“We have witnessed the horrors of the Emergency when freedom of press and freedom of expression were suppressed. It is a blot on our democracy. On days such as this, I feel very sad to see our national TV channel struggling to maintain its professional freedom.” 

The above was written by Narendra Modi on May 3, 2014, celebrated as Press Freedom Day. Modi, then the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Prime Ministerial candidate, was “sad” because his interview with Doordarshan was “apparently” edited.

A little over a year later, on May 29, 2015, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry appointed Veena Jain as Director General (News) at Doordarshan, replacing Akshay Rout. Jain is also supposed to hold additional responsibility of the Officer on Special Duty in the I&B Ministry to handle the “New Media and Social Media Wing”.

The I&B Ministry order, which sanctions the appointment of Jain, however, suggests that any hopes of Modi walking the talk about giving the public broadcaster more autonomy were perhaps misplaced.

The order categorically states that Jain would report directly to the I&B Ministry and not the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Prasar Bharati, as the usual practice goes. The ministry order, in fact, was not even marked to the Prasar Bharti CEO Jawahar Sircar and Chairman A Surya Prakash.

Sircar, following Modi’s edited interview in 2014 had blamed the then I&B Minister Manish Tewari of coming in the way of Doordarshan’s autonomy.  Sircar did not respond to any of Newslaundry’s particular queries. In a text message, Sircar asked us to “wait for further developments”.

Highly placed sources in Prasar Bharati, however, told Newslaundry that too much should not be read into the order. “Rout is an Indian Information Service officer and so is Jain – there has not been any change in the structure of the organisation as such,” said the senior official on condition of anonymity. When pointed out that the order specifically mentions that Jain is to report to the ministry, the official said that it was a case of “bureaucratic error”. “Whoever drafted the order worded it wrongly,” said the official.  As for the order not being marked to the CEO and Chairman, the official said that it was probably a case of oversight. “Doordarshan is an entity of Prasar Bharati – the government recognises that and there is no friction between the two,” the official claimed. The source, however, did concede that there was a tug-of-war between Sircar and I&B ministry Secretary Bimal Julka on certain issues.

Repeated attempts by Newslaundry to contact Julka were futile. His office, instead, directed us to Joint Secretary, I&B Ministry, Mihir Kumar Singh. Singh’s office, however, informed us that he was in a meeting. Julka was quoted by The Times of India to have said that that Jain would continue to report to the Prasar Bharati CEO as DG news. “We need a director general level official to supervise the social media and new media wing. This is to help her acclimatize” said Julka to ToI.

For a government that is so particular about optics, it is rather strange that an appointment order as sensitive as this was a simple case of oversight.  Also, if this is indeed a case of bureaucratic error, one wonders why nothing has been done so far to set the record straight.