The unkindest cut

When a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad sometime back, the issue became a raging debate between blasphemy and press freedom. But a vital detail was lost in the furore. Was the editor of the paper so foolish as not to have expected the fallout? Then, what made him do what he did? His argument was that there was so much of reticence and inhibition amidst the public and press in talking about Islam that he felt the urge to break the jinx. Now, howsoever insensitive or imprudent the paper might have been, the stifling self-censorship of free speech was deemed provocation enough for the editor to throw caution to the winds.

In the modern milieu, a free press is often taken as the ideal determinant of a mature democracy. In the Indian context, press freedom is deemed inherent in the fundamental right to expression, subject of course, to reasonable restrictions. While it is natural for the mediacorps to rejoice at this right, it actually imposes a huge burden on them in terms of responsible journalism. Besides, the right is guaranteed not as a privilege, but actually a duty to be a watchdog of the society and polity. Therefore, while wilful assaults on press freedom should be fought, failure of media to rise against or bring to the fore obvious wrongdoings also becomes equally condemnable. But sadly, while visible gagging of the press by outside agencies, say as during Emergency, hogs public and political limelight, dereliction of duty by the media, in the form of self-imposed shackles often goes unnoticed. In our obsession with the written and spoken word, the unwritten and unuttered ones, which actually beg to be written or told, rarely irk our senses.

The pre-cartoon situation of Denmark and much of the West obtains in India too. But while the Western media has lately and largely come out of such self inflicted taboos, Indian media is clearly sinking deeper into the quicksand of self-censorship. And worse, there is also this malaise of ‘selective-censorship’,vitiating and disorting the situation no end. With competitive journalism in both print and prime time being the order of the day, the race for scoops and exclusives has no doubt broken a lot of fresh ground in media coverage. So it is not that the media would be shying away from dicey stuff, be it political news, tragedies or crime. And gone are the days when politicos and sundry other antagonists could intimidate the media and get away with it. If they still attempt it, that again becomes news, to their detriment. But, the sordid media story of the present is that whatever gagging is happening is voluntary, based on flawed notions of right and wrong, contrary to media instincts and openly in perpetuation of some pet agendas. A few cases rise up to the mind.

Islam and Muslims are obvious candidates for indulgence by some newspapers and channels. The Sachar committee report has now become some kind of a gospel for them with a national daily excelling even the faithful. Manmohan’s statement that minorities, particularly Muslims, should have the first claim over the nation’s resources, was itself a signal improvement over Gandhiji’s Khilafat fad. But both Manmohan and the Mahatma have been put to shade by the media Mahavishnu of Mountroad. Again, on the Afzal issue, the number of debate sessions on NDTV may even exceed the sittings that the court had, with a ‘larger bench’ of primetime pundits tearing apart the SC verdict. The media clearly has a larger agenda that goes beyond the norms of mere professional interest and objectivity. And where is the even-handedness, a much-touted virtue? While waxing eloquent on the immorality of capital punishment in Afzal case, the media was most eager and enthusiastic to have the killer of Matoo put to death, even claiming credit for the verdict!

Media’s obsession with scandal is well known. Irrespective of who breaks a story, everyone else swoops down like vultures for their bits and bytes. Yet, when a channel exposed bribery in the disbursement of Haj subsidies, the story died with that. None of those starry-eyed, nosey media hounds bothered to do follow ups. Mecca is sacred, but Sabarimala can be played around with, it appears. Similar was the scenario when Karnataka’s Wakf Minister, Zameer Ahmed Khan resigned

e-mail the writer at [email protected]