Mainstream TV media has seemingly not taken any feedback on board in its coverage of the CJP protest. Emblematic of this are two recent pieces of ‘investigation’ by CNN-News18, which shows how far their coverage of the CJP protest continues to stray from the real issues of the protest – deep-seated anger and resentment against exam paper leaks and the dwindling standards of the education system in this country, among others.       

Ruchika Singh, a 15-year-old minor, has not been seen in public since a video of her using expletives against Prime Minister Modi at Jantar Mantar went viral, prompting six FIRs including charges of defamation and “intentional insult to provoke breach of peace”.

One report by News18 on the case treated her continued absence itself as the story. A reporter stood outside her locked Noida flat, informing viewers that “the 25-year-old lady who’s a beauty salon worker continues to be MIA,” and speculated at length about whether the family had fled anticipating police action or gone into hiding “expecting” the case to be dropped, since Singh had reportedly represented the CJP during the protest. 

Guards at her housing society were questioned on camera about the last time they had seen the “mother-daughter duo” – all without a single new fact about the original video or the case, not to mention the fact that the channel got her age wrong.

The channel’s second report went further still. Reporters tracked down the beauty salon where Singh had briefly trained in nail art, running what the channel called an “exclusive” interview with the owner, who explained that Singh had allegedly used a false name because she “didn't have an Aadhaar card” and had been asked to stop coming after repeatedly promising to bring it. The segment also aired a WhatsApp exchange in which Singh’s mother apologised to a former co-worker, writing that she was “truly sorry” and that the family would “continue to submit letters of apology to whoever asks for them”. 

At no point did either report allege any new wrongdoing. They simply followed a young girl’s brief, unrelated employment history and her mother’s private messages onto primetime television and dressed that up as an investigation.

Suffice to say, people on social media platforms like X had a lot to say about their coverage. Saurav Das, the CJP spokesperson, had this to say:

Here’s what others had to say about their coverage:

CNN-News18 subsequently deleted their post on the salon ‘exclusive’ on X after a torrent of negative feedback. The deletion did little to change the broader tenor of coverage, where several anchors were busy running their own campaigns in civility.

Other anchors turned the moment into a morality lesson of their own, several borrowing near-identical language. Sudhir Chaudhary of DD News launched an on-air campaign against protest profanity under the slogan “Respect is cool. Abuse is not” and “India Against Gaalibaaz”, framing politeness as a matter of Indian family values. 

Chitra Tripathi of ABP News told viewers “you would never expect your own children to use such language,” and suggested that leaders defending the protest’s tone were letting the whole movement look “sanskaar viheen” – devoid of values. 

Arnab Goswami's monologue on Republic TV urged viewers to withhold forgiveness from protesters now apologising “with folded hands,” insisting that arrests were needed “so that a lesson goes out to the people of this country.” 

Sushant Sinha's show on News18 India claimed the language used against Modi was so vulgar that “we cannot even write those words on the screen,” while running a follow-up segment on how hurt ordinary citizens felt on the prime minister’s behalf. 

If all this wasn’t enough, journalists from mainstream TV media couldn’t stop sermonising like the language police even after she had issued a public apology to Modi. 

None of these anchors turned similar scrutiny toward the volume or severity of the abuse being directed back at the minor. According to this report in Scroll, dozens of BJP supporters on X and Instagram went after her as her video of abusing Modi gained traction online. One X user shared screenshots of her Instagram profile, falsely claimed she had a Muslim partner, and called for “strict action” against the “cheap girl” making “insulting comments” against the prime minister. 

Another tweet, which crossed a million impressions, threatened to withdraw support for the BJP unless she was arrested. Replies beneath these posts were filled with abusive, sexually charged comments. Others went straight to doxxing by circulating the address of her purported workplace, a phone number, and the names of her family members, while her photo was lifted for an AI-generated “Most Wanted” poster on another post.

And she isn’t the only one who has suffered. Shradha Singh, a 23-year-old content creator who attended the protest posted a reel on Instagram mocking the Rapid Action Force. After posting this reel, she began receiving calls threatening rape and murder after BJP supporters traced her car's number plate – visible in an older post – to her phone number and home address, according to the report in Scroll. Instagram added to her woes by removing 33 of her protest-related posts without offering any avenue to appeal.

News18 India and DD News aired the reel and couldn’t help themselves here as well, calling her content “objectionable” and engaging with the usual sermonising.

Another protester, Ruchika Chawla, was singled out by Shashi Kumar, a BJP social media coordinator in Uttar Pradesh, who shared her video and told followers to “make these three girls famous” and file FIRs, adding that “no apology should be accepted”. 

One of the conditions on which the CJP called off its protest was the Centre’s assurance that all FIRs against protesters would be withdrawn. The Supreme Court, however, narrowed that relief, ruling that withdrawal would apply only to those protesters with no prior criminal antecedents, leaving the door open for cases like Singh’s to continue.

Against this backdrop, Modi's own response to “forgive” protesters whose abuse directed at him and his late mother was “a cultural shock”, has been framed by sympathetic anchors as magnanimous rather than examined for what it actually did. 

In a Friday-night Instagram reel, he described the abuse directed at him as coming from “naughty children,” adding that these were his own children whom he would guide onto “the right way”. It positioned Modi as the reasonable and forgiving figure even as the FIRs he did not call off, and the online mobs he did not condemn, continued unabated in his name. 

Singh, meanwhile, remains in hiding, while the case against her has been transferred to the Parliament Street police station for further investigation, according to The Hindu. 

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