I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu is a politician par excellence, having friends and contacts across the social and political spectrum. Hence the minister may have been taken unawares by some officials within the I&B Ministry when they decided to cut off a Hindi television channel for a 24-hour period beginning Wednesday. According to newspaper reports, this is intended to punish the channel for endangering national security as a consequence of its coverage of the recent terror attack on the military base at Pathankot. There has certainly been damage to the security interests of India because of the Pathankot attack, but this has mostly been caused by the lack of care of those responsible for the security of the airbase. Some, at least, of these worthies, though warned by intelligence agencies of the high likelihood of a terror strike, allowed the terrorists to enter the base and kill individuals inside. At Pathankot and later at Uri, there were unforgivable lapses in watchfulness and in security protocols which allowed armed terrorists entry into what ought to have been impregnable, especially for those trained by the Pakistan army. Strong action needs to get taken against such persons, including at the higher levels of responsibility. The television channel, which has been ordered to go off air for 24 hours beginning 9 November, had no obvious responsibility for protecting the base. Were there parts of the coverage that affected to a toxic degree the progress of efforts to eliminate the terrorists in the base, the responsibility for such vests with those who permitted access to the channel and who conveyed information that was harmful to the battle against the terrorists. The 26 November 2008 terror strike in Mumbai was a textbook example of disastrous media management, with visuals being aired on particular channels that gave GHQ Rawalpindi operationally relevant information about the countermeasures being taken against the squads inside the Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai. It was a lapse on the part of the relevant authorities that the area surrounding the 26/11 counter-terror operations was not sanitized in such a manner as to prevent the media from getting in the way of operations. However, the fault for this vests with the Mumbai police and the other authorities who seemed clueless during the three days of stark horror that Mumbai as well as the rest of the world witnessed live on their screens during the encounter.
The order imposing a 24-hour blackout of a television channel is likely to get considerable play by those in the country and outside who revel in the portrayal of India as having been converted into a quasi dictatorship since 26 May 2014. Unlike what his political rivals are claiming, the 24-hour ban order against a television channel could not have originated from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has long been immune to press criticism. However, the gagging of a television channel will be used to reinforce the ongoing campaign of calumny against PM Narendra Modi, who has brought India to the global high table, to a position not reached since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. For example, the plenary session of the climate change conference in Paris was delayed so as to allow President Hollande to get through on the telephone to Modi, who was then in transit. Still later, an urgent call was made to PM Modi from President Obama himself during the same Paris climate talks. The international prominence of the Prime Minister of India has spawned a global industry fixated on casting him as hostile to the best practices of democracy. This campaign has gone on despite the fact that it was the decision of a plurality of voters in India and not any clique to ensure that Narendra Modi became the Head of Government in 2014. Since that victory, however, the BJP has suffered considerable political damage because of the actions of authorities such as the Delhi police, who detained the family of a retired soldier who had committed suicide, thereby dismaying many. Earlier, in Hyderabad, the just-chosen Vice-Chancellor of a university there created an impression of hostility towards the Dalit community by actions before and since the suicide of Rohith Vemmula. The political negativity of such actions has clung to the BJP ever since, despite the several measures that have been taken by Modi to ensure justice to the community. During the Hyderabad and Delhi campus episodes, then HRD Minister Smriti Irani failed to rein in overzealous elements in her party, and as a consequence the BJP and indeed the government suffered an erosion in support.
I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu needs to step in and reverse the move by some within his ministry to take a television channel off the air for a day, a move that is certain to create anger and dismay within the media as well as energise anti-India voices across the world. This single measure is likely to give ballast to the traducers of Prime Minister Modi, unless Venkaiah Naidu steps in. Given the rapid spread of social media, seeking to control information through administrative actions is doomed to failure. Instead, toxic messages need to get drowned out by healthy ones. Freedom of speech needs to be protected rather than sought to be challenged or circumscribed. The Modi government needs to take the lead in ensuring that the freedoms and rights of the citizen expand and not go by the views of those in the bureaucracy who remain wedded to the colonial model of governance. A multiplicity of voices is preferable to silence, and it is now up to I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu to ensure that the noise and bustle of democracy be protected from assault from those within the governance system who are still in thrall to colonial era laws and practices.