Tag: Press Council

Following HC Order, TN Govt to Form Controversial Press Council Soon

The press council will solve all the issues being faced by the journalist community, and steps are being taken to provide them houses, state information minister M.P. Saminathan said.

Coimbatore: The Tamil Nadu government will soon constitute the Press Council, as directed by the Madras high court, to weed out fake journalists, state information and publicity minister M.P. Saminathan said on Wednesday.

“The court had in August directed to constitute the Council headed by a retired judge within 90 days and the government is taking steps to form the same,” Saminathan told the reporters.

“The council will solve all the problems being faced by the journalist community,” he said, adding that steps were taken to provide houses to journalists through the housing board.

Also read: Madras HC Order on Forming Press Council May Have Unintended Consequences: Media Bodies

In an order dated August 19, the high court had ordered the formation of a Press Council of Tamil Nadu, which the state government was asked to form within three months. The proposed body would be headed by a retired Supreme Court or high court judge and would have experienced journalists, both working and retired, retired IAS and IPS officers as members.

The high court gave sweeping powers to the proposed body, including sole authority to recognise press clubs and journalists’ associations or unions in the state.

The Wire had reported how newspapers and journalists’ bodies have expressed concern that the order may have unintended consequences and could hamper press freedom and harm the rights of genuine journalists.

This separate body could end up eliminating bona fide journalists, newspapers had said.

(With PTI inputs)

Kashmiri Journalists Say Police Probes Have ‘Chilling Effect’ on Press

Recently, a questionnaire was sent to journalists seeking personal information such as their religious and political affiliations. Observers believe these probes are meant to tighten the curbs on press freedom.

Srinagar: Several Kashmir-based journalists have been subjected to probes by the Jammu and Kashmir police over the past couple of months; and while most have not been charged, the process has cast a chilling effect on the working of the media in the former state.

Activists and legal experts believe that these probes, in absence of any prima facie wrongdoing, are meant to curb press freedom, illustrating the growing constraints that journalists face in Kashmir since Article 370 was diluted by the Union government in August 2019.

Former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti recently flagged the issue in her letter to the Editors Guild of India, pointing to the “continued harassment” of journalists in Kashmir “who work under tremendous pressure & speak truth to power.”

“We have witnessed the manner in which fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Indian constitution have increasingly come under attack, especially in the last two years by a hostile and insecure dispensation,” she said in her letter.

“In addition to this harassment, [the] J&K [administration] also shot off a questionnaire to journalists here seeking personal & bizarre information such as their religious/ political affiliations & ties/ links with Pakistan,” the PDP chief said in a tweet.

The Wire tried reaching out to the director general of J&K Police Dilbag Singh and inspector general of police (Kashmir) Vijay Kumar, but they did not respond. This story will be updated if and when they respond.

The questionnaire 

The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) tweeted three images to substantiate the party chief’s allegations of shrinking press freedom in Kashmir. It included Mufti’s letter to the Editors Guild of India and the purported questionnaire, which she claimed was being served on journalists in Kashmir.

Apart from basic details like ‘name’ and ‘place of residence’, the questionnaire asks the recipients to disclose details of their property, political allegiances along with proof of allegiance, affiliation with religious groups as well as the details of their relations or acquaintances, if any, in Pakistan.

The Wire spoke with several journalists, some of whom revealed they were being questioned by the J&K Police’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for their work. They were asked to share in-depth details about their parents, spouses and even children who are minors.

Mohammad Raafi, a freelance writer, said the questioning has triggered a “sense of perpetual anxiety and fear” among Kashmiri journalists, “Earlier it (questioning journalists) was a routine, annual affair in which police would ask us for basic details about our organisation, etc. Now they are personalising it.”

Raafi, whose work on Kashmir appears on national and international news platforms, has been questioned twice in recent weeks by sleuths of the J&K police.

“For about two to three hours, they asked me some 30-35 questions. I did not want to answer some of their questions, but the situation was not favourable. I had no option but to respond,” he said.
“By personalising it and involving our families, they want to send a message that if they can come after me, they can come after my family as well. In absence of support structures, journalists have stopped chasing sensitive stories,” he added.

Some journalists who spoke with The Wire said they were also questioned about their religion and the Islamic sect they believe in.

“This is a diabolical method to perpetuate the communal mindset throughout the country in order to gain political mileage and relevance by demeaning and marginalising an entire community,” the PDP chief said in her letter, asking the guild to send a fact-finding team to Kashmir.

“I get calls (from police) very often, and that too at odd times of the day. I am worried about my mother now because she lives alone,” said a woman journalist based in Srinagar who got married recently.

Representative image. Photo: Pixabay.

Shrinking press freedom

Mufti’s letter comes days after four journalists – Showkat Motta, Shah Abbas, Hilal Mir and Azhar Qadri – were picked up from their Srinagar residences in early morning raids by the J&K police and questioned for their alleged role in the ‘Kashmir Fight’ blog case.

The police have seized the mobile phones of these journalists as well as those of their parents, spouses and even children, along with other digital devices like laptops and hard drives and some documents.

The J&K administration recently asked journalists in north Kashmir’s Kupwara and Bandipora districts to get themselves registered with it before they can be allowed to discharge their professional duties, a move which legal experts and free speech activists argue lacks statutory backing.

The administration has also threatened to stop journalists from reporting on Kashmir if their work is seen as a threat to “peace” and “public tranquility.” A Srinagar-based journalist was last month denied permission to visit a foreign country, citing security reasons.

“In addition to this, a sizeable number of journalists are either threatened or charged with sections under UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act] or sedition law, simply because their reportage on J&K does not cater to the PR stunts of the ruling dispensation,” Mehbooba alleged.

