Censorship,
Media and Democracy in India
By Rajeev Dhavan |
One of the distinct contributions of the twentieth
century is to place democracy as a primary goal of
good governance. Yet, democracy eludes us in more
ways than one. The object of a democracy is to ensure
that people govern themselves either directly or through
their duly elected representatives. But elections
only initiate the process of democracy. Beyond the
politics of representative democracy lie the concerns
of an active democracy which seeks to enable day-to-day
accountability from those who govern us. This cannot
be drawn from the electoral process; nor, indeed,
the various parliamentary processes. This has to be
achieved by the people themselves through their own
public and private voices, non-governmental organisations
and the media. But, beyond the scope of an active
democracy, lie the demands of a participatory democracy
so that people can actually participate in the democratic
process from time to time.
The fulfillment of the objectives of these three
kinds of democracy (representative, active and participatory)
requires a strong combination of people's voices (through
NGOs and others), a strong and independent media and
a judiciary which can uphold the rule of law so that
our rulers do not become a law unto themselves. The
people, the media and the judiciary have to work hand
in hand to ensure that majoritarian governance does
not drift into arbitrariness and absolutism.
Often, the people have much to fear from the systems
of governance which they have put in place. Throughout
the sub-continent, the electoral process is often
rigged. Elections are dominated by money and muscle
power. In 2002-3, overriding the opposition of parliament,
the Supreme Court of India insisted on the Indian
voters' right to know background details of all the
candidates who present themselves for electoral selection.
Our parliaments are imperfect in wreaking accountability
from those who govern us. In India, the Vohra Committee's
Report of 2003 speaks of rampant corruption at all
levels of governance from the local to the top - where
hoodlums and party favourites exercise power and influence
which subverts both democracy and the rule of law.
If the Indian judiciary has resurrected itself after
its pusillanimity during the Emergency (1975-77) by
creating and sustaining a new kind of public interest
litigation, it has also been charged with corruption
to a point that one Chief Justice of India in 2000
estimated that one in every five judges may be corrupt.
All this does not necessarily point in the direction
of dismay, but merely exposes the need for a vigilant
people’s movement and free and independent media
to assert its responsibility without fear or favour.
Here, we are concerned with patterns of censorship
- within and in relation to the media. In the past,
the media has changed dramatically. Technological
changes and globalisation have placed the media in
the hands of the global barons. In the Cricket Broadcasting
case (1995), the judges of the Supreme Court of India
warned that the airwaves are public property and should
never be surrendered to private ownership. Yet the
onslaught of the electronic media continues. McDonalds
has replaced Mickey Mouse as a symbol of domination
to be gulped down by a Coke or Pepsi. Whatever happened
to thandai, sattu, and sherbet? The commercial hold
over the media continues unabated in ways that have
got worse rather than better. The Indian Press Commission
Reports of 1954 and 1982 expressed concern about monopolistic
ownership. This fear may not have been justified in
that no one newspaper in India dominates the circulation.
But few newspapers can push aside commercial control,
links with business houses and pressure from advertising.
Economic greed and other compulsions are driving newspapers
and the media to become more of an entertainment business.
This change is reflected in the texture of India's
papers. Many have lost serious content and become
rags. They are packaged to be sold as commodities.
This is a trend that has affected relations inside
newspapers. Proprietors control editors, who seek
to dominate journalists. No doubt, this story is as
old as the hills. But it is getting worse as newspapers
and the media becomes more glitzy and the democratic
enterprise of the media as a situs of democratic struggle
is being lost sight of. Some journalists and editors
have challenged this trend with courage, craft and
tenacity.
All the nations of the sub-continent inherited a
vast system of censorship from the British. The administration
of the Raj enveloped itself in official secrecy, had
vast powers to curtail free speech in the interest
of public order and security of state, imposed Victorian
ideals of morality in the name of public morals, defended
the judiciary with an archaic but effective law of
contempt of court and protected people's reputations
with overarching laws of civil and criminal defamation.
When India's Constitution was being drafted, Article
19(1)(a) recognised the 'freedom of speech and expression'
but did not add the words “of the press”.
