 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjwai Guha Thakurtha. The question, why is journalist Barkha Dat? Hassled harried and harassed. Why is she upset? It's not trolls on the social media. Why does she believe that powerful people, influential people, important people, connected to the government, the ruling establishment are not only trying to invade her privacy but prevent her from working. I have with me here in the studio Barkha herself. Thank you so much Barkha for coming here. You know this is my question, you know why now? You've been attacked by trolls for donkeys years. I mean people have not liked your views so what? But why have you chosen this juncture to come out into the open and speak about attempts made to harass you? So the words you used, Hassled and Harried, I would probably use a different word. I would say I am angry and I feel that it's my duty, not in an altruistic way, my duty to myself to actually speak out. And there is a context to what may seem like an outburst on Twitter. And the context is this. For the last year I've had a very intriguing exposure to just how terrified the news media industry is of the government. We all know this in a way we've seen several news channels that are absolutely supplicant to power in a way that perhaps at least in my living adult memory I have not seen before. Everybody talks about the emergency. I mean they've lost all pretensions to being objective. And you know people talk about the emergency but I was four years old in the emergency. So I cannot use that as a reference point. I started my career at that time. But my reference point is the 22 years or 21 years that I have experienced as a journalist. And in the last year we all know that at least one or two of the channels, probably the most watched ones, are now entirely supplicant to the government of the day. Fine, that's their choice. What I encountered was something very intriguing after I left NDTV. I had a number of promoters talk to me about doing shows on their networks. In fact you did do some channels. I did come on as an analyst but the conversation was about coming on as a host. And towards the end of those conversations is they were to be closed. At least three different prominent media owners said to me to my face that we love you, we love your work but we can't use your work because the top two, three people in the party and the government do not like you. I mean look, you're leaving nothing to the imagination. This is what was said to me. Because if you say the top two or three people… This is what was said to me. This is what was said to me. Anybody know who are the top two or three people in the government and the party? I said nothing. I said fine, that's your prerogative as the owner of an organization. I then did, when this happened two or three times, it was followed by a group in Andhra Pradesh that approached me to start a new news channel. And they came to me and they said will you do some work for us? And I said sure, do you have a license? They said we have a license. They came back and they told me we've done some conversations in Delhi. We're not from Delhi so we didn't know anybody. And we were told that there are two or three people whom again the top two or three people don't like. So please avoid giving them work for your network. And I was named as one of them. I don't think it's fair to the other two if I named them. But I was told that there are two or three of this kind of de facto short list of people to avoid. It's sort of almost like a blacklist. Almost like a blacklist. At this point because over the years professionally and personally I do have decent equations with several BJP leaders and therefore I'm not talking about the whole party. You are a journalist who met people across the political spectrum. Yes. So I did go to a senior leader of the BJP and I did say to this leader, I said I want no favors but I do object strenuously if your party and your government are preventing me from the right to do my work. This leader at the time said, and I thought fairly so, why blame the government if promoters are willing to crawl? Why blame the government if promoters are not willing to stand up? There are other people who are seen to be critical of the BJP. I'm just interrupting you. The famous remark that Mr. L. K. Adwani made after he was, you know, Crawl and asked to bend in the crowd. When he was information and broadcasting manager. Asked to bend in the crowd. He was in Muradji Desai's government and he was asked this question, why did so few editors, you know, sort of protest? So this BJP leader in fairness, I think that the politician made a very fair point and he said to me, we have not made any calls to anybody. These are the promoters themselves imagining that there will be repercussions. There's no problem from our side. Well, I folded the conversation, I went away. After a few months, more recently, another set of promoters came to me and said, we have a license. Would you like to consult? This is, we're getting to feel like deja vu. But I need people to understand that there's a context to what I said yesterday and I said it after observing this and joining the dots for about a year and a half. Okay, let me just interrupt you briefly because you're talking about license. Yes. You know, we know that the government of India, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, doesn't give licenses. Gives licenses. Doesn't give licenses is what I want to stress actually. It has given 900 odd licenses but in the last few years it hasn't except to Republic television, which is closely associated with the BJP member of parliament, Mr. Rajiv Chandrasekhar. Yes. And we already have one of India's biggest media barons, Mr. Subhash Chandra. Who's the head of the Zee? I will come to that point later but it's important that you bring it up because one of the things I want to say about intimidation is that