From media monopoly to nationalist narrative: India’s information revolution

Nationalist media’s evolution, at the speed of revolution, has shaken up the Indian information landscape. A quarter of a century ago, we were subjected to the opinions of “liberal”, “secular”, “progressive” “intellectuals”. They crafted interpretations of news. They analysed events, and they even chose the facts which must be brought upfront. Leftist historians had already “educated” the Indian mind to be susceptible to lies and distortion of reality. On August 25, 2003, terrorist blasts at Gateway of India killed 54 innocent people, and injured 244. The most ‘liberal’, therefore the most respected, channel gave a surreal colour to the developing news. It declared that the stock market had bounced back.

Leftists infested this channel. They were the elite of the media. Naturally, aspiring young journalists looked up to them, and tried to emulate them. Success was succeeding like success. Each time, after a fresh extremist incident, the theme of this channel was that the share market has stabilized. In not-so-suppressed tones, the message was that those who had invested money in businesses had nothing to worry. They are not the victims.

The victim is the other (man in the street). This nonsense continued until the 26th of November, 2008.

This time, the terrorists crossed the road from Gateway of India, to Hotel Taj. Now it was not possible to convince the investor that he is still safe. The channel’s stock market absurdity stopped. The remaining media was not radically different. Newspapers, magazines and television channels were dominated by ‘secularists’. Their reportage may have been hurtful to the nationalists. But that lopsided reportage was rewarded by some top guns. Exactly 76 days after the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament, on February 27, 2002, ‘kar sevaks’ returning from Ayodhya were trapped in Sabarmati Express, which had been halted by chain-pulling just off the Godhra station in Gujarat. Doors were jammed and an extremely violent mob of stone pelters attacked the train from both sides. Inflammable liquid was poured into S-6 coach and the bogey was torched. There was no way to escape.

A total of 58 passengers were burnt alive inside the train, and one died on the way to the hospital. The dead included 27 women and 10 children. The incident happened around eight in the morning. Meaning, there was a full day, until late evening, to write an editorial.

One of the leading newspapers of India, whose name included a synonym of Bharat, wrote its editorial for the next morning. In that editorial, there was not a single word of condemnation for the obvious culprits, and not a single word of sympathy for the innocent victims. When the Ayodhya imbroglio was at its peak, the leading news magazine of the country did a cover story which offered a hundred “creative” solutions to the problem.

They ranged from building a hospital, a library, a playground to a toilet. The only option they did not include was building Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mandir at the spot. This magazine also contained a synonym of Bharat in its title. The same magazine later launched a leading television news channel. This channel invited terrorist Yasin Malik on its stage, and openly conferred upon him an award. Yasin Malik was portrayed as the “Youth Icon” of the country. This was exactly 256 days before the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. All this time, the audience, which is primarily nationalistic in spirit, was compelled to take it because puppets, who ruled the media, were controlled by a power centre which was anti-thetical to nationalism. The clear divide between the mainstream media of yesterday, and its metamorphosed version of today, is that the earlier version played down the word ‘jihad’. In its stead, it always held that a frank discussion on Islamic terrorism was a violation of ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’ (which had never existed in reality). Before the onset of nationalist media, the moment you raised the subject of a ‘jihadi’ attack, the ‘progressives’ warned you that you were threating the “unity and integrity” of the country. Translated into simple language, the refrain meant that the thought of self-defence was actually against the interest of our own country. Blow by blow, this diseased narrative has now been almost silenced by the nationalists.

The idea of threatening the unity and integrity of India was perverse, but the elite ‘secularists’ emphasised it with such conviction, and at such high decibels, that the fence sitters among the audience felt scared. Another partition meant another massacre, this time perhaps in crores.

The threat clearly meant that those who had dismembered the country earlier, will dismember it again, if we, even verbally, objected to ‘jihad’. The pre-nationalist media propounded yet another specious argument. Every time the vexatious issue of Kashmir cropped up, it was suggested that we should talk to “Kashmiris”. It was a clever twist. If talking to “Kashmiris” was ever necessary, it should have included talking to Kashmiri Hindus. But the leftists who dominated the pre-nationalist media, never, for a moment, suggested that we should talk to Kashmiri Hindus. For the ‘liberal’ media, talking to “Kashmiris” meant talking to Kashmiri Muslims only. The glib argument survived because it was not challenged. The momentum of the leftist-secularist media was so great that objections were suppressed in the noise.

Talking to Kashmiri Muslims alone was neither just, nor politically wise. Kashmiri Hindus were equal stakeholders in Kashmir. And, because they had been victimised, they should have been heard first. But, on the issue of secession, talking to Kashmiri Hindus would have got only one response: that Kashmir was, and is, an integral part of the country. This was not what the ‘liberal’ media was willing to hear. Hence, the cunning line: Let’s talk to Kashmiri (Muslims). The ‘progressive’ media began to shriek at Vivek Agnihotri for making ‘The Kashmir Files’. He was demonized as a propagandist. But that media had lost its relevance. It shut up when asked why it had conspired to remain silent on the genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.

The writer is a political analyst; Views presented are personal.