Aakash Hassan, another independent journalist who lives in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, said he has begun to self-censor to avoid getting into the crosshairs of security agencies.

“They (cops) had visited my home while I was in Turkey. After returning, I was asked intimate questions about myself and my family. These are intimidatory tactics to silence the free press in Kashmir,” he said

Taming the local press

A senior journalist, who didn’t want to be named, said the J&K administration, which is run directly by New Delhi since Article 370 was read down, has “succeeded in taming the local newspapers.” He alleged that the newspapers, which depend on government ads for revenue, have stopped carrying news stories and opinions which might be critical of the administration.

“The government’s information department arbitrarily chokes the revenue of newspapers that are seen to be carrying critical content, undermining the fourth pillar of democracy. In recent weeks, they have been verbally ordered to refrain from using the word ‘militant’ in their content and replace it with terrorist,” he said.

The police questioning has triggered a wave of anxiety among journalists in Kashmir, two of whom – Gowhar Geelani and Masrat Zahra, were booked by the J&K police under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) allegedly for their professional work in 2020.

“It is because of the ads distributed by the government that I am able to meet the monthly expenses which include salaries of staff and printing costs, otherwise I would have shut shop a long time ago,” said the owner of a local newspaper, who didn’t want to be named.

The questionnaire comes at a time when a Kashmir diaspora group in its latest report has accused social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram of silencing Kashmiri voices by frequently suspending accounts of artists, academics, and journalists based in and outside J&K.

“Corporations are siding with India’s suppression of Kashmiri digital rights, including the government’s blockade of internet and telecommunications access in the region, as well as its weaponisation of the law and policy to curb the expression of Kashmiri political aspirations in the digital space,” Stand With Kashmir said in its report.

Representative image. Photo: Karnika Kohli/The Wire

Lack of accountability

Earlier this year, India was placed by the global media watchdog Reporters Without Border (RSF) at the 142nd rank out of 180 countries in terms of media freedom which stated that press freedom has significantly shrunk in the country following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s re-election in 2019.

“India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly. They are exposed to every kind of attack, including police violence against reporters, ambushes by political activists, and reprisals instigated by criminal groups or corrupt local officials,” the RSF said in its latest report.

For the past two years, the UN special rapporteur for protection of the right to freedom of expression has written on at least three occasions to the Government of India over the reports of “arbitrary detentions and intimidation of journalists” in Kashmir.

In its latest communication to the Indian government on June 3 which was made public on August 25, the UN Rapporteur flagged the alleged incidents of harassment of Kashmir-based journalists Fahad Shah, Qazi Shibli, Sajad Gul and Auqib Javeed.

Geeta Seshu, a free speech activist, said the Union government led by the BJP has resorted to “several arbitrary moves” to curtail the freedom of speech and press in Kashmir after the dilution of Article 370.

“Intimidating journalists is a dark reminder of the abuse of official power. It is a move to choke the freedom of speech in Kashmir,” Geeta, who works with Free Speech Collective, a non-profit organisation defending the freedom of speech and expression in India, said.

“Journalists are meant to hold the system accountable but when the system turns against them and resorts to overt and covert means to threaten them, it will erode the system of accountability as well,” she added.

Madras HC Order on Forming Press Council May Have Unintended Consequences: Media Bodies

The court gave sweeping powers to the proposed Press Council of Tamil Nadu to tackle the problem of fake news and fake journalists.

New Delhi: Newspapers and journalists’ bodies have expressed concern that a sweeping order by the Madras high court to clamp down on the ‘fake journalists’ who participate in illegal practices like blackmailing may have unintended consequences and could hamper press freedom and harm the rights of genuine journalists.

In an order dated August 19, the high court had ordered the formation of a Press Council of Tamil Nadu, which the state government was asked to form within three months. The proposed body would be headed by a retired Supreme Court or high court judge and would have experienced journalists, both working and retired, retired IAS and IPS officers as members.

The high court gave sweeping powers to the proposed body, including sole authority to recognise press clubs and journalists’ associations or unions in the state. “The council shall conduct and approve elections to these clubs, unions and associations,” the court ordered, according to The Hindu.

Elections to each association should be held within a period stipulated by the press council, failing which any body will “automatically be brought under the administration of the council”. The government will henceforth not be allowed to allot houses or grant bus passes directly to journalists. These applications will be routed through the council, which after due diligence, can issue such benefits”.

“The PCTN shall have the power to identify fake journalists and lodge complaints against them to the jurisdictional police. Members of the public can send their complaints regarding fake journalists to the welfare board, which will inquire and initiate criminal action against such fake journalists, because they are a menace and a threat to the civil society,” the bench wrote, according to The Hindu.

Additionally, the state government was disallowed from issuing press stickers, identity cards or other benefits to media organisations until they disclose the number of employees, salaries paid to them, details of tax deducted at source and tax paid to the government.

“The State government/PCTN shall not issue press ID cards or stickers to print media, magazines or dailies, unless there is proof of circulation of at least 10,000 copies of their daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and the number of ID cards shall be increased or decreased proportionate to their circulation,” the judgment says.

The state government was asked to comply with the directions and file a report in four weeks, the court said.

Journalists, bodies express concern

While agreeing that the problem of journalists who engage in illegal and unethical practices is a real one, The Hindu in an editorial said that the court, by “creating a body and clothing it with powers and functions” has done something that is “normally done by law and after wider consultations”. The editorial said that while the order is well-intentioned, “it is quite surprising that such a far-reaching measure has sought to be created by judicial direction while disposing of public interest litigation somewhat unrelated to the case at hand”.

“A separate body created by executive order may act over-zealously and end up eliminating bona fide journalists,” The Hindu said, adding that the state government needs to “weigh its options carefully, including an appeal”.