This led some Indian judges to follow the Privy Council's
view on the media in the Burma Critic case (1914)
that the rights of the media are no greater than those
of the press. Imperial prejudices die hard and have
survived political independence. Equally, the entire
apparatus of British nineteenth century censorship
can be protected through the provisions of Article
19 of the Indian Constitution if a quiescent judiciary
decides that this should be so.
Even though lip service is sometimes given to the
doctrines in the Burma Critic case (1914), Indian
courts have recognised the institutional rights of
the press in the Sakal Newpapers (1962), Times of
India (1972) and Indian Express (1985) cases. Unless
due recognition is given to such rights, the press
will be inhibited in its role as mediator of democracy.
This is no less true of the broadcasting media where
the same principles but different considerations may
apply.
The cardinal issue that confronts the media is censorship.
In the Romesh Thappar and connected cases (1951),
the Supreme Court frowned on pre-censorship - further
regarding any indefinite form of censorship as constitutionally
invidious in the Daily Pratap case (1957). During
the Emergency (1975-77), the freedom of speech clause
of the Constitution was suspended to result in a repressive
form of censorship worse than that exercised by the
British during the freedom movement for independence.
Even after the Emergency, informal patterns of control
and censorship continued. Apart from indirect pressures
- as in the Indian Express case (1985) - there were
a series of cases where cinema and broadcasting censorship
was itself effectively censored by decisions of the
Supreme Court in the Tamas (1987), Hone Anhone (1988),
Ore Ore (1989), Bhopal (1992), Bandit Queen (1994)
and other cases. This shows a more liberal trend which
can be contrasted with the somewhat involuted judgment
in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case (1965) which banned
the book - a ban that continues today even as copies
of the book are freely and generally available.
The pattern of censorship of Indian governance is
quite elaborate. There are the usual 'hate speech'
provisions of the Indian Penal Code whereby people
can be prosecuted for sedition, obscenity, inciting
religious discontent and endangering security. It
is to the credit of the Bombay High Court that, in
1971, it did not punish those who published the story
of Godse who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. The fate
of these prosecutions has been chequered. The Criminal
Procedure Code 1973 (based on its predecessor code
of 1898) also permits the banning of books. Included
in these bans are a vast number of books. Indian courts
have been vigilant to defend free speech from such
bans. Justice Krishna Iyer's judgment in the Ramayana
case (1977) bears testimony to judicial good sense
in permitting various versions of the sacred Ramayana
to be published without impediment. Ironically, in
the SAHMAT case, posters on the different versions
of the Ramayana which were part of an exhibition to
promote peace were banned in 1995. The ban, however,
was set aside by the Delhi High Court in 2002. Such
bans are often politically motivated. There is little
explanation as to why the State of West Bengal banned
Taslima Nasreen's autobiographical account in 2003,
except social and political pressure. An even worse
example is the banning of an academic work on the
Maratha 17th century hero, Shivaji, in 2003 after
the book had been withdrawn from circulation - simply
because some people did not like its historical interpretation.
This apparatus of control smacks of 19th century imperialism
but persists under conditions of judicial scrutiny.
The most dangerous form of censorship is through
the Customs Act. Here, by the simple expedient of
an administrative order, books, films and other forms
of expression are peremptorily banned. These bans
are as pernicious as they can be piquant. In the 1920s,
Katherine Mayo's Mother India was banned. Bans were
imposed on film like Nine Hours to Rama in the 1960s,
among many others. There was even a ban in 1951 on
exporting a photograph of Pandit Nehru wearing imperial
robes whilst on horse back! One wonders why. Salman
Rushdie's Satanic Verses was banned in India in 1989
on popular demand even though few of those who asked
for banning the book or those who banned the book
had read it. This trend continues and is a thorn in
the side of a free speech based democracy.
