(The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.)
Dilemma over restricting speech
Stories matter. Research by an American firm that picked holes in the story of the Adani Group, a BBC documentary that raked up the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Chief Minister of the State, a controversy that is raging through U.P. and Bihar over Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas all point to this basic fact – stories matter.
People watching the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” screened by CITU at Petta Junction in Kochi. | Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat
Since stories matter, those in power want to control the stories using the power they have. Not that the state is always successful in controlling narratives. The BBC documentary that the Indian Government tried to control seem to have got more visibility, ironically, because of the efforts to suppress it. The Government of India did not come out openly in defence of the Adani Group, and the slide in its stock value continued.
The government’s claim to be final arbiters of fact has to be seen in this context.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed an amendment to Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the IT Regulations 2021 (Guidelines for Digital Media Intermediaries and Code of Ethics). The proposed rule would require social media platforms to remove false content that has been “fact-checked” by the Fact-Checking Unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB). The proposed modification to the IT Rules grants permission for such takedowns to the PIB or any other organisation that has been authorised by the Central Government for fact verification. The fact-check unit of the Press Information Bureau’s mandate is to investigate the veracity of only content related to Central Government ministries and organisations, the government later clarified. However, that does not end the controversy. A genuine journalistic work often questions the claims of the government. How will it work if the government now decides to be the final decision maker of what is acceptable as news?
This has serious ramifications for free speech and knowledge on many levels. The Indian Newspaper Society and the Editors Guild of India have pointed out the bizarre situation of the government sitting on judgment of reports on it.
Can the determination of fake news be in the hands of the government alone? Will it not lead to censorship of the press? Fake news and misinformation are real problems that need solution. How will we resolve this? Could we let the media or influencers self-regulate? The reality is that popular influencers, politicians, and platforms are often the wellsprings of fake news and misinformation. Liberals often ask the government to control speech in interest of social harmony.
Recently, the Supreme Court said it was the duty of the government to stop hate speech. “We would not have liked the government to come in at all, but in certain areas when religious freedom, harmony and orderly progress is gravely affected, it has to intervene,” said Justice K.M. Joseph. “This [hate speech] is a complete menace, nothing short of it,” he said. During the hearing, the court highlighted the problem of hate speech on television. It said that TV channels and their anchors have become tools to peddle particular “agendas” through the powerful visual medium, creating divisiveness and violent instincts in the society to win their TRP (or television rating point) wars.
This week, the Supreme Court is hearing another petition that seeks restrictions on a meeting being organised in Mumbai by a radical Hindu outfit. The Solicitor General of India said the state has the entire gamut of laws under its power, to restrict speech if necessary.
Whose ‘Ramcharitmanas’ is it anyway?
Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya addresses a press conference, at his residence, in Lucknow. | Photo Credit: ANI
Talking of narratives, the Ramcharitmanas is at the centre of a raging debate in the Hindi heartland of Bihar and U.P., after several OBC politicians called it out as a scripture that demeaned shudras and women.
It was Bihar Education Minister and senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Chandrashekhar who triggered the debate by stating that the Ramcharitmanas, an epic poem based on the Ramayana, Manusmriti, an ancient Sanskrit text, and Bunch of Thoughts, authored by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue M.S. Golwalkar, “spread hatred in society”. “It is mentioned in the Ramcharitmanas that people from the lower caste become poisonous if education is imparted to them.
In U.P., Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former Minister Swami Prasad Maurya followed suit by echoing the Bihar minister’s view. Now an FIR has been filed against him at the Hazratganj Police station in Lucknow over his remarks on the ‘ Ramcharitmanas’.
While some BJP leaders are protesting, there is no organised reaction from the party to silence the OBC leaders or question the substance of the allegation, which points to its dependency on OBC votes.
