Some days back, at the R G Awards
for Excellence in Journalism ceremony. Raj Kamal Jha, Chief Editor of The
Indian Express, called criticism from the government “a badge of honour”
and “a wonderful news” for journalism. The
statement does vehemently conveys that the purpose of the fourth pillar of
democracy ie media need not be in line with wish and will of those rolling in
power and wealth. In a democracy like ours, performing the role of a watch dog,
the press and news channels must have the uprightness in calling spade a spade.
In this endeavour, they must be ready not only to puff up but also to pull up
the government houses.
The recent one-day ban on 9 November slapped on on NDTV India, which later was put on hold after so much hue and cry from the media sector, has certainly made alive the debate whether the media, especially the news channels, have limits. People have started questioning as to where the lakshmanrekha should be drawn. Can they be left to function like an unbridled horse? Can they put the national interest on stake in the garb of transparency? Need they not be penalised for revealing strategically sensitive details while covering the incidents like terrorist attacks
In democracy, everyone has the right to question and so has the news channels. If questioning is smothered, how will the answers emerge and who will provide them? No democratic nation can strengthen itself where people are tight lipped and news channels tend to go for or against not on merits but on their own convenience and affiliations.
Whenever freedom of
expression was ever curbed, it went down in the pages of history as dark age.
Today we are not living in the age when Nachiketa was sent to the Yama for
questioning his father, Rishi Wajshrwas, for donating useless cows; we hate to live
in the Italy of of 16th and 17th century when Galileo was
imprisoned for saying what the establishment did not believe. He was proved
correct later; we also detest Ravana Rajya for he had kicked his brother
Vibhishana as the latter had advised him against his misdeeds; we hate Nazism of Garmany where
all newspapers, radio broadcasts, books,
magazines, music, arts, were banned for they were not in line with the Nazi
thinking and ideology. During a single night of 1933, about 2500 books were put to fire; In our country too, the 21
months of energency (1975-77) is considered to be a dark age,
We are not those dumb sheep driven by the
shephered. Tyranny cannot kill ideas. But be it any individual or news
channels, all must recognise there is a limit to it and that need not be
crossed. Whoever shouted the slogans like Pakistan Zidabaad and Bharat kee Barbadi Tak, its intolerable. If news
channels present such events as if it was the right of the shouters to shout such
slogans, it is trespassing the limit. In the arrogance of being the anchor
sitting in the studio, none can misuse the freedom of expression nor can anyone
sitting in the chairs of government houses try to throttle the freedom of media
to its wish and will. Its high time for the fourth pillar to look within lest
the badge of honour should become badge of disgrace.
