India’s Public Broadcaster and the Aborted
Interview
Jawhar Sircar
(Hindi Version published in BBC Hindi on 19th Aug, 2017)
In the normal course, one would like to stay away from any
controversy surrounding an organisation that one has headed for over four and a
half years. But since the matter has a bearing on India’s democratic traditions
and its federal polity, I would need to clear the air. This relates to the
allegation that India’s public broadcaster has refused to broadcast the
Independence Day speech of the Chief Minister of Tripura. The question that
comes to our mind first is whether this action, as reported, falls within the
ambit of the public broadcaster. During my tenure, I do not recall any such
instance of questioning a Chief Minister’s speech and the deduction we arrive
at is that under earlier regimes such monitoring or attempt thereof was
possibly not there or not visible. It is not that earlier governments, that
included Atal Behari Vajpayee’s regime as well, were not politically alert or
hurt if a leader of an opposition party made strong remarks that criticised
them. It simply means that they were more tolerant or more conscious of the
fact that federalism demands that the heads of its constituent units or states
be given sufficient space. Moreover, democracy also enjoins that contrary
voices, however bitter, be heard. This incident appears, therefore, to be the
first such case, or at least the only one we have in recent memory.
When
Justice Sawant delivered the historic verdict of the Supreme Court’s bench in
1995 in the matter filed before it by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry,
the very words that used were that “it is imperative that
the parliament makes a law
placing the broadcasting
media in the
hands of a
public or statutory corporate …… whose constitution and composition must
be
such as to ensure its/their impartiality
in political, economic and social
matters and on all other public issues.” The Prasar Bharati Act was thus operationalised and now
this body has to ensure these mandates that have been spelt out so clearly. The
Tripura CM speech issue was thus a test case and it appears that the public
broadcaster was found wanting. The fact that it did broadcast the Chief
Minister’s Independence Day event does
not mean that it could refuse to carry out his address on the public radio and
television. The Supreme Court made it abundantly clear when it directed the
public broadcaster to “ensure pluralism and diversity of
opinions and views” and to “provide equal access to
all the citizens and groups to avail of
the medium.” In this background, there
can no operational procedure for dealing with a CM who may have used
strong words but the crux of what he stated appear factually correct. This
includes the rather sad fact that the organisation that spawned the ruling
party did not take part in India’s struggle for freedom. One may find words
like “conspiracies” that were used to be rather bitter, but the rest of CM’s
statement is largely true. He said that “attempts are underway to create an
undesirable complexity and divisions in our society; to invade our national
consciousness in the name of religion, caste and community”. Several recent
facts and events appear to lead to such a concussion.
There is
one example of similar circumstances that comes to mind. During the 2014 general
elections, DD had interviewed Mr Narendra
Modi, who was then the opposition candidate but this was not being telecast for
unknown reasons. The DG of DD’s News wing was mulling over certain words that
Mr Modi had used to describe Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s family but the moment it came
to Prasar Bharati’s attention, we directed DD to telecast it. DD did so but it
edited out some parts and immediately the BJP alleged that this was tantamount to censoring and
that this was done at the behest of the ministry. Again, when this fact came to
light, DD had to be given written instructions to telecast the complete
unedited interview which became quite controversial then. Even Mr Modi rued the
"decline" in journalistic freedom in the public broadcaster, which he
said invoked "horrific" memories of the Emergency."On days such
as this, I feel very sad to see our national TV channel struggling to maintain
its professional freedom,"Mr
Modi said on Twitter, while extending his wishes to journalists on the World
Press Freedom Day.
This was on the 3rd of May 2014 and the
wheel seems to have a complete circle.
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