India’s sophisticated authoritarian practice: “Antinational” speech and selective repression of criticism
Country: India
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has perfected the art of politicizing the media, using a combination of selective access, legal intimidation, and even violence. As a result, India’s press has increasingly become a propaganda machine—a scenario not unlike the polarization and politicization of U.S. media.
Lessons:
The parallels between Modi’s politics of Hindu nationalism and growing strains of white supremacy in the United States suggest that nationalist attacks on divergent views in the press will continue.
Even if efforts to suppress criticism are unsuccessful, they can still fuel media polarization and siloing into biased echo chambers.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on members of the press are unprecedented in U.S. history:Since announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections to the end of his second year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump sent 1,339 tweets about the media that were critical, insinuating, condemning, or threatening.[1]
Trump frequently accuses the media of bias against him, particularly in response to investigative reporting or critical coverage of any lies, missteps, or controversial actions by him or his Administration. Trump also routinely threatens to strengthen libel laws and revoke broadcasting licenses, and calls for boycotts against media outlets.[2]
Trump’s verbal assaults seem to have incited real threats to the press. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, 17 journalists were attacked and 7 arrested in the United States in the first half of 2019.[3] In October 2018, a fervent Trump supporter mailed a pipe bomb to CNN’s Atlanta office, along with a dozen other devices sent to various critics of the president.[4] Meanwhile, the Trump Administration routinely attempts to ban certain journalists from events and has held significantly fewer press conferences than any recent administration.[5]
While Trump’s attempts to label the media “the enemy of the American people” are unusual in the United States, they mirror rhetoric and tactics seen as part of authoritarian re-emergence around the world. Since his election in 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tightly controlled press access, engaged only with friendly outlets, weaponized social media, raided the offices of critical outlets, and used government advertising spending to corral and control the press.[6] His supporters have attacked journalists, with six killed in 2018.[7]
Pragya Mishra, a social entrepreneur and expert on cross-sectoral partnerships in India, says the result is a “great threat to the freedom of speech using British-era laws on sedition against editors, against comedians, even using these laws in university spaces against students.”[8]
These attacks on the press and civic discourse are driven by “a strong wave of Hindu nationalism,” says Mishra, with investigative journalists and others accused of “antinational” thought and speech for any implied criticism of the Modi government or emphasis on the rights of minority groups, like Muslims and Dalits.[9] In other words, Hindu nationalism forms both the motivation and the substance of the attacks on the press.
The results have been devastating. According to Mishra, the government’s efforts have led to “political imprisonment” and “a lot of self-censorship”[10]—a claim echoed by Reporters Without Borders, which argues that “the mere threat of such a prosecution encourages self-censorship.”[11]
[In India] Hindu nationalism forms both the motivation and the substance of the attacks on the press.
Meanwhile, the Indian media landscape—particularly television, but also printed newspapers—is dominated by loud, brash, and overtly pro-Modi outlets. According to Aman Madan, an independent Indian journalist, “India’s once-famed press is devolving into a propaganda apparatus.”[12]
This favorable press may help explain why Modi won a landslide re-election in 2019 despite lackluster economic growth.[13]
To be sure, the United States has considerable protections for free speech and the press that India lacks (namely, the First Amendment), and Trump’s failure to intimidate the media stands in stark contrast to Modi’s success. Yet two enduring similarities should be cause for concern:
Modi’s efforts are based on “tapping into the history” of Hindu dominance in India, which has certain parallels with the politics of “white supremacy” in the United States. As U.S politics continue to polarize, the relationship between white nationalist appeals and selective restrictions on free speech may continue to grow.
Attacks on the press can fuel a partisan and polarized information environment in which many voters only receive biased or explicitly partisan views, even if such attacks fail to silence critical voices, altogether.Madan notes that one of the strongest pro-Modi television anchors resembles an even more combative Sean Hannity (a conservative U.S. talk show host and political commentator). Nationalist attacks on the media create narratives of media bias in which even fact-based reporting is seen as fundamentally political.
If current trends continue, the strong-handed suppression of criticism that has defined Modi’s time in office may not even be necessary in the United States to lead to similarly anti-democratic results. Independent, diverse, and fact-based media in the United States could deteriorate through polarization and politicization alone.
Recommended Reading:
https://qz.com/india/1570899/how-narendra-modi-has-almost-killed-indian-media/
https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/indias-not-so-free-media/
End Notes:
[1] Stephanie Sugars, “From Fake News to Enemy of the People: An Anatomy of Trump’s Tweets,” January 30, 2019, https://cpj.org/blog/2019/01/trump-twitter-press-fake-news-enemy-people.php.
[2] Sarah Repucci, “Freedom and the Media 2019: A