there are two kinds of intimidation. There is the obvious kind of intimidation where somebody threatens you, where somebody abuses you, where somebody makes a physical threat. But there is another kind of more insidious intimidation. It is harder to spot, it is harder to define and it is much harder to place in an FIR. And that is the kind of insidious intimidation I'm talking about where regulatory frameworks such as licenses, who you give them to, who you give clearances to, who you can use the law against and so on. The environment of fear you can create where promoters, I'm not defending the promoters, but the promoters believe that there's a consequence for them in some way if they hire some people, right? This is very grave intimidation and we don't call it out because we think, oh, how do we define it? Because it's not visible in the way that it is, let's say in Pakistan where a journalist gets bundled off the road and put into a van and taken away by the militia. As you rightly see, it's far more insidious. It creeps up on you. Yes, that's correct. It creeps up on you. So to complete my story and how I got to this point, recently I had a new set of promoters and the reason I'm not naming them is I'm not a proprietor when they're ready to announce their project, they will. But they came to me and they said, we have a license. We don't have to go. So I said, you're sure? Yeah, we have a license. We want you to come and consult and advise us on how to create an editorial team. I said, fine. Some BJP leaders got wind of this. In a friendly way, I will not say in a menacing way, said to me a few months ago, hey listen, we here you're doing this. Those are not people, you know, those are people who are considered ideologically opposed to us. They don't seem to be on the other side of the divide your promoters. So therefore, don't do this. So they're telling you in so many words. Don't do this. Don't work for anybody who's not in favor of us. Because you'll get into trouble. Because in a nice way, we like you. We like you. We fond of you. We don't want to see you get into trouble. What kind of trouble can you get into? Well, I assume they think that the organization could get into trouble. And therefore, and I was told, you know, you've gone from the frying pan to the fire, i.e. from NDTV to this. Why do you want to do that to yourself? Okay, one minute. You have gone on record saying that there was some sort of a meeting. I'm coming to that. Give me just one minute. So then this happened a few months ago. And I said to this person, who's a different person from the conversation I had in the middle of last year, I said, I want to work. And I was actually told, why don't you not do journalism to 2019? Do something else. Now sit this one out. Sit this out. Get a fellowship. Go somewhere out of the country. Go teach. All that, right? I ignored it. I carried on with my work. Two, three days ago, an trade industry website wrote a rather premature story on Barkha's coming up with a new news journal. That I think led to the last set of developments. I got a visit from a close personal friend yesterday who has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with journalism, but knows somebody in the BJP very well. And said to me in a bizarre, I thought bizarre sort of way, we can't talk inside your house. I said, sorry. And said to me in the middle of this scorching summer afternoon, we need to go out. So I went to the neighborhood park and said, look, you may think I'm being over the top, but I have been tipped off by somebody who attended a party meeting, a section. Now I don't want to make it look like all of the BJP said, some BJP people had a meeting. At this meeting for 45 minutes, this imminent channel. 45 minutes? So they're ruling the country? So they're ruling the country? So they're ruling the country? So they're ruling the country? BJP, but they were BJP leaders, maybe not the ones who are interested in ruling the country. Who discussed what is this channel? How have they got under our nose and got the license? It has to be stopped. Open up her bank accounts, find something you can trouble her with. Who does she live with? Who is she dating? Phone hacks, whatever it takes. And you even shut her down. Income tax department, enforcement director. All of this was conveyed to me. And the last line was, I hope she understands the severity of the situation. Tell her to get some personal security. And tell her that she should not take this lightly. This is what was said to me. In that moment, I joined the dots with the BJP leader who had told me to sit out till 2019. Said the government will not let the channel start. I thought of a Raghav Bihal, whose license has been waiting for one and a half years. Bloomberg. Bloomberg, while the republic got it in three months. I thought of all the promoters who had said to me, we'd love to keep you, we've been told there'll be consequences for us if we do. I'm not saying this is the entire party. There are BJP people who have given me interviews in the last few months for my digital platform. They have met me in a professional way. They have met me in a civil way. So you're merely saying this could be a section of the BJP. A section of the government. Well, a section of the party that definitely has influence on the government. Because I believe that licenses and control. Earlier you mentioned that this was being objected to by the top guys. So let me say this again. The promoters said to me that I was not liked by the top people in the party and government. The promoters said to me. That's distinguished. There are three things I'm saying. The promoters said to me, we can't keep you because the top people in the government and party don't like you. That's the promoters. Then the BJP leader I confronted said, we're not calling anybody. This is the promoters being fearful themselves. Your friend. A professional acquaintance. Then a