A presstitute offers his pen to the highest bidder." This is how former Army chief and now the BJP MP from Ghaziabad V K Singh had attacked the media in a tweet in April 2015. He refused to apologize but clarified that “90 per cent of the media is clean which should clean up the rest." Popularised by V K Singh, the defamatory term has since gained ground. Interestingly, many recent tweets hashtagged #presstitute are against anchors of popular news channels, journalists and media houses and anyone who indulges in any form of criticism of the government.
Social media, useful as it is, has enabled many abrasive dialogue stoppers comprised of lazy and inarticulate people who find it easier to stonewall arguments with free use of expletives and rubbish statements like “Go to Pakistan.” The problem is, even when V K Singh begrudgingly agrees that 90 percent of the media is clean, the ire of the remaining 10 percent is being systematically used to defame the profession as a whole.
It takes an engineered effort to undermine the work of news media and in due fairness, all governments can be blamed for resenting the media in acting as a roadblock to erasing their infamous past. While it is extremely challenging to outdo Indira Gandhi who imposed Emergency from 1975 to 1977, the current government does seem hell bent on catching up.
The ruling party’s discomfort with media is more than a decade old. Gujarat riots (February 2002) were the first riots in the history of India to be reported on television - in many cases with live, on-ground coverage. It was the duty of the media to bring this violence to the public eye. It is not media’s fault that these visuals remained in public memory. The government, however, began to shoot the messenger instead of focusing on curbing communalism and ghettoism. The anti-media trend that originated in Gujarat is now showing alarming manifestations throughout the country.
The prejudice against free media came out quite brazenly at the November 7 'March For India' or the “tolerance march” as it was popularly dubbed, led by actor Anupam Kher (who is the spouse of Kirron Kher, the BJP MP from Chandigarh). The rally was to counteract the recent spate of “Award Wapsi” but it made the news for the heckling of journalists covering the event. Media persons were accused of doing “selective journalism” and NDTV's Bhairavi Singh was allegedly called her a 'prostitute’ by participants of the rally.
These journalists were just doing their job, which also gives them the same rights to freedom of speech as accorded to any citizen of India. Laws pertaining to media are based on Article 19 of the Indian constitution that upholds the freedom of speech and expression as a fundamental right. So, why do people get so worked up when something is said (by the media) or done (by citizens and reported by the media) to criticize the status quo. Here’s why.
According to the Registrar of Newspapers in India (RNI), the total circulation of publications during 2013-14 is around 4.5 crore and there is a 6 percent rise in the number of publications registered with RNI in 2013-2014. If newspapers have the power to influence at least 1/3rd of the population, the insecurity of those opposing media en-masse is quite understandable.
Besides blaming political ulterior motives to the “Award Wapsi” protest, social media, text forwards and emails were circulated with bizarre arguments that returning awards and its widespread media coverage was against national pride; that the protests were planned to weaken India’s image abroad which will ultimately weaken our country’s position to gain a permanent seat in the UN Security Council on the human rights issue.
Linking the fear of not getting a permanent UN seat with symbolic gestures of returning awards is unwittingly giving too much importance to the same freethinkers and free media that is heckled and dismissed as #presstitute or #pseudosecular. Besides misguiding the gullible, such bizarre arguments also undermine the maturity and wisdom of legal systems in India and the world over.
We took four years to hang Ajmal Kasab, the terrorist caught alive in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai by according him a due judicial process. The juvenile accused of the Delhi gang rape of December 16, 2012, is due for release next month after serving a 27-month period in a reform home. Whether you agree or disagree with this degree of tolerance, the bottom line is that India unflinchingly upholds her constitution.
The nation isn’t pseudo-secular and so isn’t its media. A popular (and welcome) analogy of the function of media is that of a watchdog. It is unfortunate that a watchdog is expected to become a mouthpiece; and refusing to do so can get one labeled as a #presstitute.
