The Punjab government’s action comes days after the channel broadcast “Operation Sheeshmahal”, alleging that there had been “ultra-lavish and disproportionate expenditure incurred in refurbishing the official residence of Delhi CM”.
It is no one’s case that journalists should not be subjected to due process of law. But there is a disturbing pattern in how governments across the political spectrum are treating the press
By: Editorial
Updated: May 8, 2023 07:03 IST
NOT that another reminder was needed. But the arrest of a reporter and her two colleagues from Times Now Navbharat by the Punjab Police for allegedly knocking a woman down with their vehicle and “using casteist slurs” against her — the channel and its staff have denied the allegations — is another reminder of how, increasingly, those in power, whatever their politics, see the press as an adversary that better be reined in and intimidated, rather than given the secure space to address the people’s right to know by either revealing uncomfortable truths or asking uncomfortable questions. The three Times Now Navbharat staffers were in Punjab to cover an AAP government event, at which Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal was present. According to their version of events, the reporter and her colleagues were denied entry to the event and “…were returning when their car probably brushed past a rickshaw and the (petitioners) were asked to come out of the vehicle and surrounded”. According to the police, they knocked down a woman and hurled casteist slurs at her. The case against them is under the SC/ST Atrocities Act. While the reporter has been released on interim bail, her colleagues are in judicial custody.
The Punjab government’s action comes days after the channel broadcast “Operation Sheeshmahal”, alleging that there had been “ultra-lavish and disproportionate expenditure incurred in refurbishing the official residence of Delhi CM”. The Aam Aadmi Party and its government should address the questions raised by the report and, of course, have the right to rebut, even refute the allegations. That, however, doesn’t give it a free pass to target the channel or its employees in a state where it is in power.
Sure, many news organisations, including TV channels, have decided to be megaphones of those in power. It is no one’s case that journalists should not be subjected to due process of law, their protections under Article 19 are the same as the citizen’s. At the same time, there is a disturbing pattern in how governments across the political spectrum are treating the press: from searching a newsroom in Kerala to locking up a reporter in UP, sending a police team from Rajasthan to question a TV anchor or sending the taxmen to knock on many a door in the capital. The dictum seems to be: have power, will abuse. The AAP has claimed its “Delhi Model” of governance and politics is radically different from the path followed by other political parties; the party has projected itself as a dissenter in the political space and presented education and health as the twin pillars of its politics. Pushed to the defensive over the liquor excise charges, its senior leaders and state ministers are now welcoming the arrest of journalists. For a party that doesn’t hesitate to seize the moral high ground, this is a dispiriting low.
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