Friday (May 3) is World Press Freedom Day. It is a day on which to reflect on and review the performance of the Indian media—not just the print media, but also the electronic one.
Historically, the media arose in the 18th century in Western Europe as an organ of the people against feudal oppression. At that time, all the organs of power were in the hands of the feudal authorities (kings, aristocrats, etc.). Hence the people had to create new organs that could represent their interests, and the media (which was then only print media) was one of these new organs, which enabled the people to fight feudalism.
Great writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, John Wilkes and Junius (whose real name we still do not know) used the media (in the form of pamphlets, leaflets, etc.) to attack religious bigotry and feudal autocracy.
At that time, the media represented the voice of the future, as contrasted to the feudal organs, which wanted to preserve the status quo. Hence, it played a progressive role and greatly helped in the transformation of feudal Europe to modern Europe.
In India, there were great journalists like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who through his newspapers Sambad Kaumudi and Mirat-ul-Akhbar, fought against inhuman practices like Sati and promoted widow remarriage, among other things. In the 20th century, there were Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, Nikhil Chakraborty and others who bravely criticised British rule in India. Even today, we have P. Sainath, who almost single-handedly exposed the truth of large-scale farmers suicides in India; Siddharth Varadarajan, Karan Thapar and others, who have done many exposes of the 'high-ups'.
But apart from these exceptions, what about the rest? Regrettably, it must be said that most journalists today are sold out, and hardly doing their duty to the people.
Today, most of the media diverts attention of the people from the real issues facing India. These include problems such as massive poverty, record unemployment (as admitted by the National Sample Survey), large-scale farmers suicides (over 300,000 by last count) that are continuing unabated, appalling level of child malnourishment (47 per cent of Indian children are malnourished, a figure far higher than that of the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa), prevalence of anaemia among nearly 50 per cent of Indian women and almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses.
Instead, most of the coverage by our media is of the lives of film stars, cricket, fashion parades, astrology and petty politics (e.g., Ali and Bajrangbali). TV is perhaps the greater offender than the print media, and what is often seen there is irresponsible jingoism, war-mongering and pretence of ultra-nationalism, branding all who disagree with anchors, like Lord Haw-Haw did, as being anti-national, 'Tukde Tukde gang' or urban Naxals.
Paid news, incidents like the Radia tapes and other issues are well-known malpractices. Regrettably, it has to be said that this is what many professed journalists, who strut around like peacocks, pretending to be 'intellectuals' have brought the profession down to.
During the Emergency (1975-77), the media, in the words of L.K. Advani, crawled when it was only asked to bend. In recent times, even without an Emergency, much of the media has done shaashtang (lay prostrate), abandoning its duty to the people.
I will conclude by quoting the immortal words of justice Hugo Black, former judge of the US Supreme Court, in his judgement in New York Times vs United States, to remind the media of its solemn duty to the people, a duty it seems to have forgotten:
"In the First Amendment, the founding fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfil its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The government's power to censure the press was abolished, so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.
In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose, which the founding fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of the government, which led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the founders hoped and trusted they would do."
Justice Markandey Katju retired from the Supreme Court in 2011
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK