To Be Or Not To Be Neutral

The last five days in India will go down in our history for the manner in which the government has handled the farmers’ protest.

Indians pride themselves as being the largest democracy and yes, going by the size of our population, we happen to be. But then, are we a democracy? Do we deserve to be one? How many of you have been besieged with the idea that what this country needs is a brief dalliance with a military rule? We may just be inching closer to that dream, going by the developments in our country.

The last five days in India will go down in our history for the manner in which the government has handled the farmers’ protest. Thanks to technology, we have audio, video, photographic evidence that can never be obliterated from our history books until kingdom come, even though ‘bhakts’ may want to look away. Just prior to the weekend and till Monday, the country has witnessed arrests, the blocking of the internet, restrictions on mobile phone services, social media handles being withheld, roads being barricaded and there’s more to follow. Meanwhile, our dear Prime Minister Narendra Modi has safely expressed ‘deep concern’ over the military coup in Myanmar.

Manic Monday

Remember that top-of-the-pops number by The Bangles of yore – ‘Manic Monday’?That was the song that came to my mind as we saw barbed wires, fat nails being cemented in and barricades placed on roads for the farmers protesting at the Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri borders. One could have mistaken this for the Pakistan, nay the China border, but this is what the farmers must cross, in order to access toilets.

As the day began unfolding, more manic news unfolded. A hashtag that pointed towards a strategy by the Prime Minister against the farmers had begun going around. Nervous that it would become viral, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology directed Twitter, to block 250 tweets and many accounts, including those of Shashi Shekhar Vepati, the CEO of the government-run broadcasting agency, Prasar Bharti. The Twitter handles of many journalists, the magazine Caravan, Hansraj Meena, Sanjukta Basu, Sushant Singh – in all, 250 were blocked by Twitter India. The two official handles of the farmers’ protests, @Kisan Ekta Morcha and @Tractor2Twitr were blocked.

Prior to this, by the weekend, in three Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, sedition charges were filed against Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, Senior Consulting Editor of National Herald Mrinal Pande, India Today journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor of Quami Azad Zafar Agha, Editor-in-chief of Caravan magazine Paresh Nath, Caravan Editor Anant Nath and its Executive Editor Vinod K Jose and one unnamed person, for sharing “unverified” news during the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi on January 26. They have been blamed by the Uttar Pradesh government for instigating violence on January 26, after a 25-year-old farmer, Navreet Singh, died. Singh had tried to plough his tractor through the barricades, when, it has been alleged, a gunshot was heard and his tractor turned turtle. Singh died on the spot. Delhi Police have denied any involvement in his death and the Government, meanwhile, pressed charges against the nine journalists. There were people who filmed the scene and his relatives have claimed he was killed by a bullet. The Guardian reports, Dr Basil Purdue, a pathologist registered with the UK Home Office examined the footage and post mortem shown to him and he says the cause of death was due to one or possibly two gunshot wounds.

Neutrality in journalism

All these incidents that we have witnessed will promptly make us question the decisions of the authorities and rightly so. Again, because we are told we are a democracy. Then, the basic rights that we have been told we do have under the Constitution of India: Right to protest peacefully, the right to ask questions, disseminate information, to be a watchdog and most of all, question the actions of the authorities. The fourth pillar of our democracy is the media and they have the right to ask questions.

Now, when these rights are being systematically diluted or even being denied, what should the media do? Should it be a meek observer, obediently taking notes and must its denizens discuss matters over a drink, or should it stand up and perform its basic duty of informing the public, as it is the primary source of information for the people? Till now, few editors have been trying to do a fine balancing act, or at least that is the impression being conveyed. While others have gone on to question the actions of the popular government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. When the media sits on a fence, we fool ourselves, saying it is being ‘neutral’. Our role is not only to present events and facts but when informing, specify the roles of all the players, who have specifically done or said what and put it in perspective. That is our job and we cannot shirk it under the claim of being neutral. Being neutral is also done selectively Most of all, the media is not to be seen taking up for the Government and sounding like its mouthpiece.

Now, there have been discussions and debates on whether technology is neutral.

Is technology neutral?

Can technology be biased? Renowned author Noam Chomsky has said, “As far as the technology itself and education is concerned, technology is basically neutral. It’s like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house or whether on torture, using it to crush somebody’s skull, the hammer can do either.” George Veletsianos, while discussing Chomsky’s techno-neutral point elaborates, “For example, social networking sites (SNS) structure relationships in specific ways (e.g., followers, friends) and perceive privacy in different ways. Technologies hold particular views of the world, and in this way, they are not neutral.” Basically, technology is developed by people and the human brain is loaded with emotions, values and experiences. The developers of any platform are individuals with certain mindsets and values and they can have biases built into the technology, and in that sense, they are not neutral. We have been seeing that Twitter does not have one particular policy or value system. Forget that they banned the US ex-President Donald Trump, here in India, they are following the BJP-led government’s diktat.

It was only in December 2020 that Twitter, for the first time in India, flagged a BJP leader for false news. The next day after BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya tweeted an edited clip of farmers’ protest, Twitter flagged it as ‘manipulated media’. On many previous occasions, the BJP leaders and ministers have tweeted either false information or fake pictures/videos. Take the example of Piyush Goyal, Minister of State for Power, Coal, Energy and Mines, who had, on August 21, 2017, tweeted a photo about a street-lighting programme by the Indian government, using the photo of a street in Russia. In fact, in March 2018, Twiplomacy took a survey and claimed 60% of PM Modi’s followers were found to be fake. It is no surprise then that last month when Twitter banned Trump, among the loudest noises made were those by the BJP leaders.

Good journalism

In the current milieu, when society is polarised and so is the media, there is no harm if the media takes sides, based on good journalism. Yes, that is possible if all facts are covered, all sides are given a hearing and the truth is told. John Harris, in his opinion piece, ‘If journalists take sides, who will speak to power?’ has covered this dichotomy well. “Even partisan commentary can be rooted in the principles of good journalism, so long as it does not ignore uncomfortable facts, blindly offer support to parties or leaders, or distort actuality to score political points. More than that, though, the idea of journalism as a route to the truth is every bit as worthwhile as it ever was,” said Harris.

Journalists are witnesses to and part of the developments/changes occurring and I strongly believe in asking pointed questions, backed with data, facts and figures, and if that makes me not neutral, I am happy to be so. We cannot place both the sides and then ask the citizens to decide, which they did twice. The voices of stray opposition were overpowered by the strongly biased majority while mute observers juggled to remain balanced, forcing us to accept the vote of the majority. In such a state, the question remains then: Are we really neutral?

Right now, as the government reacts to tweets by celebrities like Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and Mia Khalifa, while the Bollywood gang and cricketers copy-pasted the government version, it is time to take a stand and call out the wrong. The farmers protesting definitely need our support. Media will be tested all the while, the time we took notice.

Neeta Kolhatkar is a senior journalist with over 30 years of work experience across different media platforms. She is currently a freelancer and media consultant.

(Views Expressed Are Personal)