The India media is the subject of the news yet again. This time though, the private news channels — the usual suspects – are only reporting the news. Instead, the latest war of words among politicians has thrown the public service broadcaster, Doordarshan, into the limelight.
Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was interviewed by Doordarshan, and it appears that comments he made about a friendship with a senior member of the ruling Indian National Congress were edited out of the final interview. The news broke on social media, and immediately the channel was accused of censoring the statements that might make Congress seem too chummy with their sworn opposition.
The CEO of Doordarshan, Jawhar Sircar, in a letter to the board of Prasar Bharti, the autonomous body that runs the channel, made it very clear that the public broadcaster does indeed suffer from government interference. Reportedly, Sircar wrote in his letter that there has been a lost opportunity to convince a “young minister to break this long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division, which has continued unabated long after Prasar Bharati was born and assigned its distinct role in 1997”. This is a direct reference to the current Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Manish Tewari. In the same report, carried by the Economic Times, a member of the Congress have rubbished this claim, saying that Sircar is “merely currying favour with the new dispensation as he had never raised the issue of autonomy earlier”.
Narendra Modi interview isn’t the first time Sircar has brought up the question of autonomy for the broadcaster. Sircar’s personal website carried news items relating to “freeing Prasar Bharti from government control”, papers that suggest DD could follow the BBC’s annual license fee model, as well as older news items about how the channel, under the Congress-led UPA government has previously neglected to give Narendra Modi the kind of airtime the private channels have accorded. For his part, Minister Tewari has made a statement that “autonomy of Prasar Bharti is guaranteed by an act of Parliament. I&B ministry has an arms length relationship with Prasar Bharti”.
One can be sure the complaints about airtime will be flipped around if another party forms the government. Therefore, politics aside, the basic question needs to be addressed: despite an autonomous status, does the government in fact wield undue influence over Prasar Bharti (which includes radio as well)?
The current structure of the public broadcaster stands as such: the Prasar Bharti is an autonomous body that answers to the Parliament of India through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. All of its staff are officers recruited through the Union Public Service Commission, and are transferred to their positions at Prasar Bharti after having served in other government departments. There is belief that this might be the reason for the “government” mindset shown in the two directorates under the body; All India Radio or Akashvani, and Doordarshan, the television broadcaster. In fact, till 1997, both had been directly under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, but had been given this separation to be able to function in a “fair, objective and creative manner”.
The government had appointed a committee under Sam Pitroda, a man who is credited for helping Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi bring the telecom revolution to India in the 1980s, to present a report on the function of Prasar Bharti. The report batted for more autonomy for the broadcaster, but went further and suggested that it also be open to use private sources of funding and monetizing its assets. In an event to release the report, Pitroda said that the broadcaster must “look at public interest and not just government interest”. Along with input on technology, human resource and content, the two volume report (which had the current CEO as a member) also delves into government and organisation. The suggestions include transferring complete ownership and management of assets to Prasar Bharti to make the organisation administratively and financially autonomous of the government, and setting up a regulatory body to ensure public accountability of all content on their radio and television networks, while acknowledging that the state does have a distinct requirement to “broadcast messages and accomplishments of public interest which can be met by using existing public and private broadcaster infrastructure”.
The report was submitted to the government in February 2014, and is “under consideration”. It will be up to the next government, to be formed in mid-May, to take action, especially in light of the recent controversy.
Not all are convinced of real change taking place on the ground. In editorial a few months before the report was released, the Pioneer suggested that “the Government supports the idea of an autonomous public broadcaster, in practice it has never been able to let go. Unless this fundamental dichotomy is resolved —either the Government gives up control or relinquishes the autonomy idea — the Government will continue to have a complicated relationship with Prasar Bharati, no matter how many expert committees it sets up. In the meantime, the tax-payer-funded broadcaster will continue to drain the exchequer and be of even less use to the public.” Others, such as media analyst Sevanti Ninan of The Hoot even questioned the genuine interest the government has in reforming the broadcaster by initiating the Pitroda expert committee, asking: “I don’t know why they are undertaking this just before the elections time because if there are radical recommendations there is no time to implement them.” In an article on the subject she addresses the crucial question of attracting talent, writing that “to attract the best personnel the salary/ package should be linked with the market compensation. The tenure of full time members should be for a period of five years and for the Independent Directors for a period of three years. So, no more pegging salaries at a level that only attracts applications from former government personnel. The CEO of Prasar Bharati so far, in its 16 years of existence, has always been a former IAS officer.” There are also serious updates needed in technology upgradation, content and presentation of the news.
For the moment, Doordarshan is thinking about probing into the matter of the edited Narendra Modi interview. But the larger problem cannot be solved on a case-to-case basis. Since 1996, Pitroda’s would be the fourth panel the government has created to look into this issue of Prasar Bharti. It would well be worth the effort for a new government to give the public service broadcaster to the public.
