The absence of something in the media is often not noted, especially in election season. But this morning, some readers of English newspapers in Mumbai, the city where I live, might have noticed the absence of Narendra Modi on their front pages. Barring The Indian Express, which had a front-page advertisement by a TV channel about an “exclusive” interview with the prime minister, a story on increased GST collections literally trumped anything Modi might have said the day before.
He still features in all newspapers because he has not ceased making controversial, and therefore newsworthy, declarations.
In this last fortnight, since my previous column, Modi’s speeches have dominated the news cycle. Beginning with his provocative, inaccurate and hate-filled speech in Banswara, Rajasthan on April 21, where he called Indian Muslims “infiltrators” and declared that the Congress planned to give away the ordinary person’s hard-earned money to those “who have many children”, Modi has continued daily to make statements that have featured prominently in the media.
This is probably a well-calibrated media strategy by the BJP to ensure that the dominant narrative in these elections remains focused on what Modi says. It also ensures that the Congress party, the focus of Modi’s attacks, must constantly counter everything he says. Its response, however, rarely gets the same prominence as Modi’s statements.
Given the extent of the prime minister’s half-truths and outright lies in the last fortnight, it is incumbent on the media to fact-check. This has not been a norm in mainstream media and in the last decade, since the BJP and Modi came to power, such fact-checking is notable for its absence.
However, in recent days, at least some in mainstream media are doing what ought to be routine. Perhaps this is happening because it is election season, and even though the outcome seems predetermined according to political pundits, there is always a sliver of uncertainty.
Some newspapers, like The Hindu, ran a fact-check after Modi’s Banswara speech, especially on what he claimed was in the Congress party’s election manifesto. Scroll called out Modi’s lies in a clear and incisive article headlined: “Fact-checking five days of Narendra Modi’s speeches: A catalogue of lies”. And even a mainstream TV channel like Aaj Tak, not known for being even slightly critical of Modi in the last decade, ventured to point out rather gently that what he had stated in Banswara was not based on facts.
Ironically, Modi’s statements turned into a bonus for the Congress as journalists and ordinary voters began downloading its manifesto and reading it. Election manifestos are rarely the subject of any prolonged discussion in the media.
Apart from these fact-checks, there were also a couple of strong editorials, such as this one in The Hindu. Yet, despite the reporting and comment on Modi’s speeches, and complaints by the Congress and concerned citizens, the Election Commission of India took its time to decide whether what he said violated the Model Code of Conduct. As has been extensively reported, instead of sending Modi a notice in response to the complaints, the EC chose to skirt around the issue by sending a notice to BJP chief JP Nadda. Simultaneously, and perhaps attempting to appear even-handed, it also sent a notice to the president of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, in response to speeches by Rahul Gandhi and Kharge during the campaign. At the time of writing, there have been no further developments on these notices.
Moving away from Modi and his election speeches, the other major story this last fortnight was the sex abuse controversy involving Prajwal Revanna, the MP from Hassan who belongs to the Janata Dal (Secular), founded by former prime minister HD Deva Gowda, who also happens to be Revanna’s grandfather. He is the JDS candidate again for the same seat.
Mainstream media’s response to this terrible scandal, where literally hundreds of women appear on recordings where they are being sexually abused by Revanna, needs to be noted. While the media has focused on the tapes, their provenance, how they were made public, the motives of the people who did this, and the impact of this on the BJP which has partnered with the JDS in Karnataka, little attention has been paid to the women who were at the receiving end.
The story that must be investigated is not just why Revanna recorded these abuses, or how those tapes got out, but the system that allows these powerful men to exploit powerless women. It is precisely this imbalance in the power structure that led to global focus on sexual harassment at work in 2018, including in India, following the exposé by the Washington Post and the New Yorker about Hollywood producer and serial abuser Harvey Weinstein. The outrage then led to many more exposés. It also resulted in demands for change in the system that permitted this type of exploitation to continue unchecked.
The Revanna scandal, and earlier Sandeshkhali in Bengal, tell us that not enough is known yet about the extent of sexual exploitation within the political system. Even if it is known, it has not been exposed. Incidentally, while many mainstream television channels focused on the Sandeshkhali scandal, where women had allegedly been sexually abused by politicians belonging to the governing Trinamool Congress in the state, they have barely touched the Revanna scandal. The JDS is an ally of the BJP in Karnataka whereas the TMC is fighting the BJP in Bengal.
This seamy side of Indian politics and political parties is a story that has barely been told. There are a few instances that pop up now and then. But the message from the Revanna episode is that in a situation where the power equation is so grossly skewed as in India, women without power are silently bearing the worst kind of sexual exploitation. It is a terrible indictment of our system and needs to be thoroughly exposed.
Let me end with the other absence that mainstream media has yet to fully rectify, its reporting on Manipur. May 3 marks one year since the beginning of the ethnic strike that has divided the state, where thousands have been displaced, and several hundred killed. The violence has not abated and continues almost every day.
It is a time for us in the media to introspect. To what extent has our sporadic coverage of the troubles in this north-eastern state over this year, contributed to the union government’s callous indifference to Manipur?
There have been spurts of media focus on Manipur, such as in June last year, when the May 3 incident of two Kuki women being paraded naked and thereafter raped by a mob of Meitei men became public with the release of a tape of this incident. Or more recently, because of the violence that occurred during the elections. But regular reporting in mainstream media on the horrific levels of daily violence and difficulties that ordinary people on both sides of the divide encounter has been largely missing.
In fact, the complete story of what happened on May 3 is only just beginning to emerge. The Indian Express in a front-page story on April 30 – headlined, “Manipur chargesheet: Women paraded naked made it to police Gypsy but told no key, left to the mob” – tells us the extent to which the local police were complicit. The story is based on a chargesheet filed by the CBI, which is investigating the incident, last October in the Gauhati High Court.
A more detailed piece by Makepeace Sitlhou in Article 14 tells us what the survivors of this assault are going through. Together, these articles remind us that the price of the media ignoring the tragedy that has unfolded in Manipur is being paid every day by the people in the state who have survived the violence.
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