More pernicious forms of censorship are emerging
which are a matter of concern. Apart from the official
apparatus of cinema censorship, these are new forms
of social censorship usually through pressures from
Hindu and other fundamentalists. This censorship has
lumpen support under directions of those who claim
to be protectors of the people and defenders of the
faith. In India, such fundamentalists have been greatly
emboldened by the destruction of the Babri Masjid
in 1992 which seems to have inaugurated an unworthy
'no-holds-barred' and 'free-for-all' intimidatory
social censorship based on fear. There are many examples
of this. Demonstrations greeted Deepa Mehta's film
Fire in December 1998 because some fundamentalists
did not like it. In February 2000, Deepa Mehta was
prevented from shooting her next film, Water, in the
city of Varanasi. There were protests against Ghulam
Ali's concert in India in May 1998 because he was
a Pakistani singer. Patwardhan's film War and Peace
on riots met with social censorship in 2003. Hussain's
paintings were attacked and destroyed in 1996, 2002
and 2003. The Bhandarkar Institute in Poona was attacked
in December 2003 because some research on the book
Shivaji was conducted there. Priceless manuscripts
were obliterated forever. In September 2003, a film
about Bihar politics was nearly injuncted by the Laloo
Prasad administration; but Laloo Prasad claimed to
be magnanimous enough to permit its broadcast. Free
speech has come to depend on the magnanimity of our
rulers! All this takes on a downward slope where democracy
walks in fear of itself and hoodlums replace governance
to subvert democracy.
The trends highlighted above are disconcerting. Such
extremities have become part of the pernicious pathology
of everyday life. It is only the courage and heroic
achievements of the press, media, activists and artists
that stand as a bulwark against such odious practices.
What is happening is more insidious than we have cause
to suspect. The media and free speech provide content
to a democracy. The attacks on the media and free
speech attack the very foundations of democracy. We
live in precarious times, made even m0re perilous
by the djinns and demons that are the enemies of democracy.
Official
and Unofficial Secrecy
By Rajeev Dhavan |
There is a not so well known poem by a poet called
Tom Gunn that ends with the refrain:
‘You know I know you know I know you know’
This line has many meanings depending on where you
place the commas or semi-colons. There is much in
governance that we know and they know we know. We
know that they know. Sometimes, what we know becomes
known. Sometimes it does not. Yet there is a vast
amount of controversial information that we do not
know and which sometimes many of our rulers do not
know either. All governments suffer from information
leaks, often inspired from within the government.
The timing of the release of information is dictated
by those in charge of governance unless they are beaten
to by the media, spies, political enemies or whistleblowers.
The demands of freedom of information are not restricted
to affairs of the state only. Today, we are governed
in civil society by civil groups and more generally
by huge business and corporate conglomerates who have
much to hide from the public. India witnessed the
Bhopal disaster in 1984 which could have been averted
if information about the plant had been made public.
In recent years, India entered into agreements with
Enron to set up the Dabhol power plant . In 2002-3,
Enron collapsed. Had proper information been revealed,
this corrupt project would not have got off the ground.
In 2003, an NGO in India, the Centre for Science and
Environment (CSE), revealed impermissible levels of
pesticide in Coca Cola and Pepsi's soft drinks. These
two giants dominate the Indian popular drinks market.
Yet, everything about their operations is not known.
Industrial and commercial disasters occur everyday,
which can be averted with timely information being
released and preventive action being taken.
An information based system is essential to the working
of any system of democratic governance as well as
the democracy of everyday life.
The system of official secrecy now in vogue in India
draws from a colonial vintage. It was set in place
in England after the Marvin (1878) and Anderson (1889)
affairs where it was found that the common law was
helpless in seriously prosecuting spies and others
who temporarily borrowed a document without stealing
it. The Official Secrets Act of England of 1889 was
replicated in India. The British legislature passed
the amending and draconian Official Secrets Act of
1923 in one day as a temporary measure which was replicated
in India in 1923. In 1971, Justice Cauldwell in England
felt that the all-too-wide Section 2 (our Section
5) should be pensioned off. Eventually, in 1989 the
British changed their law, but the Imperial law of
official secrecy continues in India and Pakistan.
Emergency and military regimes enjoy an official secrecy
law because it is a insidious threat to those who
violate it. Although there have been few prosecutions,
the process is the punishment and a warning is an
awesome threat. The official secrecy law occupies
a space which threatens and intimidates.
Independent India saw nothing wrong with its official
secrecy law. This is self evident from the Press Laws
Committee Report of 1948 and the Press Commission
Report of 1954. The Second Press Commission of 1982
sought to follow British suggestions to reform the
law without considering the Indian context in which
these changes would operate.
Yet, the political economy of India requires information.
Even in Nehru's days, India witnessed Kriplani's Report
on corruption in the railways (1953), reports into
the activities of finance minister TT Krishnamachari
in 1958 and Chief Minister Kairon in 1962 as well
as a more general examination of corruption by the
Santhanam Committee in 1964. The measures suggested
for combating corruption were internal and generally
unsuccessful. Equally, although ombudsmen - called
Lokayuktas and Lokpals in India - have been mostly
unsuccessfully established in various Indian states,
continuous wrangling has prevented a Lokpal legislation
for India as a whole. Eventually a Lokpal would have
access to information and contribute to more transparency
in government. In one sense, the National Human Rights
Commission, established in 1993, is a kind of 'human
rights' lokpal. No less, the appointment of various
Commissions as fact finding missions have failed.
These Commissions take too long to file their reports.
In 2003, the Commission on the destruction of the
Babri Masjid had still not reported on the events
of 1992. When reports come, they either gather dust
or are not acted upon. Controversial reports (such
as the Srikrishna Report of 1996 on the Bombay communal
riots) are thrown into the labyrinth of dirty politics.
Parliamentary committee reports are often misleading
such as the Report of the Joint Committee of Parliament
of 1987 into the Bofors defence deal.
The existing information regimes in Indian governance
are profoundly skewed. In the first place, India inherited
from the British vast ideas and an apparatus of government
disinformation. The very fact that India has a Ministry
of Information speaks volumes for itself. The reports
of the First and Second Press Commissions of 1954
and 1982 show the vast propaganda machines of the
government and various public sector undertakings.
The British established these information regimes
through magazines like the India and Calcutta Gazette
in 1784, the Pioneer from Allahabad in 1869 and the
Civil and Military Gazette from Lahore from 1874.
These are only illustrative examples. The propaganda
machine was institutionalised in the First World War
to be the forerunner of the contemporary Ministry
of Information and Broadcasting. Till recently, the
Government controlled the electronic media completely,
but has had to suffer invasions into its monopoly
due to technological changes which imply accepting
what it cannot forbid. Yet government radio and television
continue to enjoy huge prominence and influence.
Alongside the existing official secrecy laws and
without prejudice to them, various states in India
have enacted Freedom of Information laws which are
still at the stage of operational infancy. Social
activists in Rajasthan have been able to use disclosures
of information to reveal how developmental funds for
particular villages have been siphoned off. Yet, India
has still a long way to go before it can use these
'sunshine' laws effectively. In the laws as they are
designed or operate, looking for the right information
is like looking for a needle in a haystack. In the
future, there will be an invariable game of hide and
seek between those who seek information and those
in government who do not want to give it. This is
not to say that such laws and processes are not gifts
to a democracy. But such gifts have to be made to
work before a democracy begins to play with them to
put them to good use.
If Indian democracy is to find the information that
will cleanse and add substance to its processes, it
has to find new ways of accessing information and
exposing governance to acceptable levels of transparency.
What we have seen in recent times is the emergence
of Slapps, stings and whistleblowers as part of the
battle over information.
Whistleblowers have an important role to play. It
is said that Daniel Ellesburg's revelation of the
Pentagon Papers had a profound effect on the Vietnam
War. This is also true of the disclosures by Serpico
of the New York police. In India, important disclosures
have been made by Khairnar in Bombay, Alphons in Delhi
and, more recently, Dubey in Bihar. All three tried
to expose corruption. Dubey paid for his courage with
his life. In 2001, the Indian Law Commission recommended
a law to protect whistleblowers. It is not a very
radical law in that it restricts information disclosures
to a statutory agency and not the public generally.
In this it follows the more guarded approach of Commonwealth
countries rather than the more public solutions canvassed
by American law and policy.
Apart from whistleblowing, Indian journalism has
shown an increasing capacity for investigative reporting.
Many examples of this have been brought together in
B.G. Verghese's fascinating accounts of Breaking the
Big Story (2003) which portrays the great moments
of Indian journalism to include accounts of exposure
such as those of Kesvani on Bhopal, Mahapatra on tribal
deaths, Hazarika on the North East, Anita Pratap on
Sri Lanka, Pradeep magazine on Indian cricket, Jaleel
on Kashmir, Chitra Subramanium on Bofors, Teesta Setalvad
on communalism and Tarun Tejpal's famous Tehelka sting
on defence deals. Ethical questions on stings as instrument
of journalism survive for consideration. There have
been interesting changes in the Indian law of defamation
in the Auto Shankar case of 1994 which provide a lesser
protection from exposure to public officials, public
persons and politicians who operate in the public
domain.
To counter all this, we are also seeing the emergence
of what Americans call Slapps - the Strategic Lawsuit
Against Public Participation. There are many interesting
examples of this abroad - amongst which the closure
of Private Eye in England by Goldsmith is familiar
to some of us. Such suits are increasing, especially
at the instance of corporate power. There are also
many Indian examples such as Reliance protecting its
public issue in 1989 against the Indian Express, Campa
Cola's gagging order against India Today in 1984,
the injuncting of the publication of the novel Avasthe
by the Karnataka High Court in 1987, the Delhi High
Court's injunction on the advertisements of 'Garden
Sarees', the Supreme Court's stoppage of Kuldip Nayar's
book India House, Maneka Gandhi's injunction against
Khushwant Singh's book, Jayalalitha's innumerable
cases against the Hindu and other newspapers, Cadbury's
case against a laboratory in Lucknow which tried to
expose nickel in their chocolates, Dr. Manchanda's
case against the famous activist Madhu Kishwar, S.
Kumar's attempt to shut up the Narmada Bachao Andolan
and Coca Cola and Pepsi's efforts to intimidate the
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) which revealed
pesticides in the former's soft drinks. These new
tendencies to silence information need to be examined
with care to evolve a counter strategy both inside
and outside the law.
Battles over freedom of information have gone past
the more mundane campaigns over the repeal of official
secrecy law and their replacement by freedom of information
regimes. We are now concerned with issues and initiatives
of great complexity in the vast task of achieving
transparency not just from government but from all
others, including corporates and various other powerful
social, political and economic actors who define our
everyday lives to their satisfaction.
The media is a site of democratic struggle. In the
inevitable chain of we-known-you-know-we-know-you-know-we-know-you
know-we-know, there are huge gaps in our knowledge
and oceans of disinformation that cloud and distort
the enterprise of democracy. To steal information
in the public interest is surely a virtue to be prized.
| Business
Interests Hijack the Press |
India has the largest pluralist press and television
and radio networks in the SAARC region. Over 40,000
newspapers and periodicals are published in the country
in more than 100 languages. Circulation of newspapers
has risen, with many of them bringing out editions
from districts and small towns. Dozens of new private
TV and radio channels have broken the state's monopoly
over informing and entertaining the people.
During 2003, journalists in India faced problems
because of the political and social conditions prevailing
in the country, particularly separatist struggles,
and the attitude of the employers and the government.
Although India's media has been quite independent,
it tends to follow the national consensus or official
standpoint on various foreign policy and security
issues. Yet it remains the most vibrant and pluralist
press in the region.
The illusion that the expansion of media would be
useful to the public at large is doubted by the more
conscientious people who feel commercial interests
behind the rush have lowered the standards of journalism
and broadcasting. The phenomenon of Murdochisation
- exclusion or separation of editorial functions and
their subordination to managerial and commercial interests
coupled with overwhelming market intervention - is
aggressively transforming media into the instrument
of advertisers, monopolies and powerful vested interests.
The government, under the guise of draconian laws
such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and
the Official Secrets Act, stifled press freedom and
targeted journalists. On July 27, editor Anirudh Bahal
and reporter Mathew Samuel of Tehelka.com, a news
website, were charged under the Official Secrets Act
for a Tehelka.com story about the Dutch government's
interest in Indian politics. The Home Ministry claimed
the story used information contained in the minutes
of a confidential government meeting.
