A plan Goebbels would be proud of

It is surprising that the Narendra Modi government feels it is facing an image crisis despite the sway it has on much of the mainstream media of all kinds and social media. A Group of Ministers (GoM), including the country’s law and foreign ministers and other senior members of the cabinet, has prepared a report which has made recommendations to ‘regulate’ digital news and social media so that the government has good control over the narratives about it.

The idea is not just to encourage positive reporting and commentary about the government but also to neutralise those critical of it. It has come to light that the GoM met six times on this vital issue of gaining control over the narrative in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis in June last year.

The GoM also held consultations with members of what has come to be known as “Godi media” – pro-government journalists, rather than watchdogs of democracy – on how to rein in journalists who are not in the government camp. The suggestions by ministers, officials and these ‘journalists’ leave no one in doubt as to the intent of the whole exercise.

One of them wants journalists to be colour-coded into pro-, anti-government and neutral journalists, and dealt with accordingly; a minister wants to track 50 ‘negative influencers’ on social media and go after them. While those who give a positive picture of the government will be engaged and encouraged, it can be assumed how the ‘negative’ ones may be dealt with. Even a name — Pokhran effect — has been given to the strategy to manage the media.

The report says that “spin doctors’’ who can “present the same fact with different narratives’’ should be identified and utilised. There is an elaborate plan of a carrot-and-stick policy, outreach to foreign media, and various other ideas. One could have dismissed the report as the mere fulminations of a paranoid government, but the fact that some of the plans have been made into rules and laws makes it dangerous.

The recent directive on permissions for webinars with foreign institutions, the new rules for social media and streaming services, etc., all arose out of what can only be called a Goebbelsian plan. It is unfortunate that a government that is stable and politically strong and enjoys the support of large sections of the media should think of further extending its control. Ideally, any government in a democratic system should think of encouraging and promoting criticism. A government becomes stronger by responding positively to criticism and correcting itself, and not by extinguishing criticism. Manipulating the media and creating one that suits it will not help the nation.