 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The interference of government in the media has come out in open once again with two senior journalists of ABP News Designing and one's show being taken off air. To discuss the issue and what the media is facing today, we are joined by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, who is a senior journalist and has written extensively on different issues. Nilanjan, welcome to NewsClick. So see what's happened in ABP News that's all out in open. Pune Prasoon Vachpayee has also published an article in The Wire. Let's go back a bit and compare the situations. There was a time during emergency when, as Advani pointed out, that when media was asked to bend, it started crawling. Do you think that the situation is similar right now? You know, before getting into a very specific situation as to what is happening in India and whether is there any historical resonance to it or not, let me try to put it in a slightly global perspective. You know, history tells us and it's also verified by what is happening in contemporary world in major parts of the world today, is that whenever you have an authoritarian leader at the helm of affairs, the media is the first one which gets squeezed, which gets kind of throttled, restricted. You choose whatever word you want depends also on the health and the vivacious character of democracy in that particular country. To what extent do people really want freedom of the media, freedom of press? As far as, you know, what has been happening in India, since 2014, it was known right from the beginning that Mr. Modi is not a great admirer of press freedom or he did not believe in the media having unrestricted right to write what it wants to. I want to, you know, give you the details of, you know, something very interesting, you know, which happened right in the beginning when he became Chief Minister of Gujarat, right in the beginning in 2001. Now, if you know, you know, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad are twin cities. There was a tradition which has started, I think, sometime in the 1980s where the government used to provide a bus from Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar to enable journalists, majority of who used to write on the Gujarat government who were staying in Ahmedabad, they would have to travel to Gandhinagar every day to go and meet people in the various ministries, officials or the ministers or other politicians. So, every morning for a designated time from a designated place, a government bus would leave to take journalists to Gandhinagar. They could spend the entire day there and when offices shut at about 6 o'clock in the evening, that bus would bring them back to Ahmedabad and they would go through the offices to file the copy of the day. If anybody had to file a copy during the day, you had media offices available in Gandhinagar. Among the first steps which Mr. Modi did after becoming Chief Minister was to discontinue this bus service. I think it provided an indication that what he really wanted to do. On his own, you can do your job but we are not going to facilitate you to perform your duty. And there's another example of Karan Thapar as well. When the hard questions were asked and he all of a sudden left the show midway and then decides to walk off and after that never gave an interview on it. You know Karan Thapar's interview was I think, you know, it was expected. In fact, I had, I wrote a biography of Mr. Modi and in fact, I started my book by narrating as to how I prepared for my first interview with Mr. Modi and I decided that I am not going to follow the approach of Karan because I knew that 2002 is not a nice word with Mr. Modi. So, if you are trying to get something more out of him, I would not rather use it right in the beginning. I would rather use it towards the end if at all I do it and even if I do it, I do do it in such a circumspect manner that it really doesn't offend him. After all, the basic purpose of the interview gets lost if it's, he's, which is the statement that I don't want to talk to you. So, when I went to and I wrote it in my book also that I deliberately chose not to follow the strategy and the tactics of Karan. He decided for whatever be the reason, his own choice that he decided to bring up 2002 very upfront. Mr. Modi, I think, you know, reacted predictably just the way he would have. I would not have expected him to be nice enough to answer questions, you know, about an issue which is very uncomfortable about and for which he really does not have very many answers. So, let us leave that bit out. Yes, Mr. Modi definitely did not encourage the media and especially did not like uncomfortable questions. I have written in my book that as to how he personally threatened a journalist who went around in the aftermath of the 2002 riots to go and investigate matters related to his wife, you know, Yashoda Ben, who was in his village. He went and traveled to a village. So, he actually, I have on record that particular journalist saying, you know, that he got a call from Mr. Modi and asked that what agenda do you have? At that point that correspondent used to work for the Indian Express. So, he said, please don't ask me. He says, I am going to speak to your editor. He says, please do that. So, that is the kind of tactics which Mr. Modi has used. It is a strong arm kind of tactics. What we saw in 2014, in fact, it had started from 2012 onwards, with the advent of the social media, Mr. Modi thought that he could bypass mainstream media and create a direct parallel track of communication with the people. That is how he got onto Facebook. That is how he got into writing blogs. That is how he got into Twitter. And during elections, if you remember, the entire campaign at one level was being pumped in through television channels where live feed was provided free of cost by Narendra Modi.in. And on the other hand, you had, you know, a heavy dose of Twitter and Facebook perage, which is going on through the social media. So, he virtually told the official media that we really are not required. I can do what, you know, can be done separately. Immediately after becoming Prime Minister, the first foreign trip that he went on came the news that he is not going to continue with the practice of taking a press corps along with him, which has been essential because it gives journalists a tremendous amount of access and understanding of what really is going on. You get to report, you get to talk to officials and understand that how exactly is India pursuing the bilateral relationship with the particular country or how it is engaging in a