Senior journalist A.S. Paneerselvam told The News Minute that it is concerning that the order “does not clearly define the terms ‘fake journalists,’ ‘agenda based news,’ etc and therefore complicates the process of filtering out fake news even more”.

He also appreciated the court’s intent but said the order “conflates external factors such as distribution of benefits to journalists and management of journalist bodies with core journalist concerns such as quality of journalism and its content”. He said it the purpose is to weed out fake journalism, then a “different approach should be followed and not by creating a larger and stringent regulatory framework for the media which focuses on the above-mentioned external factors”.

The Indian Journalists Union said in a statement that while it can understand the “anxiety of judges to curb the menace of fake news and fake journalists but the prescribed cure shouldn’t kill the patient”.

In Sum and Substance, New Digital Media Rules Establish a Confusing Playing Field

While nobody can doubt the need for accountability, the manner in which the rules were created raises legal questions while the overarching logic of the substance is confusing.

An over two-year-long process that was primarily meant to make the content moderation processes of Silicon Valley’s social media giants more responsible has cast a broad regulatory net over seemingly unrelated issues that have plagued the Narendra Modi government for the last six years.

Both digital media platforms and over-the-top (OTT) or streaming services are now subject to official government oversight through a self-regulation grievance redressal model that mixes and matches parts of actual laws that govern the Indian print and broadcast media.

The new ‘Digital Media Ethics’ code basically creates a three-tier system where any upset Indian citizen can complain about potential violations. The decisions on these reader or viewer complaints move up through the three-tier appeal system. The final word on the offending content, whether put out by a streaming service or a news website, is taken up by an inter-departmental government committee that will be in turn set up by the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry. This committee has a range of penalties at its disposal, the most lethal of which is the power to remove the content in certain number of limited circumstances pertaining to public order.

After the rules were announced earlier this week, they sparked sharp criticism from many constitutional experts.

“How can the press and entertainment forums be regulated by the same oversight mechanism which answers to the Executive? Where is their separation of powers… This is a conflation of all speech in the country. It is a violation of separation of powers as envisaged by the Constitution and it will impinge on any ability to express yourself artistically or hold the government to account as press. We have never seen this conflation in the history of India before,” lawyer Menaka Guruswamy said in a recent discussion.

Also Read: Explainer: How the New IT Rules Take Away Our Digital Rights

Flaws in creation

Experts have questioned both the manner in which the rules have been framed and their substance. For the former, the new system has been created through a process that has been criticised on two counts.

Firstly, the new regulatory diktat does not come through a law passed by parliament – which has been the case with the print media (Press Council Act) or broadcast media (Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995) – but instead has come about by expanding the intermediary guidelines of the IT Act 2000, a move that most experts believe wrongly expands the ambit of the Act beyond its original intentions.

“The purview of the Information Technology Act, 2000 does not extend to news media, and so the guidelines do not have the legislative backing to regulate news media…This makes these guidelines a camouflaged way to indirectly regulate online news media by bringing these platforms under the aegis of the Information Technology Act, 2000 instead of following the due process of parliamentary scrutiny and subsequent legislation,” Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based think-tank for digital rights, said recently.

Secondly, the ethics code has been passed and effectively given the force of law without hearing or holding any consultation with actual stakeholders within the Indian digital media ecosystem.

At a press conference earlier this week, I&B minister Prakash Javadekar professed ignorance and cited a lack of information about digital media players when asked why there was no industry consultation, a process that is universally recognised as the hallmark of good governance and democratic policy-making.

Union minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar. Photo: PTI/Subhav Shukla

In an interview with the Indian Express, I&B secretary Amit Khare defended this lack of consultation, saying there is little need for one since Indian news websites are simply expected to follow the code of ethics that their print and TV counterparts are already doing.

“We don’t think anyone will object to that. There is no new obligation on them,” Khare told the newspaper.

Indeed, one of the Modi government’s primary defences with regard to the new rules for OTT and digital media platforms has been how it provides a “level playing field” for all types of media stakeholders. This logic was trotted out last year as well, when the Centre introduced a 26% FDI cap for digital media, a confusing policy move that opened its own can of worms and prompted at least one prominent digital media publication to shut down its Indian bureau.

That said, it is important to look at two claims here, both of which are connected. Firstly, does the Digital Media Ethics code provide a level-playing field for print, broadcast and digital players? And secondly, is there no “new obligation” for OTT and digital players as a result?

Also Read: ‘New IT Rules Against Fundamental Principle of News’: Digipub Writes to Prakash Javadekar

Representation?

Media reports indicate that OTT and streaming services have already raised concerns over the most obvious question – why is there no explicit role for industry players in the second tier of the new grievance redressal system?

According to the new rules, if a reader or viewer is not satisfied with the way a digital media publisher or streaming platform has dealt with her grievances, they are allowed to escalate it to a “self-regulatory” body – an independent entity constituted by publishers or their associations.

This body, according to the new guidelines, needs to be headed by a retired judge (of either the Supreme Court or a high court) or an “independent eminent person from the field of media, broadcasting, entertainment, child rights, human rights or such other relevant field”. This entity will also have not more than six other members who can be “experts from the field of media, broadcasting, entertainment, child rights, human rights and such other relevant fields”.

In other words, the tier-2 ‘self-regulatory’ system has no fixed representation for publishers or streaming platforms themselves!

This is not the case with how India’s print news or broadcast industries carry out self-regulation. For instance, the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation is headed by a retired judge and has non-broadcast stakeholders, but also has a specific amount of broadcaster members.

The Press Council of India, which regulates newspapers, has MPs from the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha as its members, but 13 of the total 28 members are working journalists (editors and non-editors).

