Last 10 years showed how easy it is to stifle, restrict media: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor

Jaipur: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday criticised the state of the media in the country and said that the last 10-11 years have shown how easy it is to stifle and manage the media.

"What worries me about media freedom, freedom of the press, and freedom of expression is that, unfortunately, the last 10-11 years have been an object lesson in how easy it is, if not to suppress entirely, certainly to stifle, restrict, manage it, and that cannot be good for any democracy,” Tharoor said during a session at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Tharoor, who was speaking at a session with journalist-author Vir Sanghvi, said that from 2011 to 2014, a "relentless stream of negative media coverage" brought the Congress party and UPA II low.

"It never occurred to anybody in the UPA government, least of all to a decent human being like Dr. Manmohan Singh, that the answer to this was to unleash the ED or start sending income tax officers to the offices of the owners of the papers that were being critical," Tharoor said.

He added that the party leadership only assumed that "the freedom of the press is axiomatic in a democracy." In the session, “Shashi Tharoor: Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani,” the Congress leader spoke on a wide range of topics, including his early days in politics, his writing and his presence on social media.

He said that, compared to the times when several Congress leaders resigned or were asked to resign due to media coverage, not a single leader in the current dispensation has resigned in the last 10 years.

"We saw media coverage as a reflection of perceptions of us that needed to be attended to. That, in many ways, is how a democracy should function. Has anybody ever resigned in the last 10-11 years in this government? No. Even when there was damning evidence made available by the opposition, including in Parliament," Tharoor said.

He added that the BJP knew "how to silence the media," and even if there were a clamour for someone to resign, it could be "switched off from the mainstream press within hours." "So we are in a situation where the mainstream media, which ought to be the fourth pillar of our democracy, the mirror of all our problems and concerns about society, the voice of the people, has very quickly demonstrated that it can be suborned, cajoled and persuaded, cudgeled, and browbeaten into submission," the 68-year-old said.

He also blamed the media for putting him and his family members through "hell and pain" after his wife Sunanda Pushkar died in January 2014.

"… instead of mourning with me or sharing my grief or leaving me alone, people maliciously decided that this was a great opportunity to invent falsehoods and apply them to me. My sense of bewilderment was that there seemed to be no standards, no yardstick to this," he said.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP recalled asking a senior media figure at the time why he was treated in a certain manner after Pushkar's death.

"And he said, 'Look, you are extremely good for our TRPs, and somehow the TRPs are even better when we attack you,'" Tharoor said.

This year, the Jaipur Literature Festival features a lineup of over 300 luminaries, including Nobel laureates, Booker Prize-winners, journalists, policymakers, and acclaimed writers. The participants include Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Amol Palekar, Ira Mukhoty, Geetanjali Shree, David Hare, Manav Kaul, Javed Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Yuvan Aves, Shahu Patole, and Kallol Bhattacharjee.