VINOD K JOSE - Habits of Mind Why the Indian press needs a philosophical model
Passed less than 15 months after the constitution was adopted, the First Amendment Act (1951) was a blow to press freedom. Once they became the government, the same luminaries who drafted the constitution—from Jawaharlal Nehru to Bhimrao Ambedkar—hastily decided to set aside three years of deliberations in the Constituent Assembly on freedom of speech, because the Supreme Court and two high courts (Madras and Patna) interpreted the new constitution against their liking.
Between the promulgation of the constitution and the drafting of the first amendment, these courts passed three now legendary judgments in favour of press freedom, reprimanding the government for infringing on the fundamental rights of freedom of speech in the name of “public safety”. The courts found active laws from the British Raj era (including the Press Act and the Indian Penal Code) to be archaic, and laws passed by the new government (East Punjab Public Safety Act and Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act) to be “restrictive” and “unconstitutional”. These interpretations were unprecedented; for the first time, courts were interpreting the constitution of a sovereign democratic country, and looking at the citizenry’s right to a free press, after shedding the shackles and fears of centuries of colonial and princely rule.
The judgements were an affront to egos in the new government. Sardar Patel, the home minister, criticised the rulings for “knocking the bottom out of most of our penal laws”. Patel, in a conversation with S Sadanand, founding editor of the Free Press Journal, plainly stated what press freedom meant to him: “We are interested in newspapers which will support us wholeheartedly. To say you will support us when we are right is meaningless. For why should anyone oppose us then?” Instead of allowing the organic growth of independent constitutional interpretations to continue, the secretaries, steeped in the methods of the British colonial government, cried foul to Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar—each of whom demonstrated a certain unwillingness to be criticised by the courts.
Between the promulgation of the constitution and the drafting of the first amendment, these courts passed three now legendary judgments in favour of press freedom, reprimanding the government for infringing on the fundamental rights of freedom of speech in the name of “public safety”. The courts found active laws from the British Raj era (including the Press Act and the Indian Penal Code) to be archaic, and laws passed by the new government (East Punjab Public Safety Act and Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act) to be “restrictive” and “unconstitutional”. These interpretations were unprecedented; for the first time, courts were interpreting the constitution of a sovereign democratic country, and looking at the citizenry’s right to a free press, after shedding the shackles and fears of centuries of colonial and princely rule.
The judgements were an affront to egos in the new government. Sardar Patel, the home minister, criticised the rulings for “knocking the bottom out of most of our penal laws”. Patel, in a conversation with S Sadanand, founding editor of the Free Press Journal, plainly stated what press freedom meant to him: “We are interested in newspapers which will support us wholeheartedly. To say you will support us when we are right is meaningless. For why should anyone oppose us then?” Instead of allowing the organic growth of independent constitutional interpretations to continue, the secretaries, steeped in the methods of the British colonial government, cried foul to Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar—each of whom demonstrated a certain unwillingness to be criticised by the courts.
THE INDIAN MEDIA IS LIKE pliable dough. It can be kneaded, punched, stretched and rolled in all directions. If overworked, it turns rubbery, dense and inert. And if the hands that knead it are dirty, it becomes impossible to separate the grime from the good. External pressures and internal pollutants jointly compromise the loaf.
In the past two years, there have been a number of examples of our institutions and politicians overworking the press. The union information and broadcasting minister officially advised journalists on how to cover the prime minister. The minister for telecom constituted a body to curtail press freedoms on the internet. The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate warned journalists to blindly toe a chauvinistic line. A Silchar court in the north-east and a Pune court in the west issued ex-parte injunction orders forcing media companies to remove journalistic content from websites. A Karnataka court tried a woman journalist under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for exposing police corruption. A Tamil Nadu court barred the publication of a reported biography of a chief minister, since it displeased her. And a Delhi court blocked the release of a movie that “contains sex and vulgarity” that hurt religious sentiments.
Within the media industry, there was plenty of grime. Media owners bargained with the government to secure lucrative licenses to mine coal blocks in return for their power to influence the public. Editors got caught on tape striking deals with lobbyists, but remained arrogantly unapologetic. Owners fired political editors who wrote about politics independently. Many reporters—as an article in this issue on the glamorous national security beat demonstrates—increasingly peddle lies as news. And as I write this, the news breaking about Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal’s alleged sexual assault of his colleague reminds us that many male editors habitually harass their female staff, ensuring that newsrooms are no safer than the streets for women. The dough is destroyed from the exterior and the interior.