R.R. Gopal, editor of the Tamil bi-weekly Nakkerran,
was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act
(POTA) on April 11, 2003. In 2002, the Editors Guild
of India had protested the provisions of the law restricting
press freedom when the Act was being framed but the
final Act still places an obligation on journalists
to furnish information in their possession which an
investigating officer believes to be relevant to an
offence under the Act.
Privileges of the members of the Union and state
legislatures also became a pretext to hound the press.
The state assembly of Tamil Nadu sentenced five journalists
from the prestigious daily Hindu, including its editor
N. Ram, and one from the Tamil-language daily Murasoli
to 15 days in jail for reporting the government's
harassment of its political opponents. However, the
Supreme Court stayed the sentence. The intimidation
of Hindu began in April 2003, after it ran articles
criticising Chief Minister Jayalalitha's move to expel
opposition members from the state legislature. Immediately
after the publication of the articles, the Tamil Nadu
government had filed as many as 17 defamation cases
against the paper.
Wages and living conditions of journalists and other
press workers generally increased but not in proportion
to the soaring profits of the proliferating media
industry. For years, the industry has not implemented
the Wage Board Awards uniformly. The journalist unions
have been demanding that non-implementation of wage
board be made a punishable offence. Other demands
include the creation of a permanent wage board; the
setting up of an independent Media Commission to oversee
the issues and challenges brought forward by the proliferation
and technological advances in the media; and empowering
the Press Council of India to implement its orders
and to impose penalties. Unions also actively protested
the packing of the accreditation committee with a
disproportionate number of government nominees.
In a report to the 3rd South Asian Free Media Conference,
the National Chapter of SAFMA India, had observed
the following:
While the Indian media has many achievements to its
credit, it faces several challenges:
1. Widespread trivialisation of
the media stemming from commercial considerations
has eroded the institution of the editor.
2. The dangers represented by non-state
players in Indian polity. In this context, the role
of extremist organisations serves further to imperil
the freedom of the media.
3. In consonance with the trend
elsewhere in the region, the Government is seeking
to expand its influence/control of media. This phenomenon
is exacerbated by the lack of good governance and
rise to power of elements inimical to a pluralistic
society and a free media.
4. Commercialisation of the media
has posed new problems and challenges for the integrity
of individual journalists. This danger is compounded
by efforts of the authorities and political forces
to distort professional perspectives by encouraging
proxy journalism.
5. Attempts by governments to abuse
the institution of the judiciary and branches of the
executive such as the police and various regulatory
agencies to target select individual journalists have
a ripple effect on all aspects of democracy, notably
the freedom of expression. The Official Secrets Act
and the Law of Contempt pose a major challenge to
the media's freedom.
| India:
Attacks on the Press |
January 29, 2003
Krishna Kumar, a reporter of the Tamil-language periodical
Nakkheeran (also spelled Nakkeeran and Nakkerran),
was arrested on the charge of murdering a woman five
years ago. But to his newspaper, the arrest appeared
part of the regular harassment of Nakkheeran and its
journalists for reporting police brutalities and exposing
corruption in the government of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
Jayalalitha. Kumar claimed his interrogators used
strong arm tactics to discover his links with the
notorious South Indian bandit Veerappan who has eluded
the police for years.
January 31, 2003
Parvaz Mohammad Sultan, editor of the newswire service
News and Features Alliance (NAFA), was assassinated
on January 31 by an unidentified gunman in his office
in Srinagar, capital of the Indian-administered Kashmir
where Muslim militants are active. During his career,
Sultan had worked for several Urdu-language newspapers
in the region and regularly contributed investigative
stories to Chattan, one of the oldest newspapers in
Kashmir. His colleagues knew of no specific threats
to him but the independent media in the turbulent
region works under pressure from all sides.
March 13, 2003
Vidyadhar Tiwari, a journalist working with the Hindi
magazine Chautha Khambha, was shot dead by criminals
in Manipura, Patna, Bihar, on March 13 for reasons
yet to be ascertained.
