We are in 21st century; but most of the Indian media has again got slipped into the older period of 16th and 17th century.
It was years after the invention of printing press, the power keepers of the society in most of today’s European countries including the Soviets needed a medium to tell their side of “truth” to the people. It was media that they used as a vehicle to establish the ruler’s power over the weaker sections.
In India, the BJP-ruled government had sown the seeds of such authoritarian press since 2014 and now that it has sprouted to its fullest, there are no stones unturned by them to tell the BJP’s side of the “Truth”. Most of these Indian press are not functioning, instead they are following the rules of the power. Most of their headlines, the tickers that they paste onto the screen and mostly the language that they use from their studio are the reading lines of the government’s agenda.
“Truth” for the authoritarian press is considered to be the attribute central to those who are in power and ruling the state. The relationship between the state and the media today is established through one-way communication i.e., top-down approach. Media accepts whatever contents are served to them from the state and transfer them to the people who would then entertain themselves with whatever is placed before them.
There is no scope to question, but to only complicit with the narratives constructed by those in power.
It was America wherefrom this very concept of libertarian approach of the press was determined which later was also facilitated across the world and challenged the authoritarian approach. It was indeed the time when more voices were raised and a renaissance sprung into the forms of government too. The democracy took the baby step into the world of chaos and streamlined the enlightenment process of telling the people’s side of the “Truth”. It was difficult for the media to display that part of the truth unless it started to put all sides of the “truth” and would leave it for the people to decide on their government.
The libertarian press’s main function is to “keep check on the government”, that is derived from the very concept of Milton’s “market place of ideas” and from which the role of media as a “watchdog” was also popularized.
But, this approach to media was uprooted daily since 2014 and it has reached to its zenith today when most of these Indian media has reduced from manufacturing news to mere sloganeering. There is hardly any trace of difference found to prove that a large section of Indian media hasn’t become the official spokesperson of the ruling government.
Whether it is about facilitating the idea of Hindutva or helping in penetrating the Hindutva hate speech delivered by the BJP leaders and its supporters – Indian media would not shy away to saffron their thoughts. Whether it is about highlighting the open torture of democracy through the full coverage of the government’s attempt to imitate the king’s coronation ceremony at the opening of the new parliament or black out the news of the manhandling of the Indian women wrestlers at peaceful protest, Indian media dare not to ask the government about the two different contrasting pictures on this significant day.
Indian media needs to return to the 21st century with the libertarian approach in order to restore the constitutional democracy.
Telling The Hate Tale 
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