The cold fire of democracy

 

“The pillar is being destroyed while the roof celebrates”

As PM Modi faces a weakened economy at home and increased communal tension across the country, the prime minister and his party moved to hijack the country’s historically free press. The government has not created an official state-run news agency but it manipulates independent news organisations to peddle its economic narrative, chastise a Muslim minority, and prey on Hindu anxieties in the country.

A new trend in the reportage of the Sushant Singh Rajput and Hathras cases by the right-wing Indian media puts a question mark on the classified status of legal evidence. Pro-government media channels and platforms are now directly obtaining classified evidence from investigating agencies and the police. This illegal supply of evidence that is then broadcast on television and circulated on social media is one of the many dangerous turns that the Indian news media has taken.

The collapse between media reportage and trial on the grounds of illegally obtained evidence is a concern that should be addressed in any democracy. We are noticing a shift from what has so far has been referred to as ‘Godi media’ – that is a group of media houses which support the ruling party – to a mediatantra, where news channels and social media are becoming the authorities which release and interpret classified evidence. The collapsing Indian loktantra (democracy) and nyayatantra (judiciary) are being replaced by a mediatantra (mediacracy) in the literal sense of the term.

The Modi era coincided with an exponential rise in the use of social media in India, a medium that this government exploited to the hilt to target critics, mobilise public opinion, and use tags like “anti-national,” to discredit anyone showing a hint of the circumspection with the state narrative. The use of proxy businessmen and online intimidation tactics has allowed the government to closely control and direct the narrative. What’s even more worrying is the willingness India’s top media houses have shown in these years to do the government’s bidding.

While the fabrication and erasure of evidence have always been part and parcel of the Indian legal system, the direct access of classified evidence by news channels is a new and dangerous phenomenon that gives them the power to conduct vicious media trials. Media has become the jury and the judge. The impact of this alarming trend – like many other illegal and unconstitutional changes in the fabric of Indian democracy – will be long-lasting.

Ignoring what is happening with the media in the world’s largest democracy is not beneficial for Indians, Indian democracy, or liberals across the world who believe in and uphold the global liberal order. If Modi is allowed to get away with what his party has done to India’s media, there is no telling how his successor — whether from the BJP or the Congress — will treat the country’s independent press.

-Abhinav Sardesai