Press freedom and CPI(M)’s doublespeak

‘Intimidation of the media by the State has become a marked feature. False cases are filed against journalists and editors... The attack on the media is part of the larger attack on democracy and democratic rights by the authoritarian regime. The defence of media freedom and the rights of journalists must become part of the struggle to defend democracy and Constitutional rights. Every attack on press freedom must be opposed and resisted by all the democratic forces.’

The above lines are excerpts from an editorial published in May 2022 in the People’s Democracy, the weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). This was the party’s criticism of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the Centre, in response to India’s slump in a press freedom index.

Barely a week before publishing this editorial, police in the CPI(M)-ruled Kerala filed an FIR against Vinu V John of Asianet News, on a one-month-old complaint by CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem. In his primetime debate, John spoke against the atrocities committed to an autorickshaw driver during a two-day national strike. Criticising how Kareem trivialised the incident, John bemoaned that Kareem would have realised the horrors of the atrocities had they been committed against him.

Leftists marched outside the Asianet News office, vandalised the channel’s vehicles, displayed offensive posters in public places, and wanted John sacked. Kareem silently filed a complaint, police secretly filed an FIR, and John was kept in the dark. He came over the criminal case only later during passport reissuance.

Incidentally, in protest of a news story aired by Asianet News, activists of the students' wing of the CPI(M) trespassed into the channel's Kochi office on March 4. Only the naive would think this could happen without the consent of political leadership. Such acts of highhandedness would not have taken place if strict action was taken the first time.

Such is the haughtiness of a party that laments at India’s dip in the press freedom index. Calling it hypocrisy would be an understatement. The CPI(M)’s actions have often been at variance with its statements. It acts as the guarantor of media freedom when in the Opposition, but reins back on that freedom when in power.

In 2012, the party described Section 66A of the IT Act as ‘draconian’ for going far beyond the reasonable restrictions imposed on freedom of speech. In less than eight years from then, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led CPI(M) government would introduce the controversial Section 118A in the Kerala Police Act, which would make the police the juror and the executioner at the same time, grant them unlimited powers to interpret any communication, ascertain whether it would cause ‘injury to the mind’ of the victim or any person in whom they have interest, and slap criminal charges even without a complainant. In the aftermath of the public uproar and the internal bedlam that ensued, the government had to put the Section in abeyance.

In one go, the party was attempting to gag all media — print, digital, and social — using the police. That same month, the CPI(M) tried to seize the moral high ground by opposing the Centre’s decision to move digital media under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The party opined: “Having muzzled the print and electronic/visual media to a considerable extent, it [the Centre] is moving to control digital media.”

The Kerala assembly has imposed a series of restrictions on private television channels. In 2022, when MB Rajesh was the Speaker, he warned TV channels against using assembly visuals in satirical programmes. When the State-owned Sabha TV, the official broadcaster, faced the wrath of the Opposition for not airing visuals of protests in the house, Rajesh defended the move, saying the channel was not for airing ‘everything that happened in the hall’. But when Kareem sought action against the marshals during a ruckus in the Rajya Sabha, his concern was that selective broadcast by the Centre would only mislead the public and tarnish the Opposition.

Interestingly enough, it was the visuals aired by private broadcasters in the controversial Kerala assembly ruckus case that exposed the extent of vandalism and misdemeanour the Leftist legislators had committed, much to the chagrin of the CPI(M).

The CPI(M) exhibits a perceivable change from its oft-used inclusive approach for ideological resolution. Political commentators, including this author, and news anchors who criticise the CPI(M) are boycotted by the party during primetime debates on television news channels. The CPI(M) is no longer the democratic force that it said had resisted the attacks on press freedom. Its fear of opposing views only exposes its traits of the same ‘marked feature’ it had fought against; perhaps why it is worried if BBC is intimidated in Modi’s India, but couldn’t care less if Asianet News is intimidated in Vijayan’s Kerala.

Sreejith Panickar is a political commentator. Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.