D. The Motive

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
                                                                                       

                                                                                             Charles Bukowski 

                                

At the outset the first government of India gave an impression of being sincere in putting all its efforts to build the nation. But the very fact that it has curtailed the fundamental rights given in the constitution in the first year of India becoming a republic, brings out into the open, the real motive behind it's governance.

In one single amendment about 5 fundamental rights available to the citizen and guaranteed by the founding fathers of the constitution were damaged by Nehru's first government.

a) Right to equality

b) Right to freedom of speech

c) Right to occupation

d) Right to property

e) Right to judicial review

The motive is - to weaken the citizen.

Why does a leader wants to weaken his own people? 

You might have thought that answer can be found again in the two cases that rattled Nehru, and prompted him to heed to his whims and send the law to the gallows.

Look at both the cases of crossroads of Romesh Thapar and organizer .

Organizer was banned for its cartoons and articles on the newly created state of Pakistan, which Nehru regarded as communal and inflammatory.  In order to counter the bias argument, Crossroads was banned at the same time as Organizer, for its critical and defamatory views on congress party.

Now some details about Crossroads editor to clear the picture - Romesh Thapar. This man was a close relative of Nehru.  After this ban, his new paper Seminar was given full support by the govt in the form of advertisements and allocation of prime property at a low rate by the then government in a special scheme that also included many magazines and newspapers.

It may be highly possible that the first amendment to constitution - to curtail freedom of speech was a planned affair and not just a reaction to the acts of those news papers.

Only ray of hope to save us from the effects of this blatant encroachment of the fundamental rights by the legislature, is the supreme court ruling in the Golak Nath case on February 27, 1967 that the Parliament has no power to abridge or take away the fundamental rights by amending the constitution under Article 368. 

According to this ruling, parliament can still amend the fundamental rights, but the supreme court reserved the power to determine in each specific case whether the amendment in question, took away or abridged the rights contained in part III of the constitution, thus leaving the supreme court supreme so far as the fundamental rights are concerned.

to be continued...

C. The inception

The birth of a subjugated and corrupted press in free India most probably has taken place with the first amendment of the constitution done under the governance by Nehru.

On 18th June 1951, the constitution was amended with it's first. And one of the objectives of these amendments was "to place reasonable restriction on freedom of speech". Here is the excerpt taken from http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend1.htm

(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the
operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any
law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the
exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the
interests of the security of the State, friendly relations with
foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to
contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.";

Look at what prompted Nehru to do this law against fundamental rights of a citizen to understand the psyche of the then government.

It started with two Supreme Court decisions i.e, Romesh Thapar vs. State of Madras and Brijbhushan vs. State of Bihar.

In the Thapar case, the Government of Madras, which had already banned the Communist Party, prohibited in March 1951 Crossroads, a progressive weekly edited by Romesh Thapar, very critical of the Nehru government, from circulating in the state. On appeal by Thapar, the Supreme Court held that the ban was ultra vires of Art. 19 (1) (a) because provisions in the Madras law sanctioning the ban were not covered by exceptions as mentioned in Art. 19 (2). The Madras government ban was imposed on grounds of public safety/public order, words which did not find mention at that time as grounds for curbing freedom of expression. So, the apex court held that the ban had offended Art. 19 (1) (a).

In the second case which was a case of prior restraint, the Chief Commissioner of Delhi passed an order against the Organizer, mouthpiece of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, under the East Punjab Public Safety Act, directing the newspaper to submit for scrutiny before publication all articles, news, cartoons, analyses and pictures relating to communal issues or Pakistan for printing inflammatory materials with respect to the partition. On appeal, the Supreme Court declared that section 7 (1) (c) of the Punjab Act under which the order was passed was unconstitutional because the restrictions imposed were outside the purview of Article 19 (2) as it then stood, which did not include public order as a permissible reason for restriction.

It is to be noted that common observation to both the decisions was the reference to the absence of public order in Art.19(2).

Nehru wrote to the law ministry for the amendment and a cabinet committee was setup which ultimately included 'public order' and 'incitement to crime'  among the exceptions to right of freedom of speech.

The points to be understood well are 1. Reasonable and 2. public order in the amendment, because these were the very reasons based on which the subsequent governments abused the amendment in several cases and resulted in an opposite to the intended but improbable effect.

These laws in reality encroached upon freedom of speech besides other rights and naturally created a media in subsequent years that is, by and large, ready to do a broker job in the game of politics.

In contrast, it is worth to note the first amendment of the constitution of America, just to understand the abyss between the two nations w.r.t the commitment to freedom of the citizens. 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

Next Page > The Motive

B. The job hazard

The degradation of journalistic values started right from the first paper - Hicky's Bengal gazette albeit as part of Hicky's eccentric enthusiasm to expose the British.  In his columns he wrote several criticisms of the persons in high positions and even soldiers and justices not just about their corruption but also about their personal lives. This transformation of reportage into yellow journalism has turned him against the then governor-general Warren Hastings. As a result he was awarded imprisonment and fine. Later Hicky's paper died and he himself died in extreme penury.

Of course his exposure of the east India company's exploitation of India was of much bigger concern to the administration, but his deliberate inclination towards cheap journalism was absolutely unpardonable in a profession such as this and so he became a minion in front of the all mighty administration.