Having thought through some of the specific instances of the external punches on the media and the ugly impairments inside the media, large questions bog my mind. Why is our journalism so pliable? What gives external forces the temerity to shape the media to their own ends? What is it in our democratic culture that makes the media subordinate itself to the legislature, executive, judiciary and corporations—making it susceptible to inappropriate influence? (See the cover story on Network18 for an incident in which Forbes India pulled a story off the press because it irked the finance ministry.) And looking inward, why don’t we have the sense of duty in our media culture that compels us to say no to influence?
We don’t have—like a few democracies do, and like all democracies ought to—a well-articulated philosophical framework by which to think about the media, that would define to all—politicians, judges, bureaucrats, police, academics, media owners, editors and reporters—what the rules of the game are. As a society, our readings of the roles and responsibilities of the press are so diverse that, if the 30 sitting Supreme Court judges were asked individually about where a citizen’s fundamental right of speech and expression ends and our innumerable laws on telegraphs, defamation, official secrets, sedition, and public safety—all of which have clauses that clash with fundamental rights—take over, the chances are you would get 30 different opinions.
We inherited this confusion primarily when we goofed up the constitutional promise with the very first amendment we made to it. Passed less than 15 months after the constitution was adopted, the First Amendment Act (1951) was a blow to press freedom. Once they became the government, the same luminaries who drafted the constitution—from Jawaharlal Nehru to Bhimrao Ambedkar—hastily decided to set aside three years of deliberations in the Constituent Assembly on freedom of speech, because the Supreme Court and two high courts (Madras and Patna) interpreted the new constitution against their liking.
Between the promulgation of the constitution and the drafting of the first amendment, these courts passed three now legendary judgments in favour of press freedom, reprimanding the government for infringing on the fundamental rights of freedom of speech in the name of “public safety”. The courts found active laws from the British Raj era (including the Press Act and the Indian Penal Code) to be archaic, and laws passed by the new government (East Punjab Public Safety Act and Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act) to be “restrictive” and “unconstitutional”. These interpretations were unprecedented; for the first time, courts were interpreting the constitution of a sovereign democratic country, and looking at the citizenry’s right to a free press, after shedding the shackles and fears of centuries of colonial and princely rule.
The judgements were an affront to egos in the new government. Sardar Patel, the home minister, criticised the rulings for “knocking the bottom out of most of our penal laws”. Patel, in a conversation with S Sadanand, founding editor of the Free Press Journal, plainly stated what press freedom meant to him: “We are interested in newspapers which will support us wholeheartedly. To say you will support us when we are right is meaningless. For why should anyone oppose us then?”
Instead of allowing the organic growth of independent constitutional interpretations to continue, the secretaries, steeped in the methods of the British colonial government, cried foul to Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar—each of whom demonstrated a certain unwillingness to be criticised by the courts. They closed ranks to stop the judiciary from interpreting the constitution on this important subject. In 1791, American legislators had written, in their historic first amendment, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. Our first amendment said exactly the opposite: nothing in the future shall “prevent the State from making any law” that takes away the freedom of press.
Much other moss has gathered on this immobile stone. For over 60 years, state powers—bureaucrats, politicians, and even local police officers—have been taking away the right to speech and expression on flimsy grounds. This has institutionalised fear among journalists, taught them self-censorship, made them subservient to other institutions, and stifled the possibility of creating a press tradition that could serve as the basis for a fourth pillar of our democracy.
Following the first amendment, in the “nation building” era, everyone from Nehru to Lal Bahadur Shastri to Indira Gandhi was building institutions, fighting poverty, and taking on social odds. People in the fields of science, education and health naturally became partners in state programmes. The press also obliged. Instead of maintaining a safe distance from power, we joined the state as masons.
The current culture of rewarding and punishing the press started around the time Sanjay Gandhi joined politics, and Indira turned increasingly autocratic. Journalists who defended them during the Emergency were rewarded: Khushwant Singh, for example, wrote in his biography that “Sanjay asked me if I would be interested in a diplomatic assignment. He had the post of High Commissioner in London in mind. I turned it down without any hesitation, as I did not want to leave India. Then he offered to get me a nomination to the Rajya Sabha and the editorship of the Hindustan Times. I accepted the alternative.”
One of Singh’s predecessors at the Hindustan Times, BG Verghese, suffered one of the country’s first journalistic punishments for standing up to autocracy and corruption. A note exchanged by Indira’s personal secretaries in 1975 demonstrated how easily the prime minister could remove an editor: “I’ve spoken to KK Birla [the owner of the paper]. He has given notice to Verghese.” On the morning Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, Verghese was prevented from entering the Hindustan Times’ office. That era also witnessed rare and indomitable publishers, like Ramnath Goenka of the Indian Express, who fought vested private interests and the establishment. But the dominant mood of the press corps was docility... read more:
http://caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/habits-mind
