Skip to main content

Talking of increased corporate control over news, Rajdeep Sardesai 'evades' alternative media

When I received an intimation that well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was to speak at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on February 2, my instant reaction was: I know what he is going to say—his views are quite well known; he wouldn’t be saying anything new. Yet, I decided to go and listen to him to catch his mood at a time when the media, as he (and I) knew it, is changing fast due to the availability of new technological tools that were not accessible even a decade ago.
Introduced as a friend of the late Achyut Yagnik, a journalist-turned-activist with a strong academic bent of mind—whom I consider my friend, philosopher, and guide—Rajdeep was called to deliver the first Achyut Yagnik Memorial Lecture. Organized by High Court advocate Anand Yagnik, his son, Rajdeep spoke on Media, Politics, and Democracy in India.
Known for plunging into the most adverse atmospheres to capture the prevailing mood and elicit opinions from hostile crowds—even at the risk of being manhandled—Rajdeep, ironically, got a very friendly audience at AMA, who applauded his strong anti-establishment stance.
He talked about the circumstances in which NDTV, where he worked for 11 long years, was taken over by the Adanis; how its previous owner, Prannoy Roy, was harassed with Enforcement Directorate raids ahead of the takeover; how most of the TV media has been “bought over” by top corporate houses; and how the sedition law has been misused against journalists Siddique Kappan and Prabir Purkayastha, who were detained and jailed under this draconian law. He also pointed out that it is not just BJP governments at the Centre and in the states, but even the Tamil Nadu and West Bengal governments—under non-BJP rule—that have acted in a similar manner.
Even as he blamed the overall intolerant atmosphere that has come to prevail across India vis-à-vis the media, sitting at the end of the jam-packed auditorium, I found those around me agreeing with him on almost every point. People would whisper, nod, and clap at each and every instance that he cited to prove his argument.
Indeed, Rajdeep said exactly what the audience seemed eager to hear—except at one point, when someone asked him a sharp question: If the media is under siege, what is the solution? His answer was straightforward: It’s not the job of the media to find a solution; its job is to tell the truth “to those in power.”
I am sure many in the audience—who mainly seemed to consist of left-of-the-centre individuals, including civil society activists, academics, and lawyers—wouldn’t have liked this answer. Indeed, the idea that the media shouldn’t just tell the truth but also offer solutions prevails quite widely in society, including among the type of audience that had come (or was invited) to listen to him.
I thought that the notion—it’s not the media’s job to find a solution—needs to be emphasized, especially to a like-minded audience. After all, journalists are not experts or policymakers; they are meant to reflect reality as they see it. They are “quick historians,” to quote M. Chalapathi Rau, editor of National Herald during the Nehru era. At the same time, they are supposed to state what the establishment seeks to suppress, to paraphrase what the writer George Orwell said.
Be that as it may, while Rajdeep was quite explicit in stating that the media today is forced to operate in an increasingly hostile environment—something that needs to be reiterated—I was somewhat puzzled when he suggested that gone are the days when the media wasn’t under corporate control, and journalists were allowed to report reality as they saw it, taking down notes with a pen in hand.
Everyone knows that The Times of India, where Rajdeep said he began his career in 1988, has always been known for its pro-establishment stance. If The Times of India was (and is) owned by a media baron, the same was (and is) true for other newspapers: The Hindustan Times, for instance, was “owned” by the Birlas and was equally pro-establishment. These two newspapers virtually “ruled” Delhi when I worked at Link newsweekly in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Now, regarding Rajdeep’s view on solutions: While it is true that a journalist’s job is not to come up with solutions to policy issues—since journalists are not experts and are generally “jacks of all trades, masters of none”—the options available to them today didn’t exist in what he seemed to consider the “good old days.”
No doubt, whether in India or the U.S., most media—both journalistic and social—remains under the tight control of corporate entities, which seek to tighten their grip even further. However, thanks to the internet, people no longer depend solely on established media outlets to learn about what’s happening around them. Indeed, Rajdeep seemed to overlook the fact that we live in an era of information explosion, in which corporate monopoly over information has been broken.
Of course, misinformation has drastically multiplied, with what Rajdeep called “WhatsApp University” spreading falsehoods. But who doesn’t remember how two powerful corporate-owned Gujarati newspapers spread misinformation fueling the anti-Muslim riots in 2002, and there was no way to contradict them? Surely, there was no WhatsApp then.
Today, thanks to social media, there is an immense possibility of countering misinformation—something that was not possible, say, during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, when rumors spread like wildfire that a “train full of dead bodies” was on its way to Delhi, inciting the mob to attack Sikhs even more barbarically. Now, even ordinary people can contradict such misinformation through social media.
Indeed, as far as the media is concerned, I believe there is a “solution” in the form of alternative media. I wonder why Rajdeep didn’t mention The Wire, Scroll, or Alt News, which, even at a very nascent stage, are striving to bring the truth to the surface. Moreover, there are countless blogging platforms where people continue sharing their news and views—an option that didn’t exist in the so-called “good old days.”
While Rajdeep seemed to believe that YouTubers cannot replace traditional media, the fact remains that those bearing the torch of alternative media are indeed using YouTube to disseminate the truth. In fact, I regularly receive YouTube links from Rajdeep on WhatsApp featuring his interviews on India Today. Isn’t he a YouTuber too?

Comments

TRENDING

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Socialist utopia challenging feudal and Brahminical systems: Kanwal Bharti on Sant Raidas’ vision of Begumpura

In a controversial claim, well-known Dalit writer and columnist Kanwal Bharti has asserted that a clever Brahminical move appears to be behind the Guru Granth Sahib changing the name of the 15th-16th century mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement, Sant Raidas, to Sant Ravidas.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.