India was among the few governments that did not sign the NETmundial outcome statement. But why does it seem that the world’s largest democracy is not putting its weight behind a “bottom-up, open, and participatory” multistakeholder process?
In his address to the NETmundial gathering, Vinay Kwatra, the official Indian representative said, “We recognize the important role that various stakeholders play in the cyber domain, and welcome involvement of all legitimate stakeholders in the deliberative and decision making process. Internet is used for transactions of core economic, civil and defence assets at national level and in the process, countries are placing their core national security interests in this medium. Now with such expansive coverage of States’ activities through the internet, the role of the governments in the Internet governance, of course in close collaboration and consultation with other stakeholders is an imperative.”
The message was clear. The internet has a large role to play in India’s national policy goals, and to that end, a global internet governance ecosystem has to be managed, at the international level, by multilateral mechanisms.
India has over 200 million Internet users — with about 52 million subscriptions — over 900 million mobile telephone subscribers. These numbers are only going to grow. Kwatra, continuing his address, added that, “On our part, however, we would have liked to some of important principles and ideas, highlighted by us and many other countries reflected in the draft outcome document… (we) look forward to constructively engaging with other delegations in collectively contribute to making the Internet open, dynamic and secure, and its governance balanced between rights and responsibilities of all its stakeholders.” (sic)
Kwatra was speaking, of course, at NETmundial, dubbed the “world cup of internet governance.” Held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on April 23-24, 2014, the conference was announced by Brazil President Dilma Rousseff. The entire chain of events can be traced back to the revelations by Edward Snowden that the US’s National Security Agency had been spying on its own citizens and other countries alike, including the personal communication of President Rousseff. In a heated statement at the UN General Assembly in September 2013, she called for the UN to oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the “freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights” and the “neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.
Soon, after a brief consultation with Fadi Chehade in October 2013, the head of ICANN — Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – an organization thatcoordinates the Internet’s global domain name system, the dates of NETmundial was announced. And to add expectation to the event, in March 2014, the the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its intent to transition key internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. It clarified that it would not hand over ICANN to any government-led body. Suddenly, NETmundial gained weight as it was to be the next international forum where the future of internet governance was to be debated – and now one of the organizations government a part of the internet was in play. A far cry from what President Rousseff had suggested in the UN General Assembly, instead of talking about an international legal regime to govern cyberspace, the focus of the meeting turned to multistakeholderism as the way forward in the sphere of internet governance.
The draft outcome statement and the subsequent final outcome state released after the two-day conference is a result of 180 input documents and 1300 comments from over 47 countries, and the work of the 1229 delegates from 97 countries who attended NETmundial. India had an official delegation as well as civil society participants who attended the meeting. In fact, an Indian academic was chosen to co-chair the organizing committee for civil society for the event. Remote participations hubs were set up in cities around the country, including Gurgaon, Chennai and Bangalore. Within the Indian contingent too, as with any large country, there are divergent views on the governance framework to be taken for the internet, with those who support the governments view for multilateralism at the international level and multistakeholderism at home, and those who oppose the official view and encourage an international multistakeholder regime.
The final statement – though non-binding – has squarely put its weight behind multistakeholderism. It talks about protecting the ‘rights that people have offline, must be protected online… in accordance with international human rights legal obligations.’ It also champions cultural and linguist diversity, which was part of India’s official submission to NETmundial. However, when the document starts to tilt towards governance structure is where it diverges from the official Indian position, with language such as – “internet governance institutions and processes should be inclusive and open to all interested stakeholders. Processes, including decision making, should be bottom-up, enabling the full involvement of all stakeholders, in a way that does not disadvantage any category of stakeholder.”
In the crucial area of cyber jurisdiction, it says, ‘It is necessary to strengthen international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime. Discussions about those frameworks should be held in a multistakeholder manner.’ On surveillance, the most controversial topic from 2013 which prompted the Netmundial meeting in the first place, the document says, ‘Mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance ecosystem. Collection and processing of personal data by state and non-state actors should be conducted in accordance with international human rights law. More dialogue is needed on this topic at the international level using forums like the Human Rights Council and IGF aiming to develop a common understanding on all the related aspects.’
The reaction to Netmundial has been varied, depending on whom you ask. There are those who have hailed it as a first positive step towards a multistakeholder process, and are encouraged to find that participants found more things to agree on than disagree. The US called it a “huge success”. The European Commission felt Netmundial put it on the “right track.” Many big businesses released statements indicating they were pleased at the outcome. The civil society group at Netmundial expressed ‘deep disappointment’ that the outcome statement did not address key concerns like surveillance and net neutrality. Others commentators hailed it a big success for big business as it was able to ‘grab the ball on three important points: intellectual property; net neutrality; and intermediary liability’.
