Yesterday, at around 3:30 pm, Raisina Road was buzzing with live OBs (operating broadcast vans), mics and cameras. It wasn’t smog, the #OROP suicide or the Press Club’s famed egg on toast that had brought so many journalists here. The Press Club of India had called for a protest against the 24-hour ban on NDTV India, imposed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). The ban was to go into effect on November 9 and was in response to the channel’s coverage of the terrorist attack in Pathankot in January 2016.

The meet at the Press Club ended up to be more of an open forum for members of the fraternity to come and speak against the “exercise of power by the government to muzzle the fourth estate”. The event was presided over by the Press Club President Gautam Lahiri, Seema Mustafa from the Editor’s Guild, Rajdeep Sardesai from India Today and many others who questioned the legality of the gag order.

There were voices of caution and reason. Sardesai pointed out that comparisons to the Emergency were “media hyperbole” and it only weakened the protest because it was quite evident that the situation today is nothing like the press censorship that was in force in 1975. Several familiar faces from the NDTV Group – Ravish Kumar, Sonia Singh, Maya Mirchandani – were present. But it wasn’t just NDTV employees. Delhi-based media showed up in full strength to show its solidarity. It was one of largest shows of solidarity and strength that they’d seen.

Vikram Chandra, who recently stepped down as the Chief Executive Officer of the NDTV group, said that the government’s “subjective interpretation’ of the broadcast in question was arbitrarily gagging the media.

NDTV India had filed a petition in the Supreme Court for an appeal against the ban on Monday. The channel maintains that their report was no different from that of other channels and the information reported was already in the public domain. The court will hear the appeal on December 5. The gag order issued by MIB is based on the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, which was amended in 2015 against the backdrop of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack coverage.

It might be optimistic to credit yesterday’s gathering but the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) has stayed the ban for now.

Since the matter is now sub judice — under judicial consideration and therefore prohibited from public discussion — people from NDTV maintained a diplomatic silence on the allegations against them. Others took up the call. Hartosh Singh Bal, Political Editor of The Caravan, not only took a jibe at the Modi government for its apathy towards journalists and the community, but also rapped the NDTV group on its knuckles for not having supported similar protests in the past.

But Monday wasn’t simply about NDTV India. It was about what journalists and media organisations go through to bring out information, often with little or no security or safeguards against the government. Many journalists decried the MIB ban as intolerant and misusing the law to crack down on the media.

Which raised the question of the need for an autonomous self-regulating media body. While the News Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA), set up in 2009, is ostensibly tasked with such a role, it isn’t entirely autonomous. Sardesai referred to Ofcom, a government-aided autonomous regulator of media organisations in the United Kingdom, which he touted as an ideal model —ensuring responsible adherence to media guidelines without interfering with their content.

While perhaps not an autonomous regulatory body, but the Press Club of India is certainly working on a draft of what is known as the Press Freedom Bill. The idea of this bill came about when a journalist from Uttar Pradesh, Jagendra Singh, was allegedly murdered for exposing the sand mafia in the state. Fourteen states came together and formed the Federation of Press Clubs of India (FPCI), which is now looking to institute measures for the protection of journalists and their employers. Rahul Jalali, the current President of FPCI, spoke to Newslaundry about the atrocities journalists face in parts of the country that are often not reported.

And while such solidarity is heartwarming, it would be amiss not to note that previously such bans have often been met with silence.

What was heard on Monday was the media coming together for a chorus that tried to speak for those who have been silenced, like the voices suppressed for years in parts of Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kashmir.

Protests like this one are also being held in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Assam and many other metros, condemning the MIB order. Though the club’s resolution sought an “immediate quashing of the ban in interest of Indian democracy”, the matter is now with the Supreme Court to hear on December 5. Let’s hope the solidarity that was on display on Monday holds together till then.  

[freenews]