Dadri shows why the bhakts want a pliable media

Reaction to Dadri shows that media is once again a soft target for the current dispensation

“It is the media which is making up news to spread communal disharmony.”

“The media will not rest unless there are riots”

“Paid Sickular Western Stooge Presstitutes”

Those who are active on social media, and especially colleagues who end up on the receiving end of such vitriol, know that these statements could be a reaction to Dadri, or Muzzafarnagar, or even the controversy around government holiday on Christmas maybe.

This is nothing new, and while criticising journalists is the easiest, and laziest, thing anyone can do, there is no denying the fact that these attacks on the credibility of the fourth estate have increased ever since India’s ruling party began building its massive social media army of bhakts way before the 2014 elections.

From a neutral perspective, it is a brilliant strategy. Social media has its share of people who sit on a fence when it comes to political leanings. They may even be a majority. So you find an easy target to blame for all of the country’s ills, keeping on hammering home the message, and uninformed gullibility does the rest.

Ever since the heart-wrenching tragedy in Dadri, #MediaWantsRiots and #DadriReporting have, at various times, been the topmost trends on Twitter. The complaint from the twitterati, and especially BJP supporters, has been this: the media is focusing un-necessarily on the incident in Dadri and polarizing people’s opinions.

Okay, we are bad and evil! And the likes of Sangeet Som, Mahesh Sharma, Assauddin Owaisi are practically saints, for all intents and purposes!

For the sake of fairness, one agrees that our press does go overboard on a number of issues. But the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq is not one of them. Should we not face up to the harsh realities? Should we not say that an enraged mob of the majority community killed a man of the minority community simply on suspicion of the latter storing beef? Should we not ask how does it matter what anyone consumes in the confines of their homes as long as the meat being consumed is not of an endangered species or a fellow human being?

Should we not call out the instigators of communal strife for the monsters that they are?

And should we not ask why one of the world’s most influential and popular Heads of State has failed time and again to rein in extremist elements in his own party? And why the said fringe elements falsely claim to represent Hindus worldwide? Especially, when a majority of Indian Hindus are liberal, tolerant and won’t want anything to do with these lunatics.

Should we not ask why a bovine’s life takes precedence over that of a man?

In this case, as in many cases, the Indian media, however crass or hyperbolic it may be, did its job. Its job was to present the unpalatable truth. Its job was to tell a majority of the people that all is not well in Narendra Modi’s India.

As a colleague pointed out to me today, the ruling party’s supporters forget that it was the media which broke the news of 2G and Coal scams, which exposed the fallacies of a graft-torn UPA, it was the media which gave blanket coverage to the brilliant campaigner in Narendra Modi, and which provided a minute-by minute coverage of all of the Prime Minister’s foreign trips.

The same ruling party’s supporters would only want us scribes to focus on Make in India, ease of doing business, Swachh Bharat, Jan Dhan, and a number of other initiatives that the government has undertaken to boost investment and make people’s lives better. Of course these are commendable initiatives which have been given their due coverage across print, television and online journalism.

But there is no way that a responsible Indian press will not focus on religious majoritarianism and the strain that it puts on the social fabric of a diverse nation like India.

Focusing just on a government’s economic achievements and not anything else is akin to a military leader stressing on his troops ability to march in perfect formation, but getting defensive, aggressive even, when asked if the said troops can actually win him a battle.

PS: If media is an expert at spreading communal strife, then the Dadri temple priest would make a great editor!   

(Arup Roychoudhury covers economic policy for Business Standard)