The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), under the News Broadcasters Association, does the same for news channels. The composition of NBSA includes an eminent jurist as the chairperson, four eminent persons having special knowledge and/or practical experience in the various fields, but also has four eminent editors employed with broadcasters.

One prominent OTT player, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Wire that the current rules looked like a “government attempt to regulate self-regulation”.

Netflix

Netflix. Photo: Thibault Penin on Unsplash

Government oversight?

The more you consider the government’s defence of a level-playing field, the more contradictions appear.

For instance, the Press Council Act, 1978 allows no scope for the government to directly ask an Indian newspaper to take down or remove content. But for digital media publishers, a government panel can now directly censure a website or decide to remove content to prevent a “cognisable offence relating to public order”.

Also Read: New IT Rules: The Great Stretching of ‘Due Diligence’ Requirements Under Section 79

Initial apprehensions raised over the emergency blocking powers given to the I&B ministry as part of the Digital Media Ethics Code prompted a response by the Centre yesterday, which defensively stated that this was not a “new provision”.

“For the past eleven years, since 2009, this provision has been exercised by the Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009,” a government release noted.

“Under the rules issued on 25th February, 2021, this provision has only been replaced with Secretary, Ministry of I&B because Part III of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 would be administered by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.”

This may be true, but is also an obfuscation, because there has been so far no publicly documented instance of Section 69A of the IT Act being used to remove a news article or media report. The new rules specifically pave the way for restrictions to be placed on the media if needed.

“Clarification is an eyewash. Power under 69 A has been amplified and diversified, besides enabling pervasive control of the state, triggered upon the slightest complaint or even without any complaint,” a senior legal expert told The Wire.

In other words, news websites and streaming services are now subject to broad censorship powers of the kind that the I&B ministry wields over TV channels for violating the programme code of the Cable TV Act. Therefore, when it comes to government oversight, digital media and OTT players are being treated similar to TV channels and not newspapers.

TV control room

Representative image of a TV control room Photo: Reuters

This would be fine if it didn’t raise yet another contradiction. When it comes to the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) that the Centre is comfortable in allowing, digital media players are clubbed in with newspapers in having a 26% cap. Broadcasters are allowed to function with a more roomy 49% ceiling.

But when it comes to censorship, digital media players are treated more like TV channels. How does one reconcile with the government’s stated intention to bring in a level-playing field? And how can this be justified, especially when there has been a lack of consultation with digital media stakeholders?

Both the FDI and new content regulatory rules raise a final question – does this country benefit from fewer news outlets that specifically serve Indian users? The idea that limits on foreign investment or government oversight for offensive content can work to create an accountable and conducive news media environment may seem attractive and even useful in an age of misinformation and fake news. But if the balance is tipped too far in favour of government control, as it is now, it can be short-sighted and cancerous for the free flow of information in a democracy.

India’s Free Press Is Still Tormented by the Laws Brought by the Emergency

The various illegal and legal but illegitimate means used by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975-76 could still be used to suppress the rights of the media today.

It’s been 45 years since the nation was led into darkness – the emergency was proclaimed on June 25, 1975 – which makes this an occasion to recall the events of that time.

Events in history ought to be recalled not merely to lament over memories, particularly those that are unsettling, but as lessons to learn from. And among the lessons from the emergency, the most appropriate today is that of the press – what happened to this instrument for democracy. It is appropriate to recall some of the legal (but illegitimate) measures as much as the illegal ways that the emergency regime used to emaciate this important instrument of democracy in the short history of our republic.

The legal (but illegitimate) measures then were by way of legislation duly passed in parliament. These happened only in February 1976, more than six months after the proclamation of emergency. A set of three laws were passed on February 11, 1976. These were: The Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matter Act, 1976; the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Repeal Act, 1976; and the Press Council (Repeal) Act, 1976.

These legislations had only replaced ordinances to this effect promulgated on December 8, 1975, and in that sense were ‘legal,’ though illegitimate. In other words, these laws denying the press of the freedom guaranteed by the constitution were made following the procedure established by law, notwithstanding the fact that their consequences militated against the due process of law.

All these laws were rendered redundant just after a year and few months of their existence by the Janata party regime. The Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matter Act, 1976, was repealed by parliament on April 18, 1977. Parliament also repealed the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Repeal Act, 1976, and restored the Act of 1956 (also known The Feroze Gandhi Act), that guaranteed the right of the press to report all that was said on the floor of the house without fear of charges of defamation, on the same day. The Press Council, which had come into existence in 1965 with a life of 10 years via a law enacted by parliament and had been allowed to lapse in on December 31, 1975, was revived by the Janata party government on September 7, 1978. All these legislations to restore rights to the press were set in motion by the then minister for information and broadcasting, L.K. Advani.

Also read: As the First Year of Modi 2.0 Ends, It’s Clear that Democracy Has Been Quarantined

However the attack on press freedom by measures that a section of the higher judiciary declared illegal was more debilitating. In other words, the emergency regime’s moves and measures from the evening on June 25, 1977, when it was declared, until the set of ordinances promulgated on December 8, 1975, and turned into Acts on February 11, 1976, warrant recall today, 45 years after it happened, because it has lessons for the press to learn from.

Cutting off the light of freedom

The earliest of the illegal acts was resorted to by the emergency regime a couple of hours before the then president of India, Fakhrudin Ali Ahmed, signed the proclamation after 10:30 pm on June 25, 1975. This act was recorded by the Justice Shah Commission of Inquiry as follows:

“The Government disconnected electricity to the newspaper offices on the night of June 25, 1975, when Emergency was imposed. Shri B.N. Mehrotra, who was the then General Manager of Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking was given oral orders on the night of June 25, 1975, by the Lt. Governor of Delhi, Shri Krishan Chand, that electric supply to the newspaper offices in the city should be disconnected… According to Shri Kishan Chand, the then Lt. Governor of Delhi, the instructions for disconnecting power supply came during one of a series of meetings at the Prime Minister’s House on June 25, 1975, but he was unable to recollect as to who gave the specific orders.”

