Inside an UnMute conversation: Reflections on media, civil society and my journey

By Rajiv Shah*  

I usually avoid being interviewed. I have always believed that journalists, especially in India, are generalists who may suddenly be assigned a “beat” they know little—sometimes nothing—about. Still, when my friend Gagan Sethi, a well-known human rights activist, phoned a few weeks ago asking if I would join a podcast on civil society and the media, I agreed.

Out of ignorance, I assumed a podcast was simply a live audio broadcast. I didn’t bother dressing up. But when I reached the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Gagan’s office, I discovered it was going to be a full-fledged video discussion—Gagan on one side, top rights leader Minar Pimple on the other, and me in between. I had been given a questionnaire and had prepared my responses, but I did not realise the format would involve both of them posing thoughtful, probing questions.

The set-up was fully professional. My phone was kept outside, and the recording was handled by a team from Drishti, a video NGO associated with CSJ, using a high-end camera. Part of their UnMute series, the episode (click here to watch), I was told, would appear on YouTube in November. And there I was—poorly dressed and with my snow-white hair uncombed—responding in both English and Hindi. The intent seemed to be to understand how media professionals work, and how civil society can engage with them more effectively.

They asked me about my seven years in Moscow as the foreign correspondent of the Delhi-based semi-Left Patriot and Link, as also my long stint with The Times of India, Ahmedabad, from 1993 until my retirement as political editor in January 2013. But the real focus was on a question that continues to bother many activists: what must be done to increase the visibility of civil society in the mainstream media?

The conversation opened with my Counterview article, written during the Covid period, summarising an IIM-A study that said civil society felt completely unheard. The disconnect between the state and civil society during Covid, especially concerning the hardships faced by working people, was enormous. They asked, “How can this gap be bridged? What can the media do?”

I began by defining the media as it exists today. Mainstream media is corporate media. It always has been. Earlier, only newspapers were owned by big business houses; now TV channels are too. Journalists hired in these organisations are rarely specialists. Most do not understand civil society. In fact, junior reporters—precisely those least familiar with these issues—are often assigned to cover them. Unless they have worked with NGOs, they know little about laws like the FCRA or about grassroots realities.

Expecting such media to authentically represent civil society is unrealistic. Reporters will come to cover events; that’s true. But they need training—training to understand what is happening on the ground, how to read it, and how to report it responsibly.

When told that media is the “fourth estate” meant to safeguard democracy, and therefore part of civil society, I disagreed. How can it be, I asked, when NDTV is owned by a large corporate group? Or when Times of India’s owner once candidly told me: “We are a family business. We are in the business of news. We must earn profit”? Profit and advertising shape priorities.

I narrated an example to show this mindset. A senior figure in TOI’s management once asked me how I would report a fire in a slum. He explained that if a nearby high-rise lost electricity because of the fire, my report should begin with the inconvenience caused to high-rise residents—because they were our readers. Only then should the slum fire be mentioned. The logic was simple: speak first to those who buy the paper.

I told Gagan and Minar that in mainstream media, the moment you cross into commentary, the bosses object. That is why, when civil society approaches mainstream media journalists, it should focus on facts—solid stories rooted in ground realities. For instance, if someone dies during manual scavenging, provide the full background: who the person was, how he died, and what support his family is receiving. When I was at TOI, none of my stories were dropped because I stuck to the news. Had I ventured into commentary, the response would have been a polite “Sorry.”

Again, my interviewers suggested that both civil society and media seek accountability. I replied that if journalists faithfully report civil society’s findings, then civil society itself becomes the driver of accountability. I recounted the TOI story on manual scavengers near Ahmedabad who went on strike. Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan gave me detailed documentation. The story became the front-page lead; the issue reached the High Court and later the Supreme Court. I had not anticipated its resonance. Martin likely had.

At that time, I didn’t even know that Gandhi had called manual scavenging a national shame, though both my parents were staunch Gandhian freedom fighters. My mother was even expelled from her home for eating in a Harijan collective.

I shared another example: child-rights activist Sukhdev Patel took me to the Little Rann of Kutch to witness the lives of saltpan workers. I wrote a three-part series on the education of their children. A few years later, education secretary Sudhir Mankad said the series helped the government address the issue. Again, the credit belonged not to me but to those working on the ground.

I was then asked why I launched Counterview after retirement. I recalled that in 2011, when I was nearing retirement, Gagan and Martin encouraged me to start a civil-society-focused blog. However, before I could act, TOI extended my tenure by 18 months. At a lunch for journalists, Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, remarked that he had heard about my extension and had wanted me to join him. I thought he was joking. But months later, an IAS officer close to him asked about my plans and said if I joined the government, I would earn double the information department’s top salary. The connection was clear.

