As politicians go, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi is an
affable man. His ego is not enormous; he doesn’t
bristle at criticism; he’s the sort of chap you
can share a joke or two with and sometimes he
will even laugh at himself. He’s fired by
football as much as he’s driven by politics and
his geniality is germane to his dexterity as
Parliamentary Affairs Minister.
So what is he doing defending what could turn out to be the most absurd and autocratic legislation - if it is allowed to go through?
The Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2006,
is not just preposterous; it is dangerous.
If you think that the draft Bill is technical
mumbo-jumbo that only big media barons and
self-important journalists need to be worried
about, junk that thought.
This is about you and me, and our fundamental freedoms.
The Bill aims to dismantle - or at the very
least, challenge - media monopolies by
restricting cross-ownership. But frankly, while
this may have got business houses very agitated,
it’s not the part that worries me. In fact, you
could even argue that the tyranny of the
so-called free market is just as antithetical to
independent journalism, as overweening government
control can be. So the jury is out on that one.
It’s the attempt to annihilate editorial autonomy
that there can be no two views on.
Here’s the part of the draft Bill that would have
been funny were it not so frightening. Next time
there is a "war or a natural calamity of national
magnitude“, the government may have the right to”take over the control and management of any of
the broadcasting services"; even suspend
operations if the channel is found to be harming
“public interest”.
So far, India has seen only one televised war. I
reported from the frontline during the Kargil
conflict of 1999. It was an age before instant
connectivity and portable satellites, and still
unused to television, the army was, quite
frankly, alarmed by our presence. No one knew
what to do with us, and so, by sheer accident, we
were set free in the battle zone.
Every day, scores of journalists walked the thin
line between life and death. We braved bullets,
ducked shells and learnt to sleep under an open
sky or behind a boulder - without food, water or
bathrooms. But at the end of it, the ordinary
soldier was no longer nameless or faceless; the
war finally had a human face. The battle was not
just about gun positions and recaptured peaks; it
was about people; the tears and tribulations; the
conflict and courage of young men sent out to die.
There were no rules then to ’manage the media’,
and yet, I cannot recall a single instance where
national interest was compromised. Instead, an
initially sceptical army conceded that we had
been “force multipliers”, and the debate suddenly
shifted. The politically correct lobby then began
attacking us for ’glamourising’ the war.
Ironic then that the government is worried about
controlling us during a hypothetical next war. Or
is it the questions we raised after Kargil that
make politicians and bureaucrats nervous -
debates over intelligence lapses and what drove
India to a bloody war to begin with?
The natural calamity clause is even more
bewildering. During every recent disaster, from
earthquakes to the tsunami, it is the immediacy
of television that has pushed people out of their
indifference. It is the evocative nature of
television stories that has propelled ordinary
citizens into donating funds, and sometimes, even
rolling up their sleeves to volunteer for relief
and rehabilitation. During the tsunami,
television journalists waded through water and
rotting flesh to reach the worst-hit interiors
much before district officials could. Or is that
the real problem?
The 24-hour news channel may be a monster, but
it’s also a relentless beast that lets no detail
escape its gaze.
In my view, many lives may have been saved had
the 1984 Delhi riots taken place in the age of
private television; the scrutiny would have been
just too intense and constant. Just as it was in
Gujarat.
But look at what the draft Bill empowers the
government to do. “Authorised officials” can
actually shut down transmission if it promotes
“disharmony, enmity, hatred or ill will” between
communities. This was exactly the excuse Narendra
Modi used in 2002 when he briefly blocked
television channels that had exposed the
complicity of his administration in the riots. Of
course, at that time, the Congress was on the
other side of the political divide and was as
outraged as we are now.
And just who are these ’authorised officials’?
They include district magistrates and senior
police officers, making it impossible for
television to uncover the role of the bureaucracy
and the police during a riot. Under the Bill,
these officials even have the power to "inspect,
search and seize equipment".
So will television journalists constantly be
waiting for that knock on their door?
Speaking on NDTV, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi sounded
vaguely embarrassed about many of these
provisions. He insisted that the Bill was not
targeted at “established national networks” and
the aim was only to rein in cable operators and
the hundreds of local channels the industry has
spawned in the last decade, often in regions of
conflict and communal strife. Besides, he
insisted, this was only a draft Bill - a mere
starting point for discussion, not necessarily
the Bill that would make it to Parliament.
But in a democracy, how in the world can we allow
such dictatorial notions to shape the contours of
any debate?
Does private television, still only a decade old
in India, need some sort of regulation?
Yes.
Is it the government’s job to play gatekeeper?
Absolutely not.
Admittedly, the ever-proliferating world of
television often slides into sleaze and banality
and, on the odd occasion, can even be
inflammatory.
The answer is for the television industry to
build consensus and create guidelines of its own;
perhaps even a media council that would play
ombudsman and have the final word on a code of
content. But we cannot allow politicians and
bureaucrats to set that agenda for us.
A few months ago, when the Centre was struggling
to defend its role in the office-of-profit
controversy, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi was in our
studio passionately defending his party.
“Bullshit,” he said, on national television,
denying that any ordinance had ever been planned.
That’s exactly the word I would use for this
outrageous and undemocratic draft Bill.
But if this Bill does go through, that’s the sort
of language that the bureaucrats in the I&B
Ministry would find obscene. And then, the
Minister and I would both be in trouble.