Thus the regime could prevent the printing of the June 26 edition of many of the Delhi-based newspapers which would have contained the news of the emergency and the arrest of almost all the leaders of political parties who had held a rally on the evening of June 25 at the Ram Lila maidan and resolved to protest against the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, whose election to the Lok Sabha in 1971 had been declared void.

Front page of Indian Herald announcing the imposition of the Emergency on June 26, 1975.

Front page of Indian Herald announcing the imposition of the Emergency on June 26, 1975.

As B.G. Verghese, then editor of the Hindustan Times, put it, ‘idiocy often triumphs’ and so it did that evening. The Hindustan Times and The Statesman did not suffer the power outage that evening and Verghese managed to re-open the front page of the Hindustan Times well past 2:30 am and print a special supplement of the June 26 issue. The editorial column of the day’s newspaper was left blank.

His efforts did not yield much. Only a few hundred copies were printed ‘before the rotary ground to a halt.’ The regime had swung into action and ensured that the newspaper’s proprietor – K.K. Birla – achieved whatever they had failed to accomplish by leaving the New Delhi Municipal Corporation area out of the power outage order the previous night! Verghese ended up losing his job and Birla appointed Khushwant Singh, whose admiration for Sanjay Gandhi was unqualified, as editor of the newspaper in September 1975.

Also read: When a Government Is Hostile to the Press

The brazen act of a power outage to prevent newspapers being printed was perhaps to buy time. The regime began working in real earnest to devise ‘legal’ means to constrain the press and this was taken up at the highest levels. The decision to impose pre-censorship on the press was taken in principle, based on a recommendation to that effect by the Ministry of Home Affairs, at the cabinet meeting at 8:30 pm on June 26, 1975.

The search for a law to do this was not too difficult. The Defence of India Rules, 1971, drawn out of the Defence of India Act, 1971, passed in the wake of India’s war against Pakistan in December that year and the external emergency promulgated then, was invoked. In a couple of days, it was dressed up adequately to become the Defence of Internal Security of India Rules (DISIR) promulgated by an ordinance on June 30, 1975.

The Hindu’s front page on the declaration of emergency. Photo: polemicsnpedantics.com

The censor’s red pen

Censorship guidelines, first issued on June 26, were amended many times. The last of them were issued on August 12, 1975. All of them had been drawn out of the DISIR. These were declared illegal by the Bombay high court, first by a single judge, R.P. Bhatt, on November 25, 1975, then upheld with little modification by a division bench of Justices D.P. Madon and M.H. Kania on February 10, 1976.

The litigant, in this case, was acerbic leader Minoo R. Masani in his capacity as editor of Freedom First, a magazine from Bombay (Binod Rao versus Minocher Rustom Masani, [1976] 78 BOMLR 125). The law as held by the Bombay high court in this case was also relied upon by the Gujarat high court in April 1976 to declare illegal the seizure of copies of Bhoomiputra and the forfeit of the printing press where its October 26, 1975, issue (reporting a fiery speech by Justice M.C. Chagla against the emergency) was printed.

The point to stress here, when we recall the experience of the emergency 45 years after the event, is that the illegality of the pre-censorship rules were challenged by only two publications, Freedom First and Bhoomiputra, both of which can be classified as non-mainstream publications. Those established mainstream newspapers that had established themselves by then as business models and whose proprietors had found advertisements as a source to make up for a drop in revenue from the cover price ended up submitting to the guidelines; some did that while murmuring against them (Indian Express and The Statesman) while the rest made hay crawling before the regime. As for the censorship that went on, the Shah Commission held:

“The capriciousness of the Censor authorities and their arbitrariness has been commented upon by a number of Editors.  Shri Cho Ramaswamy, Editor, ‘Tughlak’, gave a number of examples of how jokes, cartoons and satirical articles in his magazine were all subjected to censorship without their being even remotely concerned with the Defence of Internal Security of India Rules and Statutory Orders made thereunder. Thus even birthday greetings to Shri Morarji Desai on the latter’s birthday which was sought to be published in the ‘Tughlak’ was completely censored. Even quotations made by Smt. Indira Gandhi were taken objection to by the Censor. Shri Ramaswamy disclosed how he was asked to submit articles and sometimes whole issues of his magazine for pre-censorship because the issue of ‘Tughlak’ dated July 15, 1976 carried (i) editorial excerpts from Nehru (ii) letters from readers (iii) quotations from speeches of Indira Gandhi (iv) quotations from Hitler (v) quotations from Mussolini (vi) passages from stage play ‘Tughlak’, all of which were held objectionable by the Censors.” (Emphasis added)

Also read: The Toughest Enemy of Press Freedom Is the One Within

The blackmail of business

Censorship was not the only means adopted by the emergency regime and the more effective curb on press freedom was by resort to yet another brazen means: to starve of advertisements those newspapers that refused to fall in line.

Indira Gandhi. Photo: PTI

A decision to review its advertisement policy was taken at a high-level meeting held in the room of Indira Gandhi on July 26, 1975, which was also attended by V.C. Shukla, then minister for information and broadcasting (since he replaced I.K. Gujral on June 26).

