Media in the time of war

The crackdown on independent journalists trying to uncover the truth, while mainstream outlets unabatedly peddle fake news, has created the perception that dissenting voices are being suppressed

India waged a limited war on two fronts. It justifiably chose to retaliate against Pakistan for the Baisaran massacre. With Delhi and Islamabad agreeing to a ceasefire, it must now be unequivocally said — India unjustifiably chose to fire salvos against its own media.

The Modi government is presumably unaware of the conflict of emotions that assails journalists every time their own nation goes to war. There is the understandable desire in them to side with their own nation, triggering a clash with their professional duty of telling the truth. This is an onerous task as journalists know that all governments in the time of war engage in fabrications and denials, to boost the morale of their citizens.

This universal backdrop to all conflicts will help fathom the happenings of May 8, when India awoke to the news of its attack on nine Pakistani terror sites. As the hours passed, speculations began over whether any of the Indian jets were hit. A crack reporter tweeted, saying officials, albeit anonymous, had confirmed losses, only to delete the post hours later. That correspondent’s finding subsequently found an echo in the foreign media’s stories. Should the correspondent have waited to regurgitate India’s official briefings on the May 7-8 attack, as many suggested?

But this question was not asked of cretins masquerading as ultranationalists — you need to be one to be the other — who spun a narrative on TV channels far beyond the government’s claims. On May 8-9, they celebrated the Indian Navy’s attack on the Karachi port, Islamabad being occupied, and the Pakistan Prime Minister surrendering to India. The TV coverage inspired a Union minister into tweeting the fake news about Karachi being bombed. Some newspapers echoed TV anchors in their May 9 editions, best exemplified by a Mumbai-based English newspaper’s headline, “Pehle Rokaa, Phir Thokka.” The word thokka, in colloquial Hindi, has a sexual connotation.

What was the basis of such false newsbreaks? Were TV anchors spinning their own yarn, or were they responding to deep-fake feeds sent to them? If yes, was the sender so credible as to have them fall for the fakery? These questions the government will unlikely ask errant TV channels.

By contrast, the government’s attack on independent media began soon after Baisaran. A YouTube news channel, ‘4 pm’, was blocked on April 29. Its founder, Sanjay Sharma, speculated that the government might have been miffed by their two videos, one of which claimed that even after the Indus Waters Treaty was put in abeyance, Pakistan was receiving “more water, not less.” In case the channel’s claim was untrue, might it not have made sense to shame it through a denial than to block it? Although unblocked now, the government was perceived of exploiting the conflict to suppress a dissenting voice.

Last week, independent journalist Hilal Mir was among the over 2000 Kashmiris who were arrested. Mir had been Hindustan Times’ assistant editor before becoming the editor of Greater Kashmir and later, Kashmir Reader. The authorities accused Mir of being a “radical social media user” who aimed to “instigate secessionist sentiment by portraying Kashmiris as victims of systemic extermination.” If Kashmiris could be influenced so easily, wouldn’t they have bought into the government’s claim of normalcy there?

Shocking, too, was the blocking of 8000 X handles on the government’s orders. Among them was that of Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of Kashmir Times. Her forthright coverage of Kashmir had the government file a slew of tax and labour cases against the newspaper, seal its Srinagar office, and harass its journalists. Indeed, the Indo-Pak conflict was harnessed to target a journalist who just wouldn’t bend. This applies also to Maktoob media, which focusses on hate crimes against Muslims and human rights issues. X had informed Maktoob of having received several requests from the government in the past to block its specific posts, culminating in a takedown, last year, of a video depicting a mob rampaging at a Sholapur mosque.

A line was crossed in the government’s war against the media with the blocking of The Wire, a pugnacious voice that has emerged as an alternative to the mainstream news outlets. The strike against The Wire came because it published a summarised version of the CNN’s story that cited a French intelligence official to claim India did lose a Rafale. After The Wire took down the story but reserved its right to “seek appropriate remedies,” the website was unblocked. The ground for blocking The Wire was specious, for the CNN story was accessible in India, which, obviously, can’t dare to silence the global media behemoth.

The Modi government’s sense of journalists is either poor, or its contempt of them runs deep. Take Mohammed Zubair, the Alt News co-founder, against whom Hindutva state governments have filed cases and who’s often trolled viciously. Zubair did a service to the nation by exposing Pakistan’s propaganda in the limited war in real time; he also named the Union minister who tweeted about India attacking Karachi. Zubair embodies the archetypal journalist, in whom the love for his/her nation doesn’t, and shouldn’t, supersede the need to speak the truth in the time of war.

The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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