Whether it was the Congress or the ruling BJP, I wanted to remain independent. Civil society seemed a natural space—independent and full of news. So I joined a group of civil society organisations -- CSJ, Janvikas and Navsarjan Trust -- as a media consultant in May 2013, even as starting a blogging site focussing on developmental issues. But since my passion was news, my main focus was Counterview, which I had launched a month after my retirement, in February 2013.

I was asked whether Counterview makes a difference. I said the platform itself is small; any impact is due to those who contribute—mainly CSOs, scholars and activists such as Sandeep Pandey, Shamsul Islam, Mansee Bal Bhargava, Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Martin Macwan, Shankar Sharma, plus groups like NAPM and PUCL. I publish what they send, editing out hate, unnecessary adjectives, excessive praise or personal attacks. The credit is theirs.

I then discussed the rise of online media. For decades, scholars and activists outside corporate media had nowhere to publish. Today, the monopoly is broken. Anyone can start a free blog. Numerous online platforms welcome alternative views. Vlogs on YouTube are widespread. Online publishing is affordable; a CSO can run a blog or simple news portal for around USD 50 a year. This has enabled alternative narratives to counter dominant ones, despite crackdowns and arrests—signs that independent voices worry those in power.

Fake news, I noted, is not new. During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a neighbour woke me at 2 a.m. warning me not to drink tap water because it had been “poisoned.” There was also a rumour of a train full of Hindu corpses reaching Delhi. Similar rumours circulated in Gujarati media during the 2002 riots. Back then, immediate correction was impossible. Today, social media enables instant rebuttals. Platforms like AltNews have strengthened this process.

When asked if I feared reprisals, I said I have faced no issues with Counterview because it carries diverse views and sticks to facts. Sources must be authentic. And government sources are not inherently reliable—they often present misleading data.

Online media has also pushed corporate media online. At TOI, I started an online column, “True Lies,” in 2011 and continued it till 2017. Then I stopped, deciding to write only for my own platform.

This does not diminish the importance of corporate media. It has resources and contacts. As a journalist covering the Gujarat government, I understood what was happening in the Sachivalaya and tried to report honestly. Development stories matter; they show what governments are doing and often embarrass them. For instance, I broke the Statue of Unity story after learning about it during a routine Sachivalaya round. TOI carried it on page one. The chief minister was angry; he had planned a big announcement at a public rally.

When asked how civil society could counter fake news, especially when it harms the marginalised, I said activists need to be visible on social media. They should write blogs, interact with mainstream reporters, and post short, factual rebuttals on platforms like X, Instagram and Facebook. If falsehoods circulate, civil society should respond with five precise lines of truth and allow others to amplify them.

I added that slums and rural communities are often invisible in English media. Civil society works closely with these communities, possesses the facts, and simply needs to organise them into clear reports and blogs.

I was then asked about my reporting years in the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, the country was opening up, yet old habits survived. During my travels, I always had an interpreter whose job partly was to monitor me. Once, in Makhachkala, Dagestan, the poet Rasul Gamzatov told me there was no “Soviet poetry,” only Dagestani, Russian or Ukrainian. My interpreter disliked this and asked me not to report it. I reported it anyway. Years later, the same interpreter thanked me.

Pro-Soviet editors at Patriot behaved similarly. Six months before the August 1991 coup, I visited the Russian parliament, then surrounded by militia, with a student carrying a video camera. People openly said the Soviet Union was collapsing. My story ran as the lead. The editor was furious, insisting readers did not want to hear this. I replied: if the Soviet Union was collapsing, I could not pretend otherwise.

During the coup, I went to Red Square with my seven-year-old daughter. Tanks stood there, but soldiers held olive leaves in their mouths. A local, noticing my daughter’s bindi, placed her on a tank and took a photo. Later that day, coup leader Yegor Yanayev appeared with trembling hands at a press conference. A Soviet Indologist friend then described tank movements near his home. I filed reports predicting the coup’s collapse. My dispatch was blocked after being sent to CPI leader Indrajit Gupta. These episodes showed how editors and political controllers often misread realities.

Finally, when asked what shaped me as a journalist, I said my foundation came from involvement in Left student movements—study circles on unemployment, poverty and the working class. I had no formal journalism training. Encouragement from teachers like Professor Krishna Kumar, now a noted educationist, helped me build the confidence and ability to write.

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*This blog is based on my UnMute video podcast interaction. Click here for UnMute podcast series