Shukla, at a coordination committee meeting held on June 29, 1975, had asked the principal information officer (PIO) to prepare a list of newspapers which were to be categorised as friendly, neutral and hostile. A.R. Baji, then the PIO, made a list where “the categorisation originally was done on the basis of the news and comments appearing in newspapers prior to the declaration of emergency and soon after it.” The draft list was further fine tuned with the direct involvement of Shukla. The process of fine tuning, according to Baji, involved “a narrower study” into “the views reflected in the editorial columns of newspapers between June 12 and June 26, 1975.”

The chart said everything:

A (Friendly) B (Hostile) C (Neutral)
A ‘+’ (Positively friendly) B ‘+’ (Continuously Hostile) C ‘+’ (Shift from neutral position towards positive side)
A ‘-’ (Friendly but with some reservations) B ‘-’ (Less Hostile than Before) C ‘-’ (Shift from Neutral position towards hostile attitude)

The Indian Express was placed in the ‘continuously hostile’ category while The Statesman was placed under the ‘B’ category, otherwise hostile. Meanwhile, the Times of India, Hindustan Times (and its Hindi newspaper, Hindustan), Amrita Bazar Patrika and The Hindu were all placed under the A plus category, meaning positively friendly. The classification was not merely an innocent act but meant to prop up the financial condition of those newspapers considered friendly and deny the same to those who were declared ‘hostile.’

In the Shah Commission’s words:

“The Government during this period utilised its advertising policy as a source of financial assistance or denial of financial assistance in newspapers, etc., in complete variance with the policy which it had enunciated on the Floor of the Parliament. Newspapers and journals which were critical of the Government’s policies were denied advertisements whereas others like Amrita Bazar Patrika and National Herald which were regarded as being supporters of Government policies were given advertisements beyond their legitimate due.”

Government advertisements are an important component of newspaper revenue. When the Press Commission examined newspaper revenues in 1954, government advertisements accounted for a mere 7% of the total revenue earned by all the newspapers. But the proportion of newspaper revenue from government advertisements tends to vary according to the state of the economy at the moment.

People watch PM Narendra Modi addressing the nation amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease, March 19, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Amit Dave

In the economic boom of the 1990s, government advertisements were outpaced by advertisements from the private sector. As the economy has slowed in recent years and newspapers and media outfits have taken desperate measures to cut costs by closing down operations and sending journalists and non-journalists home, the need for revenue from government advertising has grown again.

Also read: When India’s Newspaper Economics is Already Broken, Why Blame Modi’s Newsprint Tax?

Now that the media is forced to depend on the government as a source of advertisement revenue, it is appropriate to recall the brazen means that the emergency regime adopted to get the newspapers to fall in line. With revenues falling, the newspapers at the time were vulnerable and turned malleable and ductile before the whims of the emergency regime.

Schooling the media

If one of the tasks of history is to learn from the experience of another time, it follows that historical events must be viewed with the concerns of the present (as Beniditto Croce said, ‘All history is contemporary history’ and R.G. Collingwood elaborates on this in propounding the idea of history). It makes sense for us in the times we live in to examine the turn that the media has taken, led by a section of media proprietors since the 1990s, which made the media as much a business proposition as the manufacture of commodities like soap and shampoo. This change in focus must be revisited and critiqued. The press and the media ought to be seen as an instrument of democracy. Allowing the institution to turn into an industry, as the experience of the press during the emergency teaches us, is fraught with the danger of weakening democracy as much as it causes its own destruction.

It was thus that the press was rendered un-free during the emergency, by resort to legal but illegitimate and brazenly illegal acts by the government. Those proprietors who decided to not fall in line (by itself an act of resistance) paid a price, witnessing their business model being wrecked. The darkness, however, did not last long. It ended with the Congress party being voted out of power in March 1977. The Janata government, without losing time, repealed all the laws that the emergency regime enacted in February 1976.

But the fact remains that the media remains vulnerable to such pressures as those exerted during the emergency, as much today as then. An important lesson that the emergency teaches, 45 years after the event, is that the media ought to remain an institution; an instrument of democracy. Not an enterprise or a big business opportunity.

V. Krishna Ananth is a professor of history at Sikkim University and the author of India Since Independence: Making Sense of Indian Politics. This essay is based on research for an upcoming book on media and the right to freedom. 

‘Media Is in Deep Crisis’: PCI Member B.R. Gupta Resigns

“The motto for which the council was created was not being fulfilled and I felt I was not doing anything remarkable for the freedom of media,” Gupta said.

New Delhi: Press Council of India (PCI) member B.R. Gupta has resigned from his post, saying he was unable to work individually or collectively for the media, which is in a “deep crisis”.

“I have tendered my resignation as a Press Council of India member,” Gupta told PTI.

He said PCI had the responsibility to encourage media and media professionals constantly.

“But everyone realises now that the media scenario is in a deep crisis. The motto for which the council was created was not being fulfilled and I felt I was not doing anything remarkable for the freedom of media,” Gupta said.

He claimed that PCI was not a wholly representative body for the media.

“Then how can we come out of the crisis being faced by the media and mediapersons? It is a big challenge for us. I have quit as I have not been able to work individually or collectively being a PCI member,” Gupta added.

Also read: Is the Press Council Being Selective in Upholding Media Freedom?

Referring to salary cuts and job losses, he said media and mediapersons were struggling for social, political and economic justice.

When contacted, PCI chairman Justice C.K. Prasad said Gupta’s resignation has not been accepted yet.

“I have received it (the resignation). I have not gone through it. It has not been accepted. There is a process for it. I will talk to him tomorrow,” Prasad told PTI.

Gupta was appointed as a PCI member for a three-year term on May 30, 2018.

He said liberty is one of the basic features of the preamble to the constitution that continues to inspire people and the media.

“It is difficult (for me) to fulfil the unbiased role and responsibility to help citizens and the media for making democracy stronger,” Gupta said.

