Journalism and why India is the most dangerous place to be a journalist.
Journalist. Who was India’s first journalist is a question that many of us have us wondered. Since mythology and religion play a fundamental role in the lives and imaginations of India, according to that, the first journalist according to that would be our wandering sage of the gods, Narada.
Narada did not face any censure by the government back then for it was the Satyuga which is called the ideal period for humanity to exist, although if Narada was writing today, he would have most likely made a top class columnist and probably faced a lot of hate emails by the opposition party. Coming back to the 21st century, journalism has gone from strength to strength, especially since the advent of the Internet age where it has become possible to interact with millions of articles and perspectives while sitting in one place and having two way communication.
Thanks to social media, for media outlets have realized that social media is the biggest tool for unparalleled reach because everyone has it right on the tip of their fingers.
That is the best and worst part of such accessibility, at one point it helps foster two way communication between the readers and the journalists by way of comments, sharing stories/articles etc, for through this method the consumers can communicate their views and ideas while the journalist can glean new insights, rectify his ideas and more through this two way communication, something that was not possible before the internet came up.
Coming to the bad part, it also leads to the problem of spreading misinformation/fake news just for the sake of better reach. All of us have heard of the term WhatsApp University, where messages are forwarded incessantly in the guise of news and 99 percent of the time, they turn out to be completely wrong. One famous example of the same is a photo of India taken from space, all lit up with diyas with an accompanying caption that said- India’s Diwali as seen from space, which led to so many nationalists sharing this milestone on their social medias until it was confirmed that a doctored image had been shared.
It is not just misinformation that is getting propagated, it also awakens the selective bias of the readers, they only share the news that conforms to their existing thoughts/biases and they leave out all the other news that threatens it.
Sedition or journalism that holds the government accountable?
Sedition, the word finds its roots in the later half of the Roman empire, in the words seditio which meant the collective disobedience towards a person in a post of authority and was punishable by death. This was further solidified by the Roman emperor Tiberius who proclaimed that any disagreeable word uttered against the emperor would count as this particular offense.
To bring religion once again, it has often been theorized that the reason Jesus met his fate of crucifixion was owing to the fact that he too was guilty of this offense, although this is more or less a theory, at best circumstantial evidence.
Tiberius brought back to life in the dictatorial regimes
Our current government since the past 10 years has been following the example of Tiberius, for they have been responsible for the death, incarceration of many journalists who they thought were going against the views of the government but in reality they were just performing their jobs honestly.
Since when did free speech become a crime in a society that elects leaders through a democratic voting process and that too for a period of 5 years, although Russia and North Korea are live examples of elected tyrants, which is made much more sardonic by the fact that Kim Jong-Un belongs to a dictatorial dynasty. Another fact about Russia is that while Putin has annexed most of Ukraine in a war that has been going on for nearly two years now, he has left one district alone, Gori.
A closer look at this nondescript suburb tells us that this was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, the man who exercised an iron fisted rule for more than two decades over the USSR, now called Russia. He has been given the distinction of being the longest serving Russian leader although the way Putin is going, that distinction will no longer belong to Stalin. Putin was not actually the direct successor to Stalin but ideologically speaking, they are twins.
The similarities between Modi and Putin’s leadership
It could be out of some dark, twisted feeling of respect that Putin leaves this particular suburb alone while freely shedding blood in the rest of Ukraine, paying homage to a man who was a mirror image of his cruelty. Modi is as close as you will get to the Indian version of Putin, both men are hellbent on being the longest serving leaders of their respective nations by every means possible, both get their opponents killed to stay in power, both use psychological warfare to stay in power and most importantly, they shut down every media outlet that goes against them.
What they do to the journalists is so unspeakable that it cannot be said in print. What exactly do they call the news that goes against them? One of Trump’s most used catchphrases, FAKE NEWS.
To conclude, it must be the soaring heat nowadays that is increasing the temperature of these leaders, they should use some ice packs, sip some cold drinks, it would benefit them immensely, because if a nation loses it’s right to speak up against the morally wrong thing, then it is no longer a republic but a banana republic, where no leaders but only chaos rules.
