By Sushil Kutty
The other day, a top prime-time television anchor asked Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani if the rising price of tomatoes was the subject of discussion around her family’s dinner table when tomato prices shot up to over Rs 250 per kg? Ms. Irani, caught napping on live television, returned with, “Would it be fine if I asked whether your time in Tihar was okay?” That shut up the once-upon-a-time jailbird, but this was one of those rare occasions in nine years when the so-called ‘Godi Media’ found its spine.
Otherwise, Main-Stream Media had lost its nerve, verve and fervour after Narendra Modi took charge of not only India but of the media, too. For nine straight years, India was witness to some of the most pliant media ever to pose questions. It was no longer “crawl when told to bend”, it was “slither on the belly when told to crawl”.
Once thick as thieves, Smriti Irani and the “Tihari anchor” are now bitter foes. And where the anchor has newfound friends in the left-liberal camp, steadfast Modi bhakts have rallied around the Minister for Women and Child Welfare, calling her “Dhaakad”, title of the movie in which Kangana Ranaut played lead.
Smriti Irani is being hailed as “heroine” at the exact time when news broke that Wayanad Congress MP Rahul Gandhi would return to reclaim Amethi from Irani. The times have changed but have the media turned? The anchor and his channel are proof the media had seen the writing on the wall. Otherwise, the anchor would not have taunted and the minister would not have insulted.
So, “Is the honeymoon over?” It was more like master-slave. The media were taking orders. Irani was for a spell even information and broadcasting minister. Now, her supporters in the media and rightwing social media influencers want her back in the same slot. Is it a sign of circling the wagons? Is it a case of the closer to general elections, the more the Modi government is panicking?
Is the Modi government losing control of the narrative? Are more media refusing to succumb to pressure? One thing is for sure, the cornered media are finally breaking free. The Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies study “Indian Media: Trends and Patterns” concluded that 80 percent of India’s journalists believes the media is too much “pro-Modi government”.
And as many as 61% said media covered the Opposition “too unfavourably”. The majority (82 percent) believed that media houses favour the Bharatiya Janata Party, which shouldn’t have surprised many. Only 3 percent said the same for the Congress”. Also, “86% of independent journalists” said Modi government was covered “too favourably” and 81% of regular journalists agreed.
That said, while 72 percent journalists said news channels were “less free to do their job properly these days”, newspapers put it at 55 percent and digital media, at 36 percent. The study held that the whole thing about anti- and pro-Modi was taking a toll on the mental, and physical health of the journalists with more female journalists affected though young English language journalists bore the brunt, which in turn affected their ties with family and friends.
The Smriti Irani-Tihari anchor encounter on live-TV gave a glimpse of the changing equations between some media and the Modi government. The ideological divide in journalists was not written on stone. At the end of the day, it was the media baron who decided whether the media he owned slavishly toed the government line or went against the ruling party and attacked the government?
The Tihari journalist was always pro-government but he recently switched jobs, joining a “pro-Congress” television channel, which “positively” changed his reportage and opinion. Now he is unabashedly anti-Modi government and loyal to his new boss’s agenda, which is closer to that of the Congress party’s. He is doing what he was hired for with the higher pay packet.
The Lokniti-CSDS study notes the change and points out that a large part of why Modi remained in power for two terms was because of his ability to control media. Modi’s carefully cultivated cult image depended 99.9 percent on the media. Working on his “popularity”, and his “ratings”, the captive media made sure he got his way. His competitors just did not figure anywhere in the race or in the media.
It is only after the “success of Bharat Jodo Yatra” and subsequent rise in the popularity of Rahul Gandhi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has begun to lose the perception battle and the media have begun to question. The Prime Minister’s obsession with his “Vishwaguru image” is working against him as the free-wheeling international media zeroes in on his domestic failures. The domestic-national media meanwhile refused to give him quarter on the wrestlers issue and on his handling of “Manipur”.
To reiterate, as 2024 closes in on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the media will be rewriting the script depending on the assembly elections and how the BJP fares in them. The media owners seem to have sensed that all is not fine for the Modi regime; that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sun is perhaps ready to set and it was time to look askance. Modi’s double anti-incumbency and Modi-fatigue were doing Modi in. The media will have to take a call. Not the journalists, but the owners of the media who call the shots. The buck stops with them. (IPA Service)
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