Press Club of India Slams Police Action Against Gujarati Editor, FIRs Against Himachal Scribes

The PCI noted that the “string of seemingly malafide actions” against journalists had taken place in BJP-run states and Centre-controlled Union Territories.

New Delhi: The Press Club of India on Friday condemned the slapping of sedition charges on an editor of a Gujarati news portal and the reported filing of 10 FIRs against six journalists in Himachal Pradesh, saying such actions are a “blot on our democratic aspirations”.

In a statement, the Press Club of India (PCI) said going on the basis of a “string of seemingly malafide actions” against journalists by BJP-run states and the Centre-controlled Union Territories, it calls on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda to step in to bring “sanity to the proceedings”.

“The latest media victims of deplorable police actions evidently in cahoots with the ruling party- emerge from Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh,” the PCI said.

In Gujarat, a senior and well-known journalist who heads a news portal has had an FIR registered against him on grounds of sedition and under the Disaster Management Act, the statement noted.

His alleged fault was to publish a news story hinting that the top leadership in New Delhi was contemplating change of chief minister in Gujarat as the incumbent has failed to offer guidance in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, it said.

“It is clear that an example has been sought to be made of this editor. Other newspapers in Ahmedabad which followed up on the same important news have so far not been threatened,” the PCI said.

It is strange that in this case, policemen should arrogate to themselves the right and the authority to be arbiters of the validity of political news and developments, it said, adding that this is how “police states operate”.

Referring to the second incident of press freedom infringement, the PCI said in Himachal Pradesh, six journalists from various districts of the state have reportedly had as many as ten FIRs registered against them.

“The reason for this unwanted police attention is that the journalists in question have reported on the plight of migrant workers and on the shortcomings of the state authorities in dealing with relief in the fight against COVID-19,” it said.

These are legitimate areas of enquiry for journalists and examples of high-handed and irregular behaviour by those in authority, the PCI said.

“Before these cases in Gujarat and HP, the administration and police in Uttar Pradesh, J&K and Delhi had already presented shocking examples of suppression of the media so that their questionable actions do not get to be known to the wider world,” it said.

“We condemn such actions. They are a blot on our democratic aspirations,” the statement said.

Is the Press Council Being Selective in Upholding Media Freedom? 

While the body intervened to seek a report on the alleged attack on Arnab Goswami, this swiftness has been missing in other cases of attack on journalists and gross violations of journalistic conduct.

Taking suo motu cognisance of the alleged attack on TV anchor Arnab Goswami, the Press Council of India (PCI) on Thursday asked the Maharashtra government, through the chief secretary and the Mumbai police commissioner, to submit a report on the facts related to the case at the earliest.

“The council condemns this attack and expects from the state government that it will apprehend the perpetrators of crime and bring them to justice immediately,” stated the press statement released by the council. “Violence is not the answer even against bad journalism,” it added. The PCI also noted, “Every citizen in the country, including a journalist, has the right to express their opinion which may not be palatable to many but this does not give anybody the authority to strangulate such a voice.”

According to the FIR filed by Goswami, soon after he was attacked, the two bike-borne men were overpowered by his security team – he has ‘Y Category’ police protection – who were following him in a separate vehicle, and later arrested for the alleged assault. He also claimed that the men told his security guards that they belonged to the Youth Congress and that the attack was being done on the “orders of the higher ups”.

On the face of it, there is nothing out of place when the PCI expresses concern about the rights of a journalist or asking the state government to submit a report. After all, the PCI was established “for the purpose of preserving the freedom of the Press and of maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and news agencies in India.” However, what is important to underline here is that, as far as the mandate of the council is concerned, as per the Press Council Act, 1978, it is only bound to perform its duties in connection with newspapers and news agencies.

Also Read: SC Allows Hate Speech Probe Against Arnab Goswami to Proceed, Stays Multiple FIRs

Hence, the obvious question is, if the PCI is not the body to intervene in this matter, why did it choose to do so? This question assumes importance because generally, the council does not act in matters like these, especially if it has something to do with TV (electronic) media. In recent months and years, several journalists have been attacked, intimidated and targeted by the state as well as non-state actors. But one hardly recalls the council intervening in these matters as swiftly as in the case of Goswami. In fact, the PCI has rarely acted in matters like these.

It can be noted that only recently, the PCI clarified, “Electronic media, TV news channels, social media i.e. Whatsapp/ twitter/Facebook do not come under the jurisdiction of the Press Council of India.” It can be underlined that the clarification was issued by the council just a day after a bench of the Supreme Court declined to pass any interim order on the plea of a Muslim organisation seeking to restrain a section of media from allegedly spreading bigotry and communal hatred by linking the spread of the coronavirus to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting. Observing, “We will not gag the press,” the apex court asked the petitioner to approach the PCI in this matter, stating, “Implead them and thereafter we will hear this.”

Representative image. Credit: Karnika Kohli/The Wire

The council was well within its rights to issue the clarification and there was nothing technically wrong in it. However, its latest intervention smacks of double standard and indicates that in practice, the council is less concerned about its jurisdiction and procedures stated in the Press Council Act, and maybe more driven by its personal preferences.

Remarkably, the last we heard of the council taking suo moto cognizance of a matter was against English daily The Telegraph, a newspaper which is known for its anti-establishment stance. Last month, the council issued a notice to the newspaper for its front-page headline which read “Kovind, not Covid, did it”, about former CJI Ranjan Gogoi being nominated to the Rajya Sabha. According to the council, such headlines “violated norms of journalistic conduct.”