multilateral meeting for which the Prime Minister has gone for. So, he discontinued that. And instead, he replaced it with briefing from one side. Later on, Mankebat was started. Mankebat is nothing but it's a recreation of the fireside chats which President Eisenhower used to have. You know, again there, again a man who did not have a healthy relationship with the press. So, there is a certain history to which Mr. Modi can always willing to, which is a leader having a very uncomfortable relationship with the media and the press. Yes. So, now let's come back to the question that where we started from. Because the trend is growing every day, you have journalists whose shows are blacked out by different cable providers in different states. That is what is being reported in social media and different local newspapers and all. Then you have, even in the print, people being asked to drop this. This trend is intensifying day by day. Do you think that the situation during Congress regime was different or it was more or less same because when we see the corporate control over media, that has remained there since last two decades. You know, I do not want to start to quantify. It's actually going to be very difficult whether it is more now during the Congress period, you know. I can definitely talk in terms of my personal experience having been in the media from the early 1980s onwards. I knew that in every media organization that I was either working for or associated with, there was a certain, there was a Lakshman Rekha which no journalist would cross, not because they were giving directions, but this is something which one learned inherently. It is a process that which we have learned. I know that there are certain things which I can speak on news click, but if I am appearing on a particular news channel, I know that this is the Lakshman Rekha which I should not cross because then I am geoproducing a future, you know, my further appearance or my further association with that particular news organization. So, it has always been the case. When we write for newspapers, there is a certain tone and tonality of our articles for newspaper A, another different kind of a language that we use for a different kind of a newspaper. If I write for a newspaper which is published by a political party, I am going to follow a different approach. I am going to use a different vocabulary. So, journalists have always been aware of it and have played within it. It is your choice that you feel that you can get away with it. There are times when you cannot get away with it. In the same channel, which we are talking about the AVP news channel, it had a fairly long period of orientation which took a critical view of this government. It was allowed on this channel, but they came a time because possibly of changes in the management, it became suddenly a situation where the management was not comfortable with the editorial line being taken by XYZ journalists. So, that is why they are told to either, you know, keep the views under, you know, be within limits or then they were asked that either the show is discontinued or asked to go. But do you think actually that it is intensified because it is the same corporate houses owning these different media outlets who also in a way funding BJP or the Congress whenever they are coming to power? You know, structurally the way media in India is structured and, you know, not just in India, but almost in every part of the world. Corporate ownership of the media definitely means that the media organization is also to represent the corporate interests of the group which is backing the media house. Quite often or not, the corporate entity, the corporate company has political interests also, political leanings, you know, in terms of funding, in terms of associations, in terms of personal relationships. Mr. Modi has very closely connected relationships with a certain set of industrialists, have either direct or indirect influences in the world of the media industry. So, that is how it actually plays out. But also, if this continues, it's also media is the fourth pillar and if it doesn't speak out what needs to be spoken, then it's also a threat for democracy, isn't it? Yes, but we are also seeing in India that more and more there is an independent media, you know, as technology has made it easier for people to get into the world of media, you know, for instance, an organization like NewsClick, where we are talking about it, technology has made it possible for platforms like these to come up. It's only going to increase. It's only through a central legislation where they can be clamped down on these. So, what you do because, you know, if Twitter is there, if Facebook is there, it is there for everyone. Nobody can say that Facebook is going to be open only for a page dedicated to Narendra Modi, not to a page dedicated to being critical of Mr. Modi. So, technology is a great level. Also, because with advent of this social media, there's also spread of fake news. So, in the end, one has to come to mainstream media or TV channels or alternative portals to know what the reality is. You know, here again, you know, I think in the primary reason for the spread of fake news is actually technology. Technology has made it so much easy for us to take every bit of information down to the handset of every phone. That is the basic difference. When we were in the early stages in this profession, you know, there was a world of information which was outside of media. After no newspaper ever wrote in this country that when Sanjay Gandhi's plane crashed, Indira Gandhi went and picked up a bunch of keys. I do not know if it is true or not. Let me clarify. But you go and ask people, everybody believes that it actually happened. How did this happen? So, there is an oral tradition. There is a tradition by which news and information and opinions do get carried. Earlier on, you used to have major wall writings. You know, there have been certain states, especially states like Kerala, West Bengal, which had a communist tradition. Wall writing was not just in terms of election slogans, but it was actually an entire political narrative to be written. And people would actually stop by at walls and read those, you know, graffiti which almost ran as a tradition of putting papers in the public at bus stands and all. So, there was a tradition of dissemination. Technology has made this far more prevalent. Thanks a lot, Niranjan, for giving us your time. And as hopefully these things keep proceeding, we'll be coming back to you on issues relating to media and other things. Thanks a lot. Thank you for watching NewsClick.