In a sense, India’s refusal to sign the outcome statement, and instead take back to its stakeholders seems to be completely aligned with its stated view of the internet. If, as documentation suggests, the internet is being viewed by India as not merely an open, free, global commons that should remain untouched by any major governmental control, but instead a resource that needs to reflect the values of an ‘equinet’ – a platform for commerce, e-governance, national security mechanism to be achieved through fair playing rules established by a ‘globally acceptable legal regime’ and a ‘new cyber jurisprudence’, then there is a long battle ahead. The official Indian argument does not need to be viewed through the lens that presupposes it wishes to inflict censorship in the manner that an authoritarian government might. The argument must be weighed on the merits of this line of thought – that for Indian netizens, business, and even state surveillance to survive, it must be the government who reflects the national interest in international platforms, after having consulted stakeholders back home.
It certainly seems that the weight and development of a billion people sits heavy on the shoulders of the Indian government. The question is: does it need to lead them to the world wide web, or can they find it themselves?
The cauldron has always been simmering, despite abundant shibboleths about this election not being about hate or Hindutva (the communal political ideology of the Hindu Right wing) but about development.
Therefore it came as no surprise when on 19 April, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) International President Praveen Togadia exhorted a mob in Bhavnagar to storm a house which had recently been purchased by a Muslim businessman. And in case he refused to vacate the house within 48 hours, Togadia raged, go after him with stones and tyres. After all, since those who went on the rampage in the 1984 Delhi riots have enjoyed impunity, there’s nothing to fear, he thundered. Ram Madhav, a senior functionary of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), stoutly defended Togadia. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi have remain tight-lipped about the entire affair.
It is unfortunate, alarming, but true that hate propaganda has always yielded rich political dividends, and the BJP and its allies of the Hindu right have been frontrunners in making the most of it. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Election Commission, the supreme authority in charge of managing and conducting polls, has been woefully inept at dealing with this malaise. Consider this, Amit Shah, Modi’s henchman and campaign manager, got away with a mere censure after egging on people in riot-torn Muzaffarnagar to vote for the BJP if they wanted revenge on Muslims.
The fault doesn’t lie with the Election Commission, though. It is the lacunae in the laws which allow the purveyors of hate and bigotry to have a free hand. India’s election law prescribes a “Model Code of Conduct” which prohibits incendiary speeches, especially those pandering to religion and seeking to stir up communal violence. But mere prohibition, without adequate authority for imposing meaningful punishment which acts as a deterrent, is not of much use. And it is here where the commission’s hands are tied. The code does not have any legal teeth, so a candidate caught delivering hate speeches cannot be debarred. For instance, in 2009, Modi had a crowd baying for the blood of Muslims, but the commission’s chief stated that he couldn’t do much except “rebuke”.
The cynical subterfuge adopted by political parties aggravates the situation. Immediate legal action is ruled out, since the law permits a candidate’s election to be challenged only after the results are declared, thereby giving ample opportunity to the poisonous tree of hate to bear its bitter fruit. In the meanwhile, the offenders parrot vehement denials, knowing very well that dilatory tactics only work in their favour. Modi did it 2002, engaging in protracted sparring with the Indian Supreme Court, and in 2007, the BJP’s rebuttal of charges of having widely disseminated a CD containing communally inflammatory speeches fell apart only when a sting operation by an investigative journalism magazine exposed all the lies.
More insidious than explicitly incendiary speeches is what can be termed as religious electioneering, that is, canvassing for votes in the name of religion. It’s a tried and tested strategy of the BJP and its allies, particularly militant Hindu organisations like the RSS and VHP. This is usually done by glorifying Hinduism and pandering to a manufactured sense of victimhood, which, in the political arena, inevitably morphs into vilification of “the other”, “the minorities” — Muslims and Christians, primarily the former. In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh in central India, the RSS distributed pamphlets urging Hindus to vote in full strength in order to put the minorities in their place. The supreme court is primarily to blame for this state of affairs, because in a 1996 decision, it erroneously conflated Hinduism with the communal political ideology of Hindutva and acquitted a demagogue notorious for his Islamophobic screed.
It would be a mistake to believe that hate speech is the sole preserve of the militant Hindu Right. Azam Khan, representing the Samajwadi Party, remains defiant about his tirade, while Akbaruddin Owaisi, experienced in the politics of hate, remains unscathed due to the patronage and skulduggery of the Congress.
The Togadia saga isn’t over yet. Going by standard modus operandi, not only has he has alleged a political conspiracy to frame him, but has also slapped a legal notice on the television channels and newspaper which reported his Saturday’s labours. Senior journalists from these channels, however, are standing their ground, contending they have video footage to prove his culpability.
Optimistic about better politics? Look at 21 April, Mumbai. With Modi on the dais, a political ally boasts that he would be the best one to teach Muslims a lesson. And the man being hailed as the next prime minister “disapproves” of “petty statements” by the likes of Togadia.
