HOW THE OVERZEALOUS EXTREMIST MEDIA HARMS INDIAN PRIME MINISTER MODI?

Most Indian news organizations are owned by corporations with a diverse business and political interests

A large section of Indian news media spreads hate and misinformation every day and tramples upon the country's cultural plurality hurting the image of PM Narendra Modi's government.

Prime-time shouting matches on major Indian TV news channels, an overdose of jingoistic nationalism, war-like reporting, compound hate speech, and fear-mongering news reports have made most of the news TV unwatchable. These networks could also be harming Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led federal government in India.

The US right-leaning network Fox News pales in comparison to India’s privately-owned and self-proclaimed rightist TV networks such as Republic TV (English, Hindi), Times Now (English), Zee News (Hindi), India TV (Hindi), News India (Hindi) and Sudarshan TV (Hindi).

Though Fox News is a little bit fair and a little bit balanced [Fair and Balanced is Fox News’s slogan], each of the self-proclaimed right-wing Indian news channels could easily be described as a Fox-News-on-a-poisonous-and-potent-steroids.

These 24-hour news channels dish out a narrative that is not only heavily biased but also fans the flames of misinformation - the latter exacerbated by social media and WhatsApp messaging platforms.

Such acerbic coverage of news, mostly political statements, is proving to be toxic for the nation of 1.3 billion people and is also harming the Bhartiya Janata Party (People’s Party of India) – the ruling political party of India’s federal government.

In May 2019, Prime Minister Modi’s BJP was re-elected for a second term. Out of 545 seats in the Lower House of the Parliament (Lok Sabha), the BJP and its allies won 353 seats – way more than 272 seats required to form a majority government at the federal level.

In its first term (2014-2019), the Modi government was amply successful in putting India on a global map and in launching several schemes for the social, healthcare and economic benefits of Indians.

India’s ranking improved in several global competitive indices including in ease of doing business. National programs such as Ayushman Bharat [affordable healthcare], Ujjwala Yojana (free LPG cooking gas in rural India), schemes to improve the road infrastructure, Sawachh Bharat Mission (Sanitation drive), Make-in-India plan [to boost domestic manufacturing and SMEs] are some of the significant milestones of the Modi government.

Great strides were made in transforming India from soft power to an assertive and agile power. As of February 2020, PM Modi made 59 foreign trips visiting several countries around the world including many Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar. He made six trips to the United States and four each to France, China, and Russia since first taking office in mid-2014.

However, the critics might disagree on the success of the Modi government. But no government is 100% perfect. Even senior BJP members, ministers, and the prime minister himself would say time to time that there is a scope for improvement in certain programs, governance, etc. But the extremist broadcast media is on a different planet as it seems to believe: Nothing is wrong with the government; everything is wrong with the [non-existent] opposition.

Indeed, the BJP-led government of terms 2014-2019 and 2019-2024 has been extremely powerful and the official opposition is non-existent. To be an official opposition in the Indian Parliament, a political party must win 10% of the seats – 55. The grand old Congress party that ruled India for a majority of the years after the independence in 1947, was decimated to 44 seats in 2014 and 52 seats in 2019. Consequently, India’s democratic political system has been functioning without an official opposition party since 2014.

Now, the big question is that why the so-called right-wing media is indulging in smear campaigns, daily shouting-match type of debates, hate-mongering, us-versus-them propaganda rather than focusing on positive and developmental journalism. Some might say: ‘This type of news media is keeping opposition alive’. But that’s not true, at a generalized national level, the ruling BJP is very strong and has an absolute majority in Parliament along with significant mandate of the Indian populace.

So, why the TV news screens are spewing venom in India? The answer lies in TRPs or TV ratings, which are based on weekly eyeballs and translate into advertisements and eventual profits for the news corporations.

The winning formula is: support powers-to-be unquestionably, and do it fiercely, argumentatively and create a quarrelsome scene within the studio or at the reporting grounds, bully guests and pass opinion as facts – basically create a scene – to hook viewers to a daily verbal bloodbath of lies.

The TV networks remain on the right side of the power fence, get good TV ratings and make loads of money. 

BUT at what cost.

The real groundwork of the Indian government is barely highlighted and the powers-to-be are seldom questioned resulting in a perception of a non-inclusive gung ho leadership and a misinformed general public. The long-term effect of the above-mentioned news media would be the destruction of India’s social and political fabric. The government and the general public are the losers and corporations running right-leaning media houses are the winners.

Even newspapers are not an exception. The Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited aka Times Group’s 180 years old Times of India with a circulation of 2.64 million copies daily takes pride in introducing paid news on a widespread scale in the country. In a 2012 interview to the New Yorker magazine, the managing director of Times Group Vineet Jain was quoted as saying: “We are not in the newspaper business, we are in the advertising business”.

Other news media corporates in the country have taken a clue from this mantra. Interestingly, the Times Group owns two main English TV news channels – Times Now and Mirror Now, while the former is right-leaning, the latter takes a center-left position on the daily news developments. Times Group is playing from both sides of the field running a successful business. Yes, that’s what news is for all others too – a money-making venture.

Hindi newspapers Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, and Punjab Kesari are doing similar damages in rural India akin to right-wing TV channels – especially in the northern states.

Hence, a unique narrative that paints the current Indian government as a monster to opposition and minorities is being put forward by making the most extremist, at times idiotic, spokespeople with high-pitched voices as the face of the BJP or sympathizers of the ruling party.

Amidst the blare and the buster, voices of sanity in the ruling BJP hardly get any airtime. Simply put, if I look out at a bright sunny day wearing dark black glasses, I’ll see only dark.

The daily news and prime time debates on most TV news channels require a large supply of experts and spokespeople. Senior government officials and informed spokespersons could not appear on TV every day as they have a huge country to run. So, the “experts” who grace the TV news screens daily are out-of-work professionals with a natural penchant for theatrics, name-calling and screaming. In their zeal to buttress the Indian government, these so-called experts along with the cockfight ring leaders [aka news anchors] end up presenting a disturbing and distorted picture of the BJP.    

The self-proclaimed right-wing news media acts like a dimwit sycophant friend, and we all know that an intelligent, knowledgeable and smart opposition could help us reach the stars while the former will drag us to the dark abyss of Jahiliya [ultimate ignorance].

The infographics below sums up the size of the overall Indian media market. The content below is from India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) - an initiative by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.