On the evening of July 12, editors and bureau chiefs of Delhi’s well-known newspapers, news channels and wire agencies assembled around a dinner table at Longchamp, the rooftop venue at the Taj Mahal hotel. Between them sat the host, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Journalists Nayantara Rai (Bureau Chief, ET Now) and Pallavi Ghosh (Senior Editor, Politics, CNN-News 18) flanked the Finance Minister and Shereen Bhan (Managing Editor, CNBC-TV18) was seated right across. Pranab Dhal Samanta (Dy. Executive Editor, The Economic Times) and Vaidyanathan Iyer of (Executive Editor (National Affairs), The Indian Express) were also present. Others surrounded the table as Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and MoS Anurag Thakur stood by.

The venue was ornamented at one end with a candelabrum holding a dozen varieties of exotic candles. Sanjeev Sanyal, the Principal Economic Advisor to the ministry, hung around at the other end and talked economic disequilibrium, the Japanese economy and Chahal’s role in the cricket World Cup. The ministry’s spokesperson was left alone with his soup at one of the tables near the bar where male journalists sipped red wine and gossiped.   

The post-Budget dinner is an annual event where officials of the Finance Ministry, as the invite self-evidently states, “meet the media persons after the Budget presentation”. But the wind did not blow in the familiar direction this time. The turnout was subdued. Of the 40 or so “media persons” at the event (out of a couple hundred invited this year), almost everyone had an editorial air of importance and but scarcely anyone checked the boxes associated with a reporter. 

Most “beat reporters”, I was told, had decided not to show up for the dinner thanks to Sitharaman’s directive to make permanent the “pre-Budget quarantine” in her ministry that had been temporary all these years. This large-scale boycott does not have a parallel in recent years. Sitharaman’s order has meant that journalists will not be able to enter the ministry without registering their presence. Instead, they’ll now have to seek an appointment for an official rendezvous. This, reporters claim, will significantly hamper their inflow of information; information that is often converted into stories of “public interest”. The ability to protect sources within the ministry too will be impaired and so will the professional competitiveness among scribes to break crucial stories.

In an acerbic statement, the Editors Guild of India on July 10 “condemned” the Ministry’s restriction of access as a “gag on media freedom”. Sitharaman’s office was quick to deny this, and cloaked its intent in an unconvincing set of euphemisms. In a clarification, it claimed the “procedure” was designed for “streamlining and facilitating the entry of media persons inside the Ministry of Finance, North Block”. Reporters say they cringed when the statement continued that the move was a “part of overall efforts being made by the ministry to make reporting for media persons hassle free and convenient”.

On July 9, editors from multiple publications had met Sitharaman at North Block. A source present at the meeting told Newslaundry that journalists had asked her to reverse the ministry’s quarantine and the minister had flatly refused. She wasn’t moved by the argument that PIB accreditation should not require journalists to seek prior appointment, and added that the ministry was prepared to defend itself in court if need be.

On July 11, an editorial in the Indian Express rebuked the Finance Ministry for putting in place a system that made journalists “hostage to the vagaries of executive discretion and the bureaucracies of permissions”. It said the move signals that the government is “insecure and distrustful” and “does not trust the institution of the press, or, for that matter, its own officials…”

To institute more pressure upon the Ministry, around 40 journalists, mostly reporters, had gathered at the Press Club in Delhi on July 10 and 11 and formulated demands that they wanted the ministry to meet.

They were: 

– Restoration of the pre-quarantine status quo for journalists

– Free access in the Ministry for PIB accredited journalists as has been the practice

– Allotment of a proper room for journalists covering the ministry inside North Block instead of the current improvised corridor outside

The journalists added that they do not accept the proposal of a daily briefing by the Finance Ministry in lieu of restricted access, and that they’ve decided to “boycott the post-Budget dinner by the Finance Minister”.