third BJP leader said to me, the government won't allow any channel. It's ill advised for you to get involved in this channel. Forget journalism till 2019. And then my friend who is not with the BJP was tipped off by a BJP person. Who attended a meeting of three or four people of the BJP. And where it was decided that whatever has to happen, we have to shut this, not let this project happen and not let, she can't come back on TV. All right. So these are four different things. What has been on the social media? I got to know about it from Twitter. And then there are all kinds of people who have given all kinds of reactions to what you've said. That's the nature of Twitter. What is Barkha scared or why didn't she nail and shame them? I'm not scared. Why didn't she lodge a first information report? I cannot break against whom. How do you lodge an FIR against insidious intimidation, which is effectively about using instruments of power to create a coercive environment of fear? Who do you lodge an FIR? The CBI has lodged a different unknown person. That's what I'm saying. And by the way, when I have received threats on social media from extreme right-wing supporters last year, I went and deposed before a magistrate in Sakhet. I filed an FIR. Three days ago the police informed me that they could not find the people who had been issuing me threats of death and rape. So it's not that when there has been somebody to act against, I have not taken the legal rule. But I'm not talking about an FIR-able complaint. I'm talking about something much more insidious. And you're saying this is going beyond the social media. You know what happened to Rana. They morphed her picture, put it in pornographic videos. But that's happened to me. Okay, pornographic videos have not happened to me. But my images have been photoshopped a zillion times. I have been placed on, you know, there's a Kashmiri man, one of my Kashmiri reports has been picked up, where I've had to take a lift with a bearded young man who I don't even know his name on a motorcycle. And I want a motorcycle. And postcard news said she's going with this terrorist to the border to plant a bomb. Or to collaborate. And they said this is the Hizbul, Mujahideen, Zakir, Moosa. You tell me, when I recount it, when I recount it, people laugh because it sounds so surreal. There's a Photoshopped image of me sitting with Arvind Kejriwal when I'm holding a phone in my hand. That image was morphed to make it look like a stack of cash. And in the WhatsApp circuit, it came back to me. But what I'm talking about right now is none of this. It's going beyond all this fake news. I'm not talking about fake news. I'm not talking about physical threats. I would file an FIR if there was fake news or a physical threat. I am talking about sections of the BJP and the government controlling the airwaves in a way that is discriminatory, creating an environment of fear in a way that media promoters will decide that the only people they should give shows to are people whom the government approves of. I am talking about at least three to four BJP, different BJP politicians having told me in an almost friendly, avuncular way, find something else to do for a while. How do you file an FIR on these last set of things? I got you. I don't want you to go over all that you've already said. Let's look at the big picture. Why this atmosphere of fear? Why is it that those who want to promote television channels, those who are a part of the media that you are, people like you and me are, you've been around for more than two decades. I've been around for about four decades. But the thing is it that this atmosphere of not just intolerance but fear is gripped a large section of our fraternity, journalists like you and me to the point where we've got scared. And you have spoken out, many others have preferred to yes, get that fellowship, become teachers. What is the way forward? What are you planning to do and what is the message that you want to send out to all those who are watching you and listening to you at this point of time? So I think it's no good for Indians to go and watch a movie called The Post and say, oh wow. And then come back and do exactly the opposite of it in their newsrooms. I blame the government half and I blame the industry the other half. If I were to apportion, blame, but this is not about apportioning, blame. But if I were to analyze the problem, I would say that if the media wanted to stand up to power, and it could be the BJP today, the Congress tomorrow, it can. I think... So one second, let's get back to LK Advani. Yeah. Well, LK Advani said that people, the editors, when they were asked to bend, they crawled. I think that is what has happened. Now you're saying they're crawling without even being asked to bend because they escaped. So I don't know, I can't prove, promoters have told me in some cases that they have got calls. In other cases, promoters have gone and asked for permission and I have said to them, really, you went to ask the government who you can keep and who you can't. If you give them that space, of course, they'll say, yeah, we don't like so-and-so, we like so-and-so. Like if somebody came to me and said, you know, should I keep Peronjoy or should I keep Ornup? I'll have an opinion, right? So I mean in a similar way, if you go and say, you know, do you like Barkha? Do you like Karanthapur? Do you like Rajdeep Sathya Sai? The BJP leaders likely to say, no, we don't like these three people. They covered the 2002 riots. Because where does this all go back to? It goes back to... To the first communal riot which was broadcast live, where you, Rajdeep and a whole lot of other people involved. And I believe that we have neither been forgiven nor forgotten for that. And I think since then we have been shunned. But not in a way that... So I don't want to make this about the BJP because I didn't experience this in the Vajpayee government. I