake news; an attempt is made to present inter-religious marriages as ‘love jihad’. The examples discussed above are not from the very distant past. Unfortunately, the future also seems to be heading in the same direction. In India, various media owners and journalists may eventually find a place in the hall of shame that includes names like Streicher, Ngeze or Nahimana.
The case of Sudarshan News has given us this opportunity to introspect the prevailing media culture in our country, and we must make the most of it. The first step has probably been taken by the Supreme Court when it said that “any attempt to vilify a religious community should be viewed with grave displeasure by this Court as the custodian of constitutional values.” In the words of Judge Pillay of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, “The power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values carries great responsibility. Those who control these media are responsible for their consequences ”.
Pushkar anand is an assistant professor at the University of Delhi School of Law, and Varsha Singh is a Doctoral Research Candidate at the Center for International Legal Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views are personal.
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