It is quite poignant, and completely misleading, that the BJP crowd, led by Union Interior Minister Amit Shah and party chairman JP Nadda, shed crocodile tears over the ‘assault on press freedom’ in the matter of its Republic. Coming from these commissioners a danda regime, this extraordinary – and revealing – defense of a news channel should be used to revitalize the basic principles of a free press.
It is possible, at first glance, to subscribe to the accusation of “vindictive” action of the government headed by Shiv Sena against a person in the media who has made no secret of his own determined revenge. Republic TV has chosen to position itself against all those voices, whether from the political arena or from civil society, who disagree with or oppose the Narendra Modi regime and its policies. This cleverly cultivated stance has been deployed with venom against Shiv Sena’s leadership since he disrupted the BJP’s anti-constitutional morning coup in Mumbai last November. The Chanakyas attempted the hasty oath of Devendra Fadnavis, but were defeated at their own game.
In the face of the rudeness practiced by Modi and Shah under the guise of ‘good governance’ and ‘deshbhakti’, it should come as no surprise that the Shiv Sena quickly updated its own playbook to make political use of coercion and intimidation. There is nothing in Shiv Sena’s DNA that makes him turn the other cheek to what he saw as the BJP’s use of Republic TV as a tag team in its agenda to intimidate a state government that it did not control.
Of all the people, the BJP crowd should have known. After all, this branch of the Hindutva family was largely his accomplice for years. And that is why it is most untrue – and hilarious – that Amit Shah & Co. directed their ire at Congress, the third-youngest partner in the Maharashtra coalition government.
Understandably, the BJP and its vast group of ill-educated and unemployed “activists” seek to recall and rekindle memories of the Emergency. Modi’s digital ‘enforcers’ are particularly good, often deadly good, at making selective use of history for their most undemocratic initiatives and infractions. And yet the fact that an authoritarian party wants to position itself on the side of “democracy” and the “free press” is a small pity.
Given the fact that since its victory at the 2019 Lok Sabha, the BJP has tried to incorporate most of the institutions and instruments of the state into its narrow definition of ‘law and order’, its invocation of the “emergency mentality “should be used now. – for those who care – to regain democratic space.
Cover of the Hindustan Times on the emergency declaration. Photo: provided by the author
The BJP’s alleged outrage against the ’emergency mentality’ is to be noted in particular by the lower magistracy officials, who have been very happy to agree with the Delhi Police and other central agencies in seeing every act of democratic dissent. as a ‘conspiracy’ Against the government. If the Mumbai high court can so swiftly handle a habeas corpus petition in the Republic TV affair, perhaps the rest of the judiciary may still feel ashamed to accept similar petitions from Jammu and Kashmir.
It is good that the BJP leaders warned the nation about the “emergency mentality” because a neo-emergency mentality has already taken hold of us. Comparisons with the excesses of the Emergency are not out of place.
If Jayaprakash Narayan had the legitimate democratic right to publicly ask the police and armed forces personnel not to obey the “ illegal ” orders of Indira Gandhi’s government, surely it should be permissible and acceptable to ordinary citizens, such as the Professor Ramachandra Guha, organize to protest against a law perceived as unfair without being quickly taken away by the police. But no, not on Amit Shah’s watch.
That is why those who are outraged by the rude treatment of Republic TV journalists should bear in mind that they remained, and still remain, silent when the Illicit Activity (Prevention) Act and the sedition law are invoked in the blink of an eye. . Therefore, while the BJP’s defense of “press freedom” has to be taken with a pinch of democratic salt, it is good to hear a voice against police excesses. A small victory for the Republic.
It is never, and never can be, a happy situation when police inspectors knock on a journalist’s door, even if the journalist is being booked in an allegedly dubious business practice case. Republic TV’s journalistic practices – its delusional partisanship, its excessively high tone, its utter disregard for conventional norms of civil dialogue, its disregard for any kind of code of conduct other than its own convenience and collusion – have divided during long time to the media fraternity. Even if today’s community of journalists and other democratic voices are forced to protest the actions of the Maharashtra police, the channel has long lost the respect of civil society.
There are sobering lessons to be learned from this saga. First, for the media. Although your freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Constitution of India, it is not a license for outrageous journalism. Excesses will surely invite excesses. We live in the era of the “wounded vanity of governments,” to use an expression from Abhinav Chandrachud’s excellent treatise on freedom of expression: Republic of rhetoric. Even when a news channel or newspaper does not cross the line of objectivity, this ‘wounded vanity’ can kick in, as dozens of editors and reporters have discovered over the past six months. But when a canal sets out to cross that line, a reaction is inevitable.
The second lesson is for the BJP and all its supporters. If party governments choose to set ugly precedents for bigotry and police arrogance, surely at the right time others will dust off those precedents to practice a different kind of harshness. What is sauce for the goose can also become sauce for the goose.
Above all, it should be instructive for all institutional custodians of equity and freedom who serve the Republic badly when they allow themselves to be intimidated by the established powers. The “emergency mentality” was characterized by the preponderance of one official over the inherent and interlocking balances devised in the constitution. Republic TV’s brush with the crude end of the law should be an occasion to review our Republic and its democratic values.
.
