A major claim made by Narendra Modi’s leaders, like Union Ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad, is that many of them have fought against the hateful Emergency imposed by the dictatorial Indira Gandhi in 1975. In fact, Prasad has, on occassions, indicated that there could be no assault on press freedom as long as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power.

The innocuous question to be asked is: Is the Modi government merely tolerant of media freedom, or does it respect it? Prime Minister Modi has barely concealed his loathing of the Indian media. He actively avoids them. The few interviews he’s given are to Indian newspapers and television news channels that are known to be Modi-friendly. Modi has not spoken to a newspaper, news magazine, or news channel that has been explicitly critical of his government and its policies. He has not had an interaction with the Indian media in the last four years, because it seems that he cannot tolerate critical questions.

Modi’s example is faithfully followed by his Cabinet colleagues. They do not speak to media that is critical of them. It is hard to ignore this glaring fact, especially while even United States President Donald Trump has had two interviews with The New York Times editorial team, one immediately after the poll verdict and another a little later. Of course, Trump is waging an open war against the liberal media, accusing them of fake news. Modi and his colleagues avoid an open confrontation, though they still hate the liberal media, and they contemptuously use the term “Lutyens’ media” to describe what they consider to be the Western-educated, upper-middle-class media of New Delhi and other metropolitan centres.

It is no fault of the BJP, Modi and his colleagues that they hate media that is critical of them. Indira Gandhi displayed the same contempt, as did many other former leaders like long-time West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, Tamil Nadu chief ministers MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, and former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao. Politicians, especially those in power, do not like a media that scrutinises their actions and words. This isn’t just the case in India; it’s a common trait of politicians everywhere in the world. But most other politicians here and elsewhere would not shout from rooftops—as do the present leaders of Modi’s team—that they are for media freedom, in contrast to Indira Gandhi. To prove their good faith, they must learn to accept media criticism.

Team Modi can claim, truthfully, that they are willing to face the media firing squad, but there is no one in the media who wants to question them in a fair manner. Unfortunately and ironically, this is indeed the case. Many newspapers and news channels openly support the government. If ever they let a critical observation slip in, it is only to warn the government that they should defend their flanks. The media is playing a supportive role through what is euphemistically known as “constructive criticism”.

The media’s role from the 1975 Emergency days has changed too. Many of the newspapers who were ruthlessly critical of Indira Gandhi are not playing the same adversarial role today. There is a reason for this. Media, which was mainly owned by big private enterprises, was not comfortable with the ostentatious socialism of Indira Gandhi. But after the 1991 economic reforms, the media became a cheerleader of every government’s pro-market policy measures. In many ways, the private sector media and the government happen to be on the same page: a great part of the Indian media was not liberal as it was Right-wing.

Whatever her many failings, Indira Gandhi was shrewd enough to take note of the fact that the Indian media was Right-wing in its orientation, and she had a veritable ideological battle on hand. She tried to muster the support of small and medium-size newspapers to counter the muscle of the “jute press”. The BJP today believes its media critics are elitist and leftist, and that it’s fighting an ideological enemy when they pour contempt on them. Modi and his associates are following in the footsteps of Indira Gandhi in their expression of contempt for the media.

There was also the other fact that Indira Gandhi had to reckon with. The media that she was opposed to had a pathological hatred for her, and the media’s attitude continued with the Congress leaders who followed Gandhi. This includes Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, Sonia Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh. The principles of fairness were set aside, and they were made targets of attack on every issue, big and small.

It can be said that the marginalised liberal media today behaves in the same manner. They have a pathological hatred of Modi, BJP President Amit Shah, the Rashtriya Swayasevak Sangh (RSS), and everything Right-wing. This gives an opportunity to Modi and Co. to turn around and say they’re being targeted unfairly. The principle of media freedom is that bias, unfairness and inaccuracy cannot be used as an excuse to attack the basic right to free speech. If the adversarial media has nothing but bias against the government of the day, then that media outlet will lose its credibility with the general reader/viewer.

However, the government cannot set itself up—either directly or indirectly—as the arbiter of what is fair and what is unfair, in the functioning of the media.

One of the major bones of contention before, during, and after the Emergency was the role of Doordarshan and All India Radio. Jayaprakash Narayan and other Opposition leaders argued, protested and held dharnas against the Indira Gandhi government for it blatant misuse of DD and AIR as instruments of state propaganda.

Interestingly, DD and AIR continue to be the tools of state propaganda with those who fought against the Emergency at the helm. Jaitley and Prasad would be embarrassed to face this blatant misuse of Prasar Bharati. Prasar Bharati chairman Surya Prakash intensely hates the Emergency and the Indira Gandhi establishment for its authoritarian ways, and he has rightfully taken pride in the fact that he had been on the other side of the barricades in the battle of principles. But today, he can’t claim that Prasar Bharati is free of government intervention and manipulation, and that DD and AIR function as public broadcasters, and not as state broadcasters.

The leaders of the BJP, and anti-Emergency crusaders like Prakash, carry the onerous burden of proving they are not going the way of Indira Gandhi and her intolerance towards the media. So, far they have failed the test.