Freedom in peril

Between the lines

The press has a duty to inform the public without fear or favour. At times, it is an unpleasant job, but it has to be performed.

How free is the media or, for that matter, how free is the right to express oneself? This is the question which has arisen in India after the three speeches, one by vice-president Hamid Ansari, another by prime minister Manmohan Singh and yet another by Justice Markandey Katju, chairman of Press Council. The right to say has assumed all the more importance after Salman Rushdie’s non-participation at the Jaipur literature festival because of threats. In Pune, screening of a documentary on Kashmir was stopped following protests by the students’ wing of the BJP.

Talking of the first two speeches, both the vice-president and the prime minister have asked the media to introspect their role because of sensationalism that has crept into their dissemination. There was not even a hint of direct or indirect control of the media in their speeches. However, Justice Katju has warned the media that some regulation may have to be imposed as self-regulation is no regulation. Since independence, New Delhi’s record has been clean except when censorship was imposed during the emergency (1975-77). Governments have followed prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who assured the All India Newspaper Editors’ Conference as far back as on December 3, 1950: “I would have a completely free press with all the dangers involved in the wrong use of that freedom than a suppressed or regulated press.”

Justice Katju appears to be on a different pitch. He should know that the Press Council was constituted to safeguard the press freedom. Unfortunately, his speeches reflect little understanding of the media’s nitty-gritty or its culture. To dub journalists illiterate within a day of heading the Press Council has only alienated him from them. Journalists do not qualify for the job with all the degrees if they do not write well, have no nose for news or lack analytical ability. S Mulgaonkar, one of the leading editors that India has produced, was not even a graduate.

My worry is that the media is becoming a part of the establishment. In a free society, the press has a duty to inform the public without fear or favour. At times it is an unpleasant job, but it has to be performed because a free society is founded on free information. If the press were to publish only government handouts or official statements, there would be no one to pinpoint lapses, deficiencies or mistakes. In fact, the truth is that the press is already too namby-pamby, too nice, altogether too refined and too ready to leave out. Still the greater danger is that the profession is becoming an industry and tending to project views of the corporate sector.

Lame explanation
Somehow those who occupy high positions labour under the belief that they—and they alone—know what the nation should be told and when. And they get annoyed if any news which they do not like appears in print. Their first attempt is to contradict it and dub it mischievous. Later, when it is realised that a mere denial will not convince even the most gullible, a lame explanation is offered that things have not been put “in proper perspective.”

I served the first Press Council. Every member felt that the Press Council should be without teeth. It was founded as a body of peers who should judge peers. Justice Katju’s argument that it should have powers to penalise defeats the very purpose of the Council. It is not a court. There are already enough of them and one can’t be created for the media alone. But the purpose of constituting the Council is to leave it to the Council members—editors, journalists and proprietors—to decide how to improve the erring publication. The slide began when the paper which the Council censured would not even publish the judgment against it. Even when the paper was told where it violated the ethics the paper concerned did not bother. I think it should be made obligatory for the papers to print the Council’s decision, however unfavourable.

As regards Salman Rushdie, he had to cancel his visit because of threat to his life. Probably, the government was equivocal in providing him security. But this is not the point. The democratic polity that India is guarantees the freedom of speech. Some fundamentalists, who had taken umbrage against his book, ‘The Satanic Verses,’ made the entire Muslim community a hostage. Liberal Muslims never speak out although they are vociferous in condemning Hindus on any act of omission or commission.

The Supreme Court has said: “The personal liberty of an individual is the most precious and prized right guaranteed under the constitution.” The Deoband seminary should realize if it has not so far, that in a secular society the constitution is above fatwa. M F Husain met more or less the same fate at the hands of Hindu fanatics. All such voices are marginal and do not represent the majority.

No doubt, the space for free expression is shrinking all over the world. Yet I always thought that India would be an oasis in the desert of suppression and restriction on free expression. The fanatics and a weak government have proved me wrong. In Rushdie’s case, the UP election aggravated the problem because the state has nearly 15 per cent of Muslim electorate while the screening of Kashmir documentary had to be cancelled to placate the Hindutva crowd.