Crackdown on journalists: Will Modi continue it till 2024 polls?

It is interesting to imagine how a student of Indian history will look at the current regime. Several coinciding events will certainly shock them. Events such as the crackdown on the digital news platform Newsclick, the arrest of Aam Aadmi Party Leader Sanjay Singh and the hearing on the bail petition of former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia, Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate raids on the TMC minister in West Bengal, the DMK MP in Tamil Nadu, the BRS MLA in Telangana, and the District Cooperative Bank Chairman in Karnataka all point to the Modi government’s attempt to silence the voice of dissent. The move is well calculated and aimed at influencing assembly elections in 2023 and Lok Sabha elections in 2024. The correlation is utterly obvious. The crackdowns on opposition leaders and the section of media gained momentum as soon as Prime Minister Modi speeded up his election campaigns in States. We can see a pattern in it. The Prime Minister would address a rally in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, or Telangana to tell the audience that the opposition is corrupt and looters, and his agencies, including ED, IT, and CBI, would raid or nab a leader of the opposition block. How can these events be unrelated? Are they not leading in a single direction, coercing the opposition to stop standing against the government?

The raids on Newsclick are a blatant attack on press freedom. Is it a mere coincidence that all those who have been targeted are anti-establishment? All of them have been consistent in raising their voice against injustice and oppression. Invoking terror laws against them only shows that the government is not at all serious about containing terror. Instead, it aims at using these laws to silence dissent. It has exposed the fact that the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) could be used against anyone, whether it is a case of terror or not. The law has clearly been invoked to bypass the Delhi Court protection for the Newsclick founder against arrest in the money-laundering case he has been facing since 2021. The UAPA has overriding powers for searches and arrests. The Enforcement Directorate failed to imprison him. He has been nabbed by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. The intention is not to probe a terror link but to disrupt the network he has organized against the Modi government's authoritarian and communally biased rule. The staff of his company, along with its consultants and contributors, was interrogated for the whole day, and the office was sealed. A look at the content on Newsclick reveals its important role as a voice of dissent. Its journalists, including Urmilesh and Prananjoy Guha Thakurta, Abhisar Sharma, and Bhasha Singh have been effectively raising larger issues of secularism, freedom, and democracy. Thakurta has the distinction of exposing violations by the corporate sector. He has been unearthing the erosion of freedom of the press owing to the interventions by corporations. Newsclick has over 3 million subscribers. Videos of Sharma and Urnilesh are viewed by lakhs of people across the world. Moreover, all of them are known for their integrity and journalistic commitment and have careers spanning several years.

Though no specific reason for the arrests has been officially revealed, the police are said to have arrested the Newsclick founder on the basis of a New York Times report. The report states that NewsClik is part of a pro-China propaganda network in the USA. Though the report does not speak about any Chinese funding, the pro-government Indian media is propagating on behalf of the police that the news portal has received funds from China. In a typical media trial, the portal is accused of displaying maps that omit territories in Arunachal Pradesh and other border areas as Indian territories. The portal has denied these allegations. Many senior journalists who have gone through the portal's content have claimed that no content on the portal speaks for China. The video in the New York Times is on the importance of the Chinese Revolution led by Mao. The reference itself shows the anti-socialism bias of the US media. Everyone knows that, like the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution is an important part of world history and will remain so for all time to come. If the government agencies act on such reports that originated in the USA and Europe, the question remains: why do they not act on the reports against Adani groups, which contain documents of illegal financial transactions? This is also to keep in mind that there is nothing illegal about getting Chinese funds. We have huge trade links with China, and many of the Chinese companies are associated with vital industries. We have a huge trade deficit with China. If links with China are deemed terrorist activity, we must scrap all these links.

The observations of the Supreme Court during the hearing of the bail petition of Manish Sisodia also strengthen the allegations of arbitrariness on the part of the central agencies. The bench observed that there is hardly any evidence that Sisodia was involved in money laundering. This observation needs to be placed alongside the points raised by journalists who have protested under the banner of the Press Club of India in Delhi. The journalists have written to the Chief Justice of India for immediate intervention.

“However, intimidation by the media affects the democratic fabric of society. And subjecting journalists to a concentrated criminal process because the government disapproves of their coverage of national and international affairs is an attempt to chill the press by threat of reprisal—the very ingredient you identified as a threat to freedom,” says the letter.

“A wide immunity against coercion must be read into the constitutional provisions of free speech, and methods must be devised against police overreach,” it says.

Will the Modi government be restricted, or will the fight to save democracy continue?

(The author is a senior journalist. He has experience of working with leading newspapers and electronic media including Deccan Herald, Sunday Guardian, Navbharat Times and Dainik Bhaskar. He writes on politics, society, environment and economy)