We’ve been taught since our schooling years that disobedience causes chaos and disorderliness in society, and, therefore, at every step of our lives, we have been told to “obey”. Of course, obedience has made us retain the cacophony. And, it’s not always the disobedience serving as the root of the predicament and melancholy. On the contrary, obedience is dissuading every scope of panacea since we have already reached a dystopian point where questioning the government as well as the PM of India holding a “press conference” is unexpected.
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.” – Henry David Thoreau, American poet.
In this whole saga, verily, the Indian press has always played a bigger role, and it is not post-2014 only. But more contemporarily, it does not do journalism anymore, for it should meet the fate like NewsClick, The Wire, or Ravish Kumar. More of a “Public Relations” exercise is expected from the Indian Press, except the front page headlines of The Telegraph newspaper, which continues to appear as a ‘death knell’ to the establishment, even today. At all costs. Under any circumstances.
The fans of Sudhir Chaudhary, Suresh Chavhanke, Rubika Liyaquat, and others, followed by the noisy edicts by the ‘Supreme Commander’ Arnab Goswami, have not realized how their college-level news presentation and “school of thought” is not helping India’s global rank on press freedom qualitatively ‘rise’.
In 2013-14, she stood at 140th out of 180 nations. Presently, privileged at the rank 161. Of course, Pakistan is responsible for the deteriorating state of press affairs in India. And hopefully, the pattern of WhatsApp forwards should rescue the state of media freedom in India soon. #sarcasm
The natural onus of the mainstream media, a 4th pillar of democracy, is to stay as a watchdog, not a lapdog, but sadly, the media fears the government, and that’s why the collaboration between the government and most of the media houses speaks a volume about how citizens are fed the news today.
No, the government does not fear the media, et al. It has used ‘Pegasus’ on journalists, and we’re not talking about it. It censored the BBC documentary because it did not meet the PR expectations. And, since 2014, a 30% rise in sedition cases with the ‘lowest conviction rate ever’ is not a matter of debate yet.
As per an opinion piece by Debasish Roy Chowdhury for Time magazine (May 2021), “India’s PM’s ascension to national power in 2014 led to the taming of India’s media. His rise coincided with a reorganization of the editorial authority of some of India’s most important news institutions, particularly national television networks. The previous generation of senior editors, who were viewed as more devoted to India’s liberal outlook than the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology, were moved out, and new channels and news leaders with devotion to the BJP and PM Modi were developed. Because of their large state and party advertising budgets, India’s state and central governments hold considerable control over media companies.
In the 2019-20 fiscal year, the central government alone spent roughly ₹1.95 crore (equivalent to ₹2.3 crore or US$290,000 in 2023) on advertisements per day. Access to power and business favours are additional incentives for the media to continue with the pro-BJP messages.”
And that’s why we could also witness, with impunity, Sudhir Chaudhary, in his famous DNA show, on Zee News, unstoppably coming out with terms like Zameen Jihad, Corona Jihad, Population Jihad, Media Jihad, etc.
Any sincere student studying journalism, can easily reiterate that Sudhir Chaudhary has surely applied the ‘Cultivation Theory of Mass Communication’, a principle used to explain the impact of a cultural phenomenon, watching TV, on the behaviour of individuals, which further led to incremental growth in the Islamophobic patterns.
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” – Albert Einstein
The ‘chilling effect’, stemming from the narratives of the politico-media complex, is ensuring a subtle message that the government decides what the citizens should think about. Mainstream media, as an agent, has vociferously made the arrangement, and those who don’t negotiate…will eventually meet the fate of ED, I-T, CBI, or Delhi Police. A matter of time.