In the case of several other newspapers which have “violated norms of journalistic conduct” by spreading fake news or misinformation, the council has hardly bothered to intervene. In the past few weeks, there has been a spike in fake news, misinformation and propaganda against the Tablighi Jamaat event and Muslims in general in relation with COVID-19. This misinformation has not just been on TV channels and social media but also in newspapers. For example, on April 5, Amar Ujala,  a widely circulated Hindi daily, on its front page published a story claiming in Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) “members of the Tablighi Jamaat demanded non-vegetarian food and defecated in the open inside a quarantine facility.” The local police refuted this claim. Similarly, in Meerut, a communally-charged advertisement was published in Dainik Jagran. In other languages too, the content published by newspapers “violated norms of journalistic conduct” regularly. It is interesting to note that the PCI would not bother to take cognizance of those issues.

Also Read: Coimbatore: Founder of News Portal Arrested for Reporting on Government’s Handling of COVID-19

The PCI has also remained silent over the issue of police filing FIRs against three journalists in Kashmir and invoking charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). One of the journalists is a reporter for The Hindu, which falls under the direct jurisdiction of the council.

This even though, as per the council’s admission, section 14 of the Press Council Act, 1978, empowers it “to warn, admonish or censure the newspaper, the news agency, the editor or the journalist concerned or disapprove the conduct of the editor or the journalist if it finds that a newspaper or a news agency has offended against the standards of journalistic ethics or public taste or that an editor or a working journalist has committed any professional misconduct, on the receipt of complaint or otherwise.”

In this context, it appears that the council is being selective in upholding rights of the journalists and ensuring that the norms of journalistic conduct are not flouted, which is not just unfair but akin to defeating the very purpose for which PCI was established. The council needs to act as swiftly as it did in the matter of Goswami, at least to set the record straight. After all, as an old legal maxim goes, “not only must justice be done, it must also be seen to be done.”

Press Council of India Serves Notice to Ashok Gehlot Over ‘Want Ads, Show News’ Remark

The PCI have alleged that Gehlot said, “Vigyapan chahte ho toh khabar dikhao.”

Jaipur: The Rajasthan government led by chief minister Ashok Gehlot has been served a notice by the Press Council of India (PCI) over his alleged remark on government advertisements published in the newspapers at a press conference in December 16 last year.

The PCI have alleged that Gehlot said, “Vigyapan chahte ho toh khabar dikhao.”

This translates to, ”If you [media] want [government] advertisements, then show [positive] news [of the government]).”

The PCI said Gehlot’s remark is “contrary to the values of democracy and affects the reliability and freedom of the media” and it “expresses concern over the alleged statement made at a public platform which undermines the freedom of the press.”

The notice, issued by PCI secretary Anupama Bhatnagar to the chief secretary of Rajasthan, on January 13 this year, has given two weeks time to the state government to reply.

Commenting on the matter, Bharatiya Janta Party state president Satish Poonia said, “Gehlot is the first chief minister of the state who has been asked for clarification over a statement by the PCI. Hence it seems that press freedom is under threat. The statement by Gehlot, who says he belongs to Gandhian ideology, is disappointing.”

Also read: Rebellion Brews in Press Council Ranks Over Delays in Sending Fact-Finding Team to Kashmir

However, state officials claim that the remark was taken out of context. “He simply meant that the media should publicise public welfare schemes. There was no threat,” an official told The Indian Express.

The Press Council of India, under the chairmanship of Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad had come in the face of criticism after it sought permission, in August 2019, to intervene in a petition filed by Kashmir Times executive editor Anuradha Bhasin which demanded an end to communications restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Council then went on to describe the ban on communication and free movement, which many local journalists say has severely affected the functioning of the press in J&K, as being “in the interest of the integrity and sovereignty of the nation”.

Faced with immense criticism, the Council then did a volte face and said it was against the internet restrictions.

Press Council Chairman Defends Unilateral Intervention to Back Media Restriction

In a note for the extraordinary meeting called on Tuesday, Justice C.K. Prasad seems to justify his move citing rules and precedence.

New Delhi: After severe criticism from journalists for intervening in the petition filed by Kashmir Times executive editor Anuradha Bhasin in the Supreme Court, the Press Council of India (PCI) has called an ‘extraordinary meeting’ of the council on Tuesday to discuss the issue. The PCI had cited national interest and sovereignty to back restrictions on communications in J&K after special provisions of Article 370 were read down and the state was bifurcated into two Union Territories.

Jaishankar Gupta and C.K. Nayak, two current members of the PCI, had issued a statement taking a serious view of the “unilateral action” taken by the PCI chairman Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad. They also expressed surprise that the full council was not taken into confidence in such a grave matter.

In the meeting note for Tuesday, the chairman seems to justify his unilateral move citing rules and precedence. The note mentions that the PCI chairman had filed intervention applications in two earlier cases without placing it before the council. The chairman referred to interventions in the Meghalaya high court’s judgment on May 27, 2016 debarring the press/media from reporting statements of the HNLC relating to bandhs/hartals and in the Shillong Times v Union of India and Press Council of India case on March 26, 2019.

Also Read: When Journalists Start Speaking Comfort to Power

It is imperative to note that the council intervened in these two cases to defend the rights of the media. In Bhasin’s petition, the council is batting for restrictions.

The note also cites clause 8 of the Press Council (Procedure for Conduct of Meetings and Business) Regulations, 1979 which defines the powers of the chairman to make decisions in urgent matters. It allows the chairman, if urgent action by the council becomes necessary, to “take [a] decision and permit the business of the Council to be transacted by an order recorded in writing”.

However, the same clause also says that the papers together with the decision taken by the chairman shall be placed before the next meeting of the council for confirmation. As The Wire has reported earlier, current council members Gupta and Nayak had revealed in their statement that the full council met on August 22 for the entire day but there was “no mention” of the petition which had been filed in the SC.