The panellists at the public meeting were Dhanya Rajendran, editor, The News Minute, Meena Kotwal, editor, Mooknayak, Mihir Desai, senior lawyer, and Naresh Fernandes, editor, Scroll. The meeting was moderated by Kalpana Sharma, independent journalist.
The last decade has seen mainstream media falling in line with the dominant narrative set by the central government and some state governments on a range of contentious issues. The resultant gap in credible information and opinion has been filled largely by a few independent digital news and views platforms. They provide space for opinions critical of the government and its policies, investigative stories exposing the powerful, incisive reporting on conflict areas like Kashmir and Manipur, and stories on environmental and social issues — essentially, journalism that is missing from mainstream media.
Yet, even as these independent platforms have grown, so has the pressure on them from the government to conform and tone down criticism. Such pressure takes several forms. One is direct, through changes in the law, such as the plan to establish a “Fact Checking Unit” that will determine what is “fake” news and stop dissemination of such news. The provision, inserted in the Information and Technology law, is currently under challenge in the courts.
The other route is to accuse independent platforms of violating taxation laws or questioning the source of their funds. The most recent example of this strategy was the crackdown on NewsClick in October 2023, the arrest of its editor and HR manager, and the seizure of laptops and telephones of scores of journalists, even of freelancers who wrote for the website.
If the government succeeds in shutting down or taming these independent platforms, the space for dissent or critical scrutiny of government, politicians and the powerful and their actions and policies will disappear. Such a situation is clearly inimical to the concept of a functioning democracy.
What can be done to prevent such an eventuality? This was the urgent question that was addressed at the public meeting.
In her opening remarks, Kalpana Sharma pointed out that in the last decade we had witnessed what has happened to mainstream media where there are few spaces left for critical writing and reports. The abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, should have been a wakeup call for the Indian media. The media policy set in place then for Kashmir, is now being replicated in different ways in the rest of the country.
For instance, the government has proposed setting up a “fact-checking unit”, like the one that was part of the media policy for Kashmir. This unit will decide what news relating to the government is false, fake, or misleading, and direct internet intermediaries to take it down. This, said Sharma, is no less than censorship.
That particular provision in the IT Act has been legally challenged. Sharma asked Mihir Desai, a senior lawyer who has fought several human rights cases, to speak about the Bombay High Court judgement in relation to this case and how he sees the future of the freedom of the press.
Referring to the January 2024 Bombay High Court judgement on the government’s plan to set up a fact-checking unit, Desai explained that it was a split judgement, with the two-judge bench giving separate rulings. Justice Gautam Patel struck down the provision and said: “It is not the business of the government to keep citizens from falling to error; it is the other way around…governments do not select citizens; citizens elect governments.” Justice Neela Gokhale, however, took a different view and justified the action of the government, holding that it should be trusted on these matters.
Giving background to this judgement, Desai explained that while the Indian Constitution provides for freedom of speech, it does not regard freedom of press as a fundamental right.
The split judgement was sent to a third judge to intervene. The ruling was awaited.
Sharma asked Dhanya Rajendran, editor of The News Minute and NWMI member, how such regulations, if the court upheld them, would affect independent digital platforms like The News Minute.
Rajendran said that several media houses including The Wire and The News Minute have challenged various sections of these laws. Earlier, the government had introduced a provision requiring all digital platforms to set up a system for grievance redress. In this three-tier system, people could write in to the media company, which then has to report to the Information and Broadcasting ministry how it has addressed the complaint. Setting up such a system adds to the costs incurred by independent platforms.
Equally worrying was the proposal for a new Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill. Anyone producing news-related content on platforms like YouTube would have to register with the government and would come under government regulations that apply to all broadcasters. Rajendran said that independent news platforms and the Editors’ Guild of India had argued that what they produced was the work of journalists and could not be equated with other YouTube content creators. In addition, given their limited resources, independent digital news platforms could not be equated with established media houses.
Asked by the moderator whether these regulations from the government had resulted in some form of self-censorship in independent media, Naresh Fernandes, editor of Scroll, said that although there had been something of a chilling effect on the media as a whole, “You can choose not to be cold.” He said many members of the organisation set up by independent media houses, DIGIPUB, were choosing not to be intimidated. “We didn’t set out to capitulate,” he said, “and we won’t do it.” Of course, the result was negative and harsh feedback, as well as trolling. He had been called a “rice bag” journalist, the mythical bag of rice being a bribe to stand against the government.
