Indian media: how free is it really?
Journalists complain about a climate of jingoism, arm-twisting, high-level sackings, clampdowns and ideological trolling
From a high-profile public spat between two leading television journalists to a media clampdown in a troubled region and the sacking of a top editor known for his disdain for the ruling dispensation, one of Asia’s most vibrant media sectors is facing scrutiny over the degree of freedom it really enjoys.
“Bring them to trial! Shut them up!” India’s most-watched anchor Arnab Goswami, told his audience on a recent show. Goswami is the editor-in-chief of English-language news channel Times Now, modelled after Fox News, and is both widely watched and ridiculed for his outbursts on his nightly talk shows. Targets of his self-righteous rage range from politicians to diplomats, but this time he was training his gun on an unlikely species – fellow journalists.
Goswami’s ire was directed at a section of the media reporting both on the heavy state response to mass protests in India’s trouble-torn Jammu as well as the despair and agony of the local people caught in the crossfire between an unyielding state and alienated and angry youth. For Goswami, anybody siding with the protesters in Kashmir is “anti-national”. For decades, Kashmir has been in the throes of an insurgency, which India blames Pakistan for fanning.
“An unprecedented moment in India’s media history…a leading journalist has actually called upon the government to put other journalists on trial,” fired back Barkha Dutt, anchor of rival channel NDTV, in a blog post tearing into Goswami.
