Talking Point
By Sujata Madhok*
A strange video went viral on February 12, 2021 with one young man in a darkened studio with a menacing eye behind him making the melodramatic and absurd claim that his life would be in danger once the video went out. It looked and sounded like a b-grade home production by some kid. Until the names he rolled out as responsible were journalists Saket Gokhale, Barkha Dutt, Mohammed Zubair and Dhruv Rathee. A litany of online news sites were also blamed, Alt News, Wire, Quint, Newslaundry, Scroll, Caravan, NewsMinute, Outlook, India Spend and Pari. And the Congress Party. This was followed by the demand that they all be arrested and jailed.
This man, who runs an outfit called String, then tried to link the tweets of Greta Thunberg and Annalisa Merelli on the farmers’ struggle to these organisations. He lambasted the Digipub, a recently formed lobbying group of online media companies. He made direct threats to Zubair and Rathee and named half a dozen top journalists such as Dutt, demanding that their funding sources be investigated. He linked them to the Soros Foundation, the Open Society Foundation and the Poynter Institute. He also made some farfetched links to Rahul Gandhi and his Italian connections. He demanded that all the news outlets (that he claims belong to the Left ecosystem) be investigated by every single government agency, dubbed them traitors and openly asked that they be hanged to death.
Significantly, the video, which was available in English, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada, went viral. Many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bigwigs tweeted in its support, including Kapil Mishra, Tejinder Bagga and Nupur Sharma. After some half a million views YouTube took it down. However, it is still available on some platforms.
Is it mere coincidence that this clearly motivated video comes bang in the middle of an ongoing five-day raid by the Enforcement Directorate on the news site NewsClick? Is it a signal for more such raids to follow? A warning to the rest?
The farmers’ agitation has clearly rattled the BJP government. Despite their rhetoric all the king’s men (and women) in the godi media have been unable to stem the tide. The Ambanis, who own much of TV media today, are under public attack, so is Adani. Inconvenient news about the farmer agitation and the huge ongoing mahapanchayats is coming in through online media. Much of it is spreading through the mushrooming Punjabi channels but they are limited to Punjabi speaking audiences. Small Hindi online media outfits too are getting the news out through videos, interviews and debates.
However, the BJP seems to be more worried about the larger, dissenting independent online news media, perhaps because of their visibility to international audiences. They have been covering the farmers’ protests extensively. The BJP government views these sites through the anti-Left prism. The fact that some of the farmer unions, particularly those of Punjab, lean Left, adds to its
paranoia.
In a bid to curb farmer protest news, the government has demanded that Twitter take down a large number of accounts. Ironically, this has brought it into conflict with the very platform it has extensively utilised to spread its views. Twitter has been a boon for the BJP’s IT Cell and its campaigns propagated through trolls and bots. Twitter had initially taken down accounts but later restored many accounts and is currently refusing to bow down.
Similar battles may begin with other platforms like FaceBook, Instagram and YouTube, unless they quietly cave in. The fact that regulation of online media was recently transferred from the Telecom ministry to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is an indicator that the government may soon move to reign in the online platforms. A set of ‘Intermediary Guidelines’ for internet platforms is being drafted, alongside the Data Protection Bill which is with the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
All Indian citizens may soon see even greater curbs on their freedom of expression. As for the media, particularly the dissenting online media, it is now in the direct line of fire.
*The writer is a New Delhi-based senior journalist, feminist, social activist, trade unionist. The views expressed are personal.
