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Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 27, 2014
URL: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/the-message-rankles/
Home minister must know that threats to ‘crush’ media won’t make bad news go away.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has attempted a feeble turnaround after the uproar over his vow, made in the course of a speech at a rally in Solapur on Sunday evening, to “crush” unfriendly sections of the media. Shinde now clarifies that he only meant “social media”, and that he was concerned mainly about the panic that it spread, for instance, when it agitated Northeastern migrants around the country.
Transcripts of his speech have made it perfectly clear, though, that Shinde was not discussing this two-year-old incident, but expressing a clear intention to suppress the media for allegedly setting out to malign his party and his party vice president, Rahul Gandhi. “Since I am in charge of the intelligence department, I know from where this is coming. I keep an eye on these activities. And, silently, we have put in place mechanisms to check these activities.”
He warned that he was not a “lightweight” home minister, and that action would be severe. Shinde’s concept of what a home minister does is indeed alarming. Keeping tabs on the free press or even social media, monitoring the tilt of their reports, ascribing this to a concerted campaign and threatening to crush it — that’s the working style of an insecure tyrant, not the home minister of a democratically elected government.
Alleging media bias when faced with unwelcome news is the easiest trick in the book, and has been used by parties on all sides of the ideological spectrum. Just as the Congress party cannot bear the cold truth about its perceived image and electoral prospects right now, the Aam Aadmi Party has also decided that criticism of its subpar stint in governance means that the media is sold out and beholden to special interests. At one time or another, politicians across party lines have accused the media of suspect motives, denounced the messenger when the message rankles.
Yet Shinde’s remarks are not on par with those of other politicians. As the country’s home minister, his words carry much greater weight. His intent to intimidate was made quite clear. Even though media freedoms are strong in this country, held up by the courts and defended by its practitioners, any indication of government curbs is intolerable. Shinde warned of “mechanisms to check these activities”. He must explain what those are, and exactly how the home ministry has attempted to, or will attempt to, check the media.
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