have not, what I'm experiencing now. So you're saying this is something to do with the present government, the Modi government, the Narendra Modi government. Not all of it. Because as I said, there are people in the BJP who have been very professional in dealing with me, including in the last year and a half. They have been professional. I have asked them for interviews. We have done interviews. They have never sort of been anything but civil. Even the people who have advised me to lie low till 2019 have done it in a friendly way. So I am nowhere saying that a BJP person has called me and made a physical threat to me. Yes, BJP supporters have on social media. So that has happened. I have registered FIRs and had them reach a dead end or taken it on Twitter or reported them on Twitter, etc. I am talking about why the industry is not recognizing that in print, digital and TV, the sector that is controlled most by the government is TV news because it controls the airwaves. And we have not fought. We fight for newspapers. We fight for digital. No industry member has actually fought for removing, getting government out of these clearances, these web of clearances. No, in fact, when the then information and broadcasting minister, Smetheerani, had suggested that a panel be set up to monitor the digital media. I mean, there has been quite a lot of... On digital or TV news, which is the most controlled by government medium, there has been, yes, backlash to self-regulate content, right, with the national NBSA, whatever, Broadcasting Standards Authority. But none to actually question in this day and age in the ease of doing business, you know, a liberalized economy. And the News Broadcasting Standards Authority has no teeth, if you remember in the Gohar Raza case and Zee, I mean, they impose something, they couldn't do anything. Nothing, nothing. And now let's come to the last point of political partisanship. So, I, you know, you mentioned two BJP members of parliament who own media networks. There are members of Congress-owned newspapers. There are members of the NCP that owns the newspaper. There's the Akali, the... The Punjab. I mean, everywhere, the... The Pandas, the J-Pandas... If they are not directly owning it, there are individuals with affiliation. So, I will say to you that maybe when I was young, I would have imagined that there was some other revenue model. There was some way to get, you know, money that was neither political nor big business house. I was young and innocent. I recognize today that I don't see some idealized media ownership model, right? I don't see it. I don't see it in India. I actually don't see it anywhere in the world. Actually, you're right. I don't see it. Because after, you know, the spread of the internet, the way advertising revenues have moved, I mean, the revenue models of all mainstream media organizations have been turned upside down. So, I have a line for this. There are three options that are the tyranny of the state, which is where we used to be when the state controlled news media. It went the tyranny of the market, where we totally depend on advertisers. And now, the digitally, the tyranny of the algorithm. So, if it doesn't get... If it doesn't get... Good one. Yeah, right? So, the point is, there is no utopian model for TV news, especially TV, because it's capital intensive. The best a journalist can do is within the confines of... Because no newsroom is 100% free. I say this, having worked in this profession, there is no absolute news freedom. Every media owner have either agendas, affiliations, or other fear of legal suits, whatever. Or constraints. Or constraints. There are many reasons and I'm not making a judgment here. I'm simply saying, what does a journalist do in this situation? A journalist says, within these constraints, I will try and be as dignified and as honest and as accurate as is humanly possible. On the partisanship, I want to say, even if the BJP proves that I am ideologically partisan, let's say that that is their main grouse against me. That you are pathologically anti-BJP. Anti-BJP. Suppose they say that. Suppose they say that, which I have not agreed with, but suppose they say that. Let's assume, hypothetically, for it to be true. So am I not allowed to function as a journalist because I have an ideological leaning? Am I only allowed to function as a journalist if I'm support the BJP? So I find this bizarre thing that, oh, maybe you're not being allowed to function because maybe your promoters are on the other side. But there are enough channels on this side. There are enough channels owned officially by people on this side. So hypothetically, let's assume I have an ideological leaning. That cannot become a basis to not allow a person to, you know, to work. And I think what's been good for me is I can write, nobody can stop me. I write for the Washington Post. They can't. You write for the week. Week. I write for the Hindustan Times. I write, you know, starting my own digital venture. It's television that's the problem because it's severely controlled by government sector. All right. So Barkha, thank you very much for talking to me. I promise you, we are only going to talk about what's happened to you in the recent past. Only because I don't want the focus to go away from this. All right, sure. Anything else you want to ask me, we'll do an AMA, ask me anything, anything no holds barred in the future. So I've lived up to my promises. You live up to your promise. I promise you. I'm going to, next time I meet, I'm going to ask you about Kargil, Nira Radia. Anything you want. NDTV, Shreyfar Gupta, and everything. All of it. Nothing is a no go. But at this moment, I want the focus to be on this issue. Thank you very much, Barkha, for being with us. Thank you. You've just heard and watched Barkha Dutt telling you of the atmosphere of intimidation that is currently prevailing in the country. Thank you for being with us.