Daily noose

The Delhi police’s Special Cell arrested the Editor in Chief of the web portal NewsClick and its HR head following coordinated raids at about 100 locations across India. Officials are probing allegations against the outlet that it received funding illegally from China and that it disseminated propaganda favourable to Beijing. The raids were carried out in the aftermath of an FIR being filed under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and various sections of the IPC. The trigger was an article published by The New York Times which alleged that NewsClick was among a group of companies that was being funded for pushing Chinese propaganda. The allegations had already been under the Enforcement Directorate’s investigation since the last two years. The agency has accused the portal of receiving Rs 77 cr as foreign remittance between 2018-2021.

Opposition parties lamented the pitiable treatment meted out to stakeholders in the fourth estate by the ruling dispensation. Members of the INDIA bloc called out the Centre for muzzling the media while being indulgent towards journalists who incite hatred. They also spoke about the government’s tendency to turn the focus away from genuine issues concerning the nation and attacking the media to deflect attention from its failures. Not an unfounded claim, considering it was just this week that the explosive findings of the caste census in Bihar was made public. It reignited conversations around the demand for such a census in many states.

Since coming into power, the NDA government led by BJP has initiated action against news outlets like the BBC, Newslaundry, Dainik Bhaskar, Bharat Samachar, the Kashmir Walla, and The Wire among others. In the NewsClick case, the journalists who had been raided, were probed about their coverage of the Delhi riots, farmers’ protests, and the 2020 sit-ins in Shaheen Bagh, which had been the hub of the protest against the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019. The CAA was a legislation that fast-tracked citizenship of undocumented non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The journalists were also probed on their supposed reportage of Khalistani activities as well the involvement of one of them in student politics at JNU.

We have seen how the autonomy enjoyed by the journalistic community has gradually eroded through politics. For instance, the IT Act, 2000 does not cover news media under its ambit. But, what the government could not achieve through legislation, it has made up for with thinly-veiled ‘recommendations’. Through the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Centre hoped to indirectly control online media, by bringing news platforms under the purview of the IT Act. Following due process would have involved episodes of parliamentary scrutiny followed by the passage of an actual legislation.

The Guidelines also vaguely define the term ‘publisher of news and current affairs content’. Owing to this, the administration is in a position to exercise a significant level of discretion and censor online news media as per its whims, while offering newspapers an illusion of greater freedom. What has transpired this week, is a direct assault on the freedom to engage in journalism that is critical of the powers that be. In the run-up to the election, which is months away, such episodes of high-handedness against news media outlets will serve as a telling reminder of what we stand to lose if the voice of journalistic reason is snuffed out from our lexicon.