The Home Ministry wants to “regulate information flow”. Is anyone surprised?

The Home Ministry, in a latest order, has barred journalists from meeting senior officials other than the spokesperson. Which means it is not really a curb on the media from reporting on it, but, well, it surely sounds like an attempt. The last time we were so surprised was when Sachin Tendulkar scored a century. In any case, let’s not further vilify this much-misunderstood government. After all, the idea is only to make life easy for journalists by streamlining information flow.

According to an official memorandum dated July 23, the Additional Director General (Media) will be the “single point dissemination for all publicity material to the media including clarifications sought by the media”.  The memo then goes to detail out the responsibilities of the ADG. And, by the looks of it, the ADG’s got his task cut out. From arranging media interactions to updating photos on social media, it will be all the ADG’s responsibility from now on. “The information flow to mediapersons will be arranged in Media room no. 9, North Block. Mediapersons will be told by ADG (Media) that they do not have briefing/meeting with officers other than in the media room,” the memo adds

Journalists, apart from being miffed, are trying to figure out what prompted the government to pull the plug, and not even sugarcoat it. Dhirendra K Jha of Scroll suspects the hand of Amit Shah in the “gag order”. According to Jha, Shah, in a Parliamentary Committee meeting, had expressed his displeasure with a section of the media, which, he believes, was trying to discredit the government. Jha contends that Shah’s observations led to the Home Ministry issuing the order.

Journalist Aman Sharma, who covers the Home Ministry for The Economic Times, tweeted out that he saw this coming. Sharma cites a report filed by him in February, which speaks about Arun Jaitley urging bureaucrats to refrain from indulging in propaganda – and getting the Press Information Bureau instead. The media’s alleged interest to report on “controversies” and the PIB’s complaints of non-cooperation from ministries in parting with information led to Jaitley’s information, according to Sharma.

According to a report in The Times of India, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has “summoned” Mr single-point-dissemination-for-all-publicity-material, K. S. Dhatwalia for an explanation, and beat reporters were being convinced that there is no gag. The idea, it seems, is to regulate the information flow by “converging the points of dissemination”.

But then since we don’t like confrontations and would rather toe the government line, we shall refrain from speculating. Instead, as sanskari reporters, we did what the government wants us to do whenever in doubt: call up the ADG.  Dhatiwala picked up his phone every time we called him – but simply refused to utter even a single word.

Meanwhile, we are still trying to figure out the coordinates of Room no 9, North Block – the Media Room. Dhatwalia will hopefully say something there.