Editorial: The futility of media curbs
The social media platform said it acted on a ‘legal demand’ but gave no details of which agency or court had made that demand or which story was being objected to. Access to Reuters’ affiliate handles remained unrestricted.
Nothing piques media interest in a story more than furtive action by the government to put a lid on it, followed by a mealy-mouthed explanation. The latest example of this is the blocking of the X (formerly Twitter) account of Reuters. Visitors to the international news agency’s handle learnt on Sunday, July 6, that access to it was ‘withheld’ in India. The social media platform said it acted on a ‘legal demand’ but gave no details of which agency or court had made that demand or which story was being objected to. Access to Reuters’ affiliate handles remained unrestricted.
Clarifications by official agencies were typical of the prevarication that invariably follows such actions. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said there was no demand by the government of India to block the Reuters handle. And then a government-friendly news agency reported the spin that X must have acted belatedly on New Delhi’s May 7 demand to block 8,000 handles when Operation Sindoor was launched.
It’s not at all clear why X would act two months late on a demand to block the very news agency whose reports led to New Delhi’s narrative on that operation going awry, while blocking all others promptly as directed. It was Reuters that first reported that Indian fighter jets, possibly Rafales, were downed by the Pakistan Air Force. In the thick of the four-day confrontation, New Delhi’s reticence on setbacks to its military assets was understandable. But why now? Will this belated block put the genie back in the bottle?
New Delhi’s squeamishness on any media scrutiny of Operation Sindoor’s outcomes is odd considering recent revelations made by Indian military officers themselves, including the country's senior-most general. On June 2, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said in interviews to news agencies, including Reuters, that India lost some assets during the initial phase of the operation but quickly rectified its “tactical mistakes.” Then, India’s defence attaché in Jakarta said at a seminar the same month that the IAF did lose fighter jets, mainly because of the “political directive” not to target Pakistani military establishments or air-defence systems at that stage of the conflict. More recently, Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Rahul Singh, was more forthcoming on what India was up against in Operation Sindoor. Most alarmingly, Chinese intelligence kept Pakistan informed well ahead about the specifics of India’s response.
An attempt now to circumscribe public discourse on Operation Sindoor is essentially to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. Under any dispensation, and at all times, media curbs amount to nothing more than a feeble attempt to cover up frailties. They don’t work on matters of national importance; they don’t work even in culture wars, as we are seeing in the case of the bid to intimidate the producers of Diljit Dosanjh’s latest film Sardarji 3 for employing Pakistani artistes. If anything, the outcomes can be counterproductive and disastrous, as is possible if the Punjabi diaspora in the West adopts the star as a challenge to Indian nationalism.
Instead of hiding from scrutiny, the Union government would serve India better by boldly facing up to questions asked of it, be it in the media or in Parliament.