April 11, 2003
About 10 weeks after the arrest of Nakkheeran reporter
Krishna Kumar, its editor, R. R. Gopal, was arrested
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and charged
with ‘conspiring to promote the secession of
Tamil Nadu state’ and ‘possession of a
firearm’. He became the first journalist to
be arrested under the controversial law, which is
aimed at protecting India's national security. He
was also charged with the murder of a police informer
who was originally listed as ‘missing’
in 1998. Gopal had, at the request of authorities,
met Veerappan in 2000 at his hideout to negotiate
the release of actor Rajkumar from his custody. Another
Nakkheeran journalist, Sivasubramaniam, has been in
jail in the neighbouring state of Karnataka since
November 2001, accused of being an accomplice of Veerappan's
gang.
April 29, 2003
A militant group, Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen, used the Srinagar-based
private Current News Service to publish its threat
of death to journalists working ‘against the
freedom struggle’ in the territory. ‘There
are seven dailies among the local ones and a well-known
news agency which work at the behest of Indian (intelligence)
agencies and are paid by them. We inform such journalists
that they will be killed if they fail to mend their
ways,’ said the threat issued in the name of
Dr. Abd-ar-Rabb on April 29.
July 27, 2003
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) initiated
legal action against editor Anirudh Bahal and reporter
Mathew Samuel of Tehelka.com, a news website known
for its investigative reporting. They were charged
under the Official Secrets Act for a Tehelka.com story
about the Dutch government's interest in Indian politics.
The Home Ministry claimed the story used information
contained in the minutes of a confidential government
meeting. Tarun Tejpal, founder and editor-in-chief
of the website, said Tehelka.com was being harassed
since it ran a story about corruption in the Defence
Department in March 2001 which showed a senior leader
of the ruling party accepting a bribe. Tehelka.com
reporter Kumar Badal was jailed for six months in
2002 on poaching charges after he did an undercover
story on poaching and editor Bahal was arrested in
August 2003 on the complaint of a CBI officer that
he had threatened him. Bahal was released on bail
the same day.
August 11, 2003
Ashwini Kumar Tripathi, a reporter of the Rozana television
news service, was denied access and assaulted by security
personnel in Lucknow on August 11, 2003 when he tried
to reach a venue where the visiting Indian President
A.P.J. Kalam was to appear.
September 18, 2003
Parmanand Goyal, a journalist working for the daily
Punjab Kesari, was murdered at his home in Kaithal,
Haryana by three unidentified gunmen. His son Naveen
Rinku claimed he overheard the assailants threatening
his father to stop writing about a local politician
and the police. Goyal, who was the district president
of the Haryana Union of Journalists, was arrested
in May on corruption charges and put in jail. He was
released on bail in early September. His family said
the charges against him were false.
September 25, 2003
In September, Ahmad Ali Fayaz, bureau chief for Daily
Excelsior in Srinagar, filed a complaint with the
police that a Border Security Force officer, identifying
himself as Deputy Inspector General Desraj, had called
him and threatened to shoot him for his article which
alleged abuses by the Indian army in its campaign
against militants. A local commander contacted by
Fayaz talked to Desraj who admitted calling Fayaz
but denied he threatened him.
September, 2003
In September, the Indian government ordered the blocking
of the website groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhun, alleging
it was dishing out anti-national news and objectionable
material about the Government of India and the state
government of Meghalaya. The action was carried out
on the instructions of the Indian Computer Emergency
Response Team (Cert-IN), which works under the department
of information technology. It was the first such request
by Cert-IN since its creation in July 2003.
November 7, 2003
On November 7, the state assembly of Tamil Nadu sentenced
five journalists from the prestigious daily Hindu
and one from the Tamil-language daily Murasoli to
15 days in jail for alleging the ‘crude use
of state power’ by the government in arresting
political opponents and harassing independent journalists.
The intimidation of Hindu began in April 2003, after
it ran articles criticising Chief Minister Jayalalitha's
move to expel opposition members from the state legislature.
Immediately following the publication of the articles,
the Tamil Nadu government had filed as many as 17
defamation cases against the paper.
Selvi J. Jayalalitha’s government in Tamil
Nadu seemed to be in a running battle with the critical
media as, according to a local human rights group,
it filed a total of 23 libel suits against various
Indian publications.
