Land of Gandhi where citizens do not have right to know and Media is not FREE (Digant Oza)

[Presentation at, the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) meet in New Delhi on 9/10 October 2004.]

Land of Gandhi where citizens do not have right to know and Media is not FREE

Digant Oza

Gandhi bhaktas (devotees) of Gandhinagar, Gujarat, had to be content with performing the annual ritual of garlanding the Mahatma’s statue on his birthday from outside the closed iron gates of the Secretariat, because their entry into the compound was prohibited due to “Security” reasons, according to Laljibhai Wadia, secretary general of Swaichhik Seva Sanstha, a NGO. The ban was imposed by the state government, which on 2nd October exhorted the people through advertisements to follow the path of Mahatma Gandhi.

This is one of the several paradoxes the Gujarat of Gandhi is facing today. The citizens have lost the voice of dissent, and are silent in the face of the injustices meted out to civil society in the name of pride of Gujarat. Citizens of Gandhi’s Gujarat do not have the right to know. The press is not free.

From Gujarat’s perspective, this conference could not have been held at a more appropriate time. We have just left behind October 2, the third after the communal holocaust in Gujarat, but one is just not able to put behind the paradox that the Mahatma hailed from this part of the country. This is not to refer to Gandhiji’s principle of non-violence and tolerance in the context of the 2002 violence in Gujarat, but in the larger scenario in Gujarat where any dissent is quickly described as an insult to Gujarat and, by implication, anti-national.

It was Gandhi who taught Gujarat and the country to dissent, and have the courage to stand up for it. It was from here that major national movements took shape, and caught the imagination of an entire generation. It was the courageous journalist in Gandhi (of “Harijanbandhu” and “Young India”) who pioneered the campaign for the freedom of the press. He stood for these rights when our fellow countrymen were considered to be the white man’s burden, and the dream of a free India was nowhere in sight.

BETRAYAL OF SILENCE

In Gujarat, governance and the Media are not just about the state. It is about all of us in the context of a multi-cultural society that should conform to the constitutional legitimacy of a social, democratic and secular republic. The citizenry has to get its act together and actively engage in the governance process, if these precepts are to be substantiated by practice and not insidiously violated. The events in Gujarat also clearly leave no room for sitting on the fence. As Martin Luther King pointed out long ago, " A time comes when silence is a betrayal."

Public memory is notoriously short. This, coupled with the lack of the engagement of citizenry has consigned the lessons of the past to the backburner. Timely information, communication, documentation and dissemination can play a vital role in preventing mistakes of the past from casting a long shadow. The Media's role, both in terms of raising questions as well as tracking events pertinent to governance, assumes additional significance. It is against this backdrop that the raison d'etre for the current issue of this national conference has taken shape.

If irony had a synonym, it would be Gujarat. For, today, the very same freedom that Gandhi fought and earned for the country is at stake. Like the father of the nation, respected journalist, Bill Moyers, was not exaggerating when he told an audience that ‘the very soul of democracy is at stake’. Gandhiji used to say that suffering injustice is like committing it. That is what both media and the civil society are striving to achieve in Gujarat today.

The field journalist has been virtually de-linked from the editors-cum-owners of the media group externally by a scheming political establishment. This may be a national trend but, the establishment in Gujarat goes one step ahead. Having taken care of the owner-editors, the focus is now on clipping the wings of the field journalists, especially those covering the government. Attempts are being made to ensure that reporters covering the Secretariat go back in the evening with an empty newsbag.

DEPARTMENT OF CLARIFICATIONS

Different ways are being devised to frustrate the reporter. The government today has a section in its Information Department, whose job is to issue clarifications and rejoinders to news reports on a daily basis. The Chief Minister of Gujarat spends more time in overseeing the press releases of his functions, while the only department that seems to be ‘working’ in the Gujarat Government is the Information Department. What it dishes out may be both ‘misinformation’ as well as ‘disinformation’ You are harassed if you dare say this.

Even political statements by the opposition parties are countered by the Information Department, along with the ruling party. When one editor recently “dared” to ask how the government could reply to the press statement of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president on an official letterhead, it was treated like sacrilege. He lost government advertisements for this “Gustakhi”.

IS GUJARAT READY FOR ANOTHER EMERGENCY?