He said that they faced many more legal cases against the stories they had carried but so far, “we haven’t killed any stories, thankfully.”
Given this dire situation of independent media, Sharma asked Meena Kotwal, editor of Mooknayak and NWMI member, why she chose to set up her platform at this time.
“Caste is constantly forgotten, ignored, or not prioritized even by journalists,” said Kotwal. “Which New India should I look forward to or imagine when the old India never made me, or my community, feel visible?”
Kotwal said that caste had never been a real focus of mainstream media news. The newsrooms were full of people who never really tried to understand caste. She said platforms like hers will not survive in the new Bharat because the Constitution was being erased and in its place was “Manusmriti Raj”.
Kotwal held that the issues that she focuses on in Mooknayak are ignored by mainstream media and that even the alternative media deals with these issues superficially. That is why she felt it was necessary to create a platform focusing on Dalit issues. However, given the new laws that the government is trying to bring in, she was unsure of whether they would be able to survive.
But, she added, we need to figure out how to survive. At present, she was working with a small team. But even if she had to work alone, “I will not be silent,” she said.
On January 22, when the Ram temple in Ayodhya was inaugurated, Kotwal said she felt real fear. But then she thought about how the non-Hindu minorities might be feeling. “Because of my caste and gender, I am a really easy target,” she said. “But we need to speak up.”
During question time, Mihir Desai was asked: Freedom of press as in the US has not been prevalent in India in a systemic legal way. The government has always tried ways to control or direct the media, for instance through financial pressure (advertisements). Print media is now dependent on government advertisements, unlike in the past when the private sector was a major player. With the advent of the Broadcasting Bill, how can people be made aware of the draining away of media freedoms through law?
Desai explained that the Broadcasting Bill is trying to control news creators or curators through a three-tier hierarchy, where the final tier will be controlled by the government. The government will decide what can be broadcast and what it considers insidious. The bill has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
Dhanya Rajendran added that today, anyone with a computer or a mobile phone is a broadcaster. So, we need to raise awareness that this Broadcasting Bill impacts everyone who is a content creator.
Fernandes said he was recently at a conference for journalists from around the world in Thailand. Many of these journalists faced charges of money laundering etc, like those faced by Indian journalists. So, governments around the world seemed to be employing similar tactics, he said.
The conference was held in Thailand because journalists from Myanmar were working there in exile. Another example of a journalist working in exile is Anuradha Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times who is running the portal out of California in the US.
“True journalism is now almost a crime,” Fernandes said. The targeting of a platform like NewsClick sends out an ominous message that irrespective of how small you are, you could be a target. He said it takes courage for the media and journalists to stand up to power. “We need to find ways to stand up to unjust laws; we cannot squash an independent spirit.”
There were several suggestions from the audience while looking at the future of independent media. One was creating a legal support system for independent journalists. Another was a secure and centralized database of support systems that could be accessed in times of crisis.
Rifat Ahmed, NWMI member from Kashmir, pointed out that stories online can still affect journalists years later in a time of increased media repression.
There were questions whether the subscription model, adopted by platforms like Newslaundry, are sustainable. Meena Kotwal said that even though most subscribers to her platform were on “survival mode”, she had managed to raise funds by crowdsourcing.
Dhanya Rajendran added that consistency was the key for fundraising or subscriptions, and regular and on time content production.
She reminded the audience that in 1988, protests led by newspaper editors against the Defamation Bill eventually resulted in it being withdrawn by the Rajiv Gandhi government. Where are the big media protests now, she asked. Where are the leaders? What about NWMI and DIGIPUB taking more bold stances rather than just releasing statements? She said there tended to be an over reliance on courts. But today public protest is important and should never be underestimated.
Kalpana Sharma concluded the meeting by pointing out that some of the best years of the Indian media were in the 1980s, in the years after the Emergency, when journalists were encouraged to investigate a wide range of human interest and social issues. She said that we needed to look for new and subversive ways to do good journalism, and not be reduced to being “content creators”.
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The public meeting was followed by a dinner on the terrace of the Mumbai Press Club, after which members had the opportunity to showcase their talents in the form of parody, music, dance and poetry.