The point to be noted is that the whole job of reportage demands truth to be disseminated to the masses with utmost journalistic standards. And the inherent contradiction of the entire job is that, any form of control to sustain these standards could reduce the reliability of the news itself. Only a high level of personal discipline can produce unbiased reportage. This is where Hicky failed miserably in discharging his duty and has succumbed to the perils of such an uncontrolled and unrestrained professional setup called the press.

The urge to monetize news and push views into the facts and sensationalize the actual story is what is called presstitution and this parallel profession is as old as prostitution if not so rewarding till the times of Indian emergency of 1975.

Monetizing news at the expense of truth and for unworthy and biased motives to achieve personal or professional gains is what will convert press to presstitution.

This is primary job hazard that every reporter has to deal with every moment.

The art of story telling is the primary skill that is needed for a journalist but he cannot and shall not leave the boundary of truth whatsoever. The urge to cross limits to sensationalize by propositions and judgments bypassing the limits of truth will result in unimaginable effects to those involved in the story and also change the outcome of the perception of truth in the reader's mind and ultimately that of the communities and societies at large.

The perception of truth in an individual's mind is the outcome of news reporting, but the unwritten rule is not to fiddle with the truth. It's perception of truth but not it's contrivation or interpretation that counts in a high valued reportage.

This is where editorship plays a key role to identify and eliminate such blunders from creeping into the reportage. The original editorial rules framed would have been evolved much further if at all this cardinal rule of reportage was followed, but unfortunately corrupt practices and substandard acts have not only created bad news agencies but also equally ignorant and corrupt masses, as a result of chain of reactions in a vulnerable yet unsuspecting setup such as a democracy.

Next Page > The Inception

A. Introduction

The first newspaper in India was published in 1780 by James Hicky, an Irishman. It was named the "Bengal Gazette". It announced itself a "weekly political & commercial paper open to all parties and influenced by none". Most of the paper was occupied by advertisements. It's circulation was 200 copies.

By 1792 about 10 news papers  were launched through India, of which 3 weeklies were from kolkata.

In 1799 East India administration passed regulation to increase it's control over the press.

The Times Of India was started by Mr.Knight in 1861, later in 1875 he started 'The Statesman'.

Around the same time another paper 'Amrit Bazar Patrika' was able to establish itself in Kolkata.

Amrit Bazar Patrika inspired the freedom fighter Lokamanya Tilak to start 'Kesari' in Pune.

He used Kesari to start anti-cow slaughter societies and ganesh mandals and revived chatrapathi shivaji cult.

An important observation of this period of press is that the english dailies were loyal to the British govt, while the vernacular press was strongly Nationalist.

The big English dailies were "The Times Of India", "Statesman", "Calcutta Gazette", "Indian Gazette", "Bengal Journal", "The Asiatic Miscellany", "Madras Courier", "Calcutta  Chronicle", "The Asiatic Mirror".

The vernacular national papers were "Kesari", "Bande Mataram", "Kal", "Shakti", "Bombay Samachar", "The Brahmanical Magazine" and the "Bengal Gazette".

During this period more papers were run by the British. It must be noted that there were distinctly two camps of press represented by the British on one side and by the Indian owned press on the other.

The British always tried to suppress the Indian press with their regulations and even their own nationals who supported Indian nationalism were not spared.

The British enacted Vernacular Press Act - 1878, to suppress the Indian newspapers.

Later a series of acts and regulations were created to contain the freedom of the nationalist press even till the time of Independence.

1907 : Arrests and prosecution against journalists & press.

1910 : Indian Press Act - Asked for heavy security deposits.

1914-1918 : The same Indian Press Act was executed on the papers who were not on the British side in the first world war.

1919 : Jallianwala bagh massacre hit the Indian press further.

1942 - till Independence in 1947 : Suppression of the press continued.

Interestingly, even after Independence the suppression of the press continued.

Jawaharlal Nehru who was an active journalist during freedom movement, was surprisingly unhappy with the press freedom.

Several new acts to contain the press freedom were formed over the years after framing the constitution of India.

1954 : Press Commission

1955 : Working Journalists Act

1956 : News Paper Act

1965 : Establishment of Press Council

After Nehru, Indira Gandi contributed to further reduce the press freedom. Apart from declaring a state of Emergency in 1975, she horrendously stamped the iron foot on the press.

Article 19(1) a - freedom of press was ignored.

Heavy censorship was done in the name of ;maintaining public order'.

1975, Dec 8th ordinance - banned press council, banned all publications.

In the 21 months of emergency - 253 journalists were detained and 7 foreign correspondents were expelled.

Emergency is precisely the point at which journalism slipped into the abyss of disgrace.

A degenerative metamorphosis has started in the Indian journalism with this incident, where its DNA was entirely replaced with corruption, business interest  and pro-congress bias that changed itself into a dangerous and untamed anti national force that it has now become.

From the budding desire of James Hiky in exposing the east India company's exploitation of India to shameless peddling of lies and vested interest, journalism today in India has become nothing more than a network of news traders who live on peoples' trust only to push them into darkness.

News trading in the name of journalism is happening daily in front of our eyes with our own choice and that is something to be recognized and stopped for the well-being of this great nation.

This text contains the story of the degeneration of journalism to it's current form and the current & future threats it poses to this nation.

This effort is to enlighten the reader about the ongoing assault by the news traders in destroying journalism and our perception of reality to ultimately control our legislative, judicial systems all with a single motive - to take away this nation from it's citizens.

Journalism needs to be brought back, and that can only happen by removing the veil of journalism from the face of news-trading.

Next Page > The job hazard