How would the Indian media react if the Emergency were to be declared at midnight tonight, and if the Freedom of Speech and Expression, guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution, were to be suspended? If witch-hunt was launched against magazines that refuse to parrot the establishment line…. If flimsy cases were foisted and dossiers built up on … “unfriendly” newspaper journalists… If “trouble-making” publications were harassed making it difficult for them to function, even to survive… If foreign correspondents were summarily ordered to leave the country for filing not-so-glowing reports… If television channels were banned for showing the other side of a story… If small newspapers were disempanelled so that they wouldn't receive government advertising…

The good news is that it is a hypothetical question. The brazenness and the subsequent electoral backfiring of Indira Gandhi's Emergency is still fresh in the minds of our political masters to let them attempt a similar misadventure 29 years later. The bad news is that a more subtle, sophisticated method of muzzling the media had been mastered by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Each of the 'Emergency' possibilities listed above, which had the votaries of free speech up in arms in 1975, has been or is being played out in news and board rooms across the country, without so much as a squeak in protest. This is more so in Gujarat.

As a former B.J.P. Minister, Arun Jaitley, once wrote under the caption: “Nazi priestess”, “The German Constitution was envisaged as one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. Yet one man motivated by the desire for personal dictatorial power subverted it, and presented to the world one of the most disgraceful authoritarian regimes in history. This man was Adolf Hitler.

“How did he do this? He used the constitutional provisions to declare a state of emergency. He imposed censorship on the newspapers. He detained his political opponents. He crushed all dissent. He inspired the persecution of those he was not prepared to suffer. He generated an environment of terror and sycophancy.”

And why did he do all this? "To make Germany a powerful nation," he claimed. To legitimise this he announced a 25-point economic programme. He claimed that he was imposing discipline. Even Mussolini had claimed in Italy that the effect of Fascism was that 'trains were running on time'. One of Hitler's Nazi colleagues had proclaimed: "Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler. He who swears allegiance to Hitler swears allegiance to Germany."

How is today’s Gujarat scenario any different? If the personal political position of the present Chief Minister is threatened, it is insulting five crore Gujaratis, and an attack on the pride of Gujarat. In other words, “Narendra Modi is Gujarat and Gujarat is Narendra Modi”.

As Arun Jaitley wrote about the Emergency (1975), every dishonest protagonist of the “mini-emergency” would argue that it was to save the state from anarchy, and to impose discipline on democracy and save the interests of the majority community. The honest truth is very much to the contrary. However, Thomas Jefferson has reminded us, 'I would prefer a free press without a government than a government without a free press.’

Censorship in one way or another has always been there. But, in Gujarat it seems to have acquired draconian dimensions. There are number of instances which provide illustrations to the point. Censorship is still there in the place where information is being used apart from the media itself. But the Gujarat government has introduced an innovative concept, checking free flow of information. So there is no need for ‘moral’ policing at the user’s end.

It puts the media at tenterhooks by using all possible legal (and not so legal) means. Apparently it may look like an exercise to clean the system. In reality, it turns out to be a bashing by a so-called legal baton without any legal sanctity to it. A legal case may be slapped to give the impression that the action is right. But a case on false premises or incorrect grounds can serve only one purpose: to harass, and that is what is happening in Gujarat.

The following illustrations of what the Gujarat media in general, and the hapless Secretariat reporter, suffers and faces.

DENIAL OF PRESS ACCESS:

If accreditation means access, it is denied to journalists in Gujarat. It has been 10 months since the government has kept in abeyance issuance of the new press accreditation cards to journalists. Renewals are being given on a provisional basis for a couple of months, as against for a year, which has been the practice all over the country. All this is being done in the name of framing a new media policy, which is yet to be finalised. Nobody knows how long the whole exercise would take. In the meanwhile the usual there has been a practice of issuing accreditation cards to “Veteran Journalists” in recognition of their life-long services to the profession has been violated. They have even been denied renewal. If you ask anyone in the government, informally, he will tell you, “We are issuing the cards and even renewing them. Please come we will renew your card”. This never happens and I know this from personal experience. Insiders say the Chief Minister has a special hatred for the ‘Veterans’. Hence, everyone must suffer. Needless to say accreditation is required for security purposes, as well as for basic facilities seeking access to government departments and talking to responsible officers.

Information department officials say the government feels the need to weed out “undesirable and corrupt journalists” and deny them the cards. There is already a set of norms to provide cards, but nobody in government admits the fact that it is not being monitored nor implemented. There is a special committee, comprising of senior journalists, to verify and decide the cases of accreditation. However, the norms are being violated by people from within the government and not by the committee. If you know a minister or MLA from your area, you can get a card. And you need a minister, only if you are an “undesirable and corrupt journalist” not measuring up to the norms.

The world over, governments and their spin surgeons want a rosy picture to be painted in the media regardless of everything. So, the BJP-led government, which essentially believed in governance by media management, cannot be accused of doing something that others elsewhere have not. But it is the method that exposes the madness that has gripped its media-minders.

It is a different question as to what are the professional bodies -- the Editors' Guild, the Indian Newspaper Society, Journalist Association-- etc. doing to ensure that media professionals are not stripped and paraded naked for the cardinal crime they are committing of trying to deliver report with sincerity.

And, what is the role of institutions like National Minority Commission and National Human Right Commission in safeguarding the civil liberties of fifty million Gujaratis.

PRESS (AB) BUS:

For the last almost two decades, media representatives were traveling 28 km to and fro Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar in a government bus. The present Chief Minister stopped this facility on the pretext that most media publications now have representatives in the State capital. Of course, he has not bothered to inform the media about this reason and it was only after a correspondent inquired that an official told him about it. But this argument does not work when the Press bus operates on Wednesdays.

The fact remains that the Chief Minister does not like perhaps the sight of prying journalists, who refuse to be spoon-fed. However, he has managed to find a selected band of loyalists. Recently, a rumour was systematically spread that the Chief Minister was to hold a press conference, a rare event in itself. Usually, such conferences are held with a proper invitation, so those who had not got it wondered and started inquiring. They were told, “There is no press conference, the Chief Minister wishes to meet some selected journalists over lunch.” How many do you assume could be selected journalists? Four, five, six? There were some 25 of them.

THE SECRETARIAT PRESS ROOM:

The PRESSROOM in the Sachivalaya has been locked. Reporters have no place to work in even if they happen to reach Gandhinagar on their own, i.e., without a state Government Vehicle. The entry to non-accredited journalists has been prohibited, while even those having the cards cannot enter if they have committed the sin of forgetting to carry them.

THE INACCESSIBLE CHIEF MINISTER:

The Chief Minister simply does not meet the press, especially if you have written even one piece against him. The customary post-Cabinet meeting press briefing is generally not held. And when they are rarely held, very rarely, the spokespeople of government will not entertain questions with an instruction that you have to write what has been handed out to you.

If you want to start a new publication and want to file a fresh declaration what you need to do, anywhere in the country baring Gujarat, the practise is to approach the District Magistrate and apply in prescribed profile with five suggestive names in order of priority, than it is forwarded to the office of registrar of Newspapers in Delhi for further action. But Gujarat is an exemption. Your papers will not be forwarded to Delhi unless there is a positive report about the applicant from Local Police Station. It is innovation for gagging up the media even before its birth.

The present Chief Minister is not accessible to media in general and reporters in particular. The organization called ‘Gujarat Dainik Akhbar Sangh’ (having membership of Gujarat dailies excluding Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh) which has a history of having meetings with all the previous Chief Ministers were deprived of a dialogue with Modi till recently. Both Bhupat Vadodaria and Ramu Patel, the past and present presidents of Gujarat Dainik Akhbar Sangh requested for a formal meeting with Modi, but in vain. However, after it was presented at national level, the Chief-Minister had a formal meeting only last month. Similarly, no access is given to any media person, no meeting is allowed with media person - All this in the name of security.

Since Narendra Modi took over, his ministers have taken the cue from him do not meet the press. Though none of them admits it, it is a fact that no minister is allowed to speak to press without his permission. And his permission is rare. The formal periodical news conferences, which are, very rarely, organized are a time bound affair. They are invariably declared over, even while reporters are half way through their questions.

As a result of this, even senior bureaucrats run away at the sight of journalists. The overall effect of this style of functioning is of censorship at the source. So there is no need to go for open censorship.

A senior correspondent of a Gandhinagar based daily once asked a rather longish question in one of the rare news conferences of NAMO and the prompt reply came from Chief Minister, “Tamaru Chapun to nanu che ane Saval avado moto” (your Newspaper is small and you are asking such a long question). The question was, however, not answered.

ADVERTISEMENTS ARE SOURCE OF INFERMATION

Advertisements to newspapers have been reduced to minimum while cases have been slapped against a number of newspapers on all kind of grounds. In one of its judgements, the Court felt that Government Advertisements are also a source of information apart from income, but the Modi Govt. denies these sources to all those newspapers that the Chief Minister does not like. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindu organisations were publishing handbills suggesting economic boycott of the minority during the post-Godhra period in the year 2002, Similarly, the state Government puts economic sanction on the Newspaper, to gag them. Gujarat Samachar got the Govt. Advts. restored through a court order and at present they are fighting a legal battle for the compensation for loss of advertisement, during the period of stoppage. Jai Hind has filed a case in Gujarat High Court. Rajasthan Patrika is before Press Council of India, another Gujarati daily, Divya Bhaskar, is yet to see Govt. Advts. in their columns even after 15 months of its existence. Both Rajasthan Patrika and Divya Bhaskar are considered pro-BJP newspapers but their guilt is that they are not toeing the present CM's line. One newspaper rented out a part of the building it had constructed on land bought from government under special category and it was charged with commercial use of the building.

A case was filed against another newspaper that had bought a piece of land at a concessional rate in the special category. The charge was that it did not construct the building within the specific time frame. The fact was that the newspaper had to revise its building plan to meet post-Kutch earthquake requirements. Though the paper won the legal battle, the purpose of the government was to terrorise it, with a kind of censorship that is perpetrated against the non-accommodative newspapers and journalists every day.

Notices for closure of newspapers are issued on technical and legal grounds even when the point involved is some thing like informing the Magistrate about a change of editor or print.

The CM usually invites a team of selected journalists under the title of ‘official briefing over lunch’; something never done in the past. He manages to get invitations for the inaugural flight of Air India for journalists of his choice. Certainly it was a move to reward his own men in the media, and at the same time, a move to create rift among journalists through his policy of carrot and stick. However, a national level controversy over the issue has led to cancellation of freebies to the select journalists.

CENSORING OTHER MEDIA

Censorship today doesn’t necessarily need a pair of scissors. It can be done by the click of a button. Police across Gujarat, apparently on the orders from the government in Gandhinagar, is using its powers to gag the electronic media.

News channels across Gujarat, which were giving a blow-by-blow account of the riots, blinked off the television screens in several cities as the police silenced certain channels. On that fateful Saturday, during the riots, Ahmedabadis were cut off from the world in more ways than one. Forced inside their homes for the third consecutive day, desperate attempts of the people to know what was happening in the city were met with blank screens as the state government blocked all satellite news channels from beaming into city homes.

Exercising special powers, the then city police commissioner P.C. Pande issued notices to cable operators in the city, directing them to block all programmes that could incite violence, enmity between two communities and disrupt law and order situation in the city. Those not adhering to the directive would be subject to punishment, the notice said. Following the same, all three news channels were pulled off air early morning by most cable operators. Blank screens irked residents to no end who were depending on the news channels to provide them with updates on the situation in the city.

In Vadodara, Star News channel was blocked, while authorities in Surat blocked two local channels - MY TV and Channel Surat. In Rajkot, the then police commissioner Upendra Singh directed cable operators to block Star News and four local news channels. He also banned publication of special supplements of three local Gujarati eveningers.

Most of the control rooms in the city received phone calls from the collector's office to black out Star News, Zee News, CNN and Aaj Tak," said president of the Ahmedabad Cable Operator's Association Pramod Pandya.

As Aruna Roy once wrote, post Godhra, Gujarat has brought into focus all the facets of the right to informa-tion critical to peoples’ lives. The continuing human tragedy in Gujarat has shown how information can be used positively, but also misused to do untold harm to peoples lives. Half-truths are most often worse than lies, and the polarisation of the society in Gujarat has prepared fertile ground for the most perni-cious use of information possible. Stoking the fires of communal conflict is dependent on the selective use of information, delib-erate misinformation and the deploy-ment of a propaganda machine. On the other hand, fighting such commu-nal forces requires the free flow and dissemination of accurate and reliable information. Building up credibility is one of the most powerful means of winning the confidence of the people. There is a duty to examine the rea-sons for this tragedy, and to learn from the acts of omission and com-mission that have taken place. Information wills playa critical role if the rule of law, and confidence is to be restored so that such a tragedy will not be repeated.



The lack of accurate and reliable information begins with Godhra. Details about the tragedy remained buried in mystery allowing rumours to spread, enrage people and justify the killing of innocent people as "revenge". The sup-ply of immediate and authoritative information may have allowed cooler and saner opinion to have public space in Gujarat. Repeated questions received no answers. Even the list of passengers in the ill-fated burnt bogey, and those in the neighbouring compartments was not made public for months. The suo moto obligation of a govern-ment therefore to inform immediately, adequately and dis-seminate accurate information to its people was not ful-filled. Providing such information, along with public assur-ances that the rule of law will be maintained is of immense importance to protect the life and liberty of its people

Cable service providers when contacted confessed that they had received official notice ordering to discontinue showing news channels in Gujarat till the riots were fully controlled.

We need to sit up in alarm at what's happening because even as recently as the POTO standoff, the Law Commission was cited by the very people who have the least regard for it, to tell us that the rights and privileges of a pressman in India are no different from the rights and privileges of an ordinary citizen of India. If the media, with all its power and reach, can be treated with such disdain; if the media is not free to report what it sees and hears, unhindered; if the media is not free to seek accountability from the government of the day, how free is the ordinary citizen we serve? And how free is the democracy that hosts us all?

Mahatma Gandhi fired the imagination of people with his non-cooperation movement. In his Gujarat, the voice of dissent is dubbed anti-Gujarat. It is an insult to 50 million Gujaratis.

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Digant Oza (Editor – Jal Seva)
B-1, Neeldeep Apt., Opp. Sandesh Press, Laad Society Road, Vastrapur.
Ahmedabad-380015.