However, this collective splintered after two national dailies decided to break ranks. The first one was Indian Express. Sources told Newslaundry that the editorial team at Express believed that they had taken a firm stand on the matter in its strongly-worded editorial on July 11. No further protest was required. A senior editor at Express, sources said, thought that beat reporters were engaging in “unionbaazi”. Express reporters covering the Finance Ministry were asked to subdue their protest and attend the dinner. Four reporters from the Express fraternity—two from Indian Express and two from Financial Express—were in attendance.

Newslaundry reached out to P Vaidyanathan Iyer, Executive Editor (National Affairs) at Indian Express. Iyer said that the post-Budget dinner is a “Finance Ministry tradition” and a “forum for the press to meet officials in a social setting”. “Indian Express accepted the Minister’s invitation with grace,” he added.

Iyer stated that the newspaper had highlighted the Finance Ministry’s access restriction in two reports (this and this), and also “strongly condemned” it in the July 11 editorial. (This was a non-answer, since Newslaundry asked Iyer about the newspaper’s position on the dinner boycott, and not the access restriction.)

Iyer did not comment on claims that Indian Express was the first to break ranks, that it labelled the stand taken by reporters as “unionbaazi”, and had asked the reporters to attend the dinner against their wishes. 

Following Express, communication from editorial management to the others followed, and the big-wigs at Hindustan Times decided that they’ll be dining with the Finance Minister at the Taj Hotel. In fact, sources said that a major reason for Hindustan Times’s change of heart was its editor-in-chief’s front-page interview with Sitharaman that day.

Newslaundry has sent a questionnaire to Hindustan Times. This piece will be updated as and when the paper responds. 

Once Express and Hindustan Times fell, a domino effect was in order. The editorial management of other publications, who had either supported the boycott or were on the fence, relented. Editorial heads at Financial Express, Mint, Economic Times and Business Standard showed up. “They supported our decision to boycott the dinner at first. But soon, they were requesting us to attend the dinner. When we did not relent, the request turned into a despatch,” a reporter with a mainstream paper told Newslaundry.

According to National Herald, an ANI reporter attended the dinner after “the management of the news agency reportedly pressurized him to do so”.  

In the days leading to the post-Budget dinner, a bureau chief of a TV channel who did not find the boycott “impactful enough” had advocated attending the dinner with mouths covered with cloth “to show gagging”. “If we [are] going to protest it should be meaningful and impactful protest … wear masks, stand in a line and shoot,” the journalist wrote in a private online forum. The bureau chief was at the table at Taj, gagless, chatting with Sitharaman. Neither meaningful nor impactful. Hell, not even a protest.

A few reporters who were ordered to go to Taj expressed protest by not venturing to the rooftop venue. They remained in the hotel lobby.

A source at a wire agency told Newslaundry that the Finance Ministry’s decision had annoyed the fraternity and that it has to be united and restrained to make the ministry withdraw the order. Despite this, two reporters from the agency did show up at the dinner. “But it’s also a two-way street,” the source added. “Some journalists had started loitering within the ministry and their conduct has lacked dignity. They would chase secretaries unnecessarily and litter around in the canteen. The ministry is wrong in its place but the journalists must also be cede some ground.” 

While senior staff members from most publications were present at the event, the Hindu Business Line team was not. A senior journalist at the newspaper confirmed that the absence was indeed a protest against the ministry’s curtailment of access.

Journalists told Newslaundry that although they’ve expressed disagreement by boycotting the post-Budget dinner, they’ll continue to attend press conferences and briefings by the ministry. “The dinner was not a part of our duty, it was to celebrate the Budget. Why should we attend a celebration? But we will continue our duty,” a journalist with a national daily told Newslaundry.

While Sitharaman remains adamant about her ministry’s curb on journalistic access, it is not clear how mainstream media outlets plan to surmount the obstacle. While unhappy beat reporters did mount an unprecedented protest, editorial heads at certain publications did a U-turn and undid the consensus that had been forged.

Note: In an older version of this article, MoS (Finance) Anurag Thakur’s name was incorrectly mentioned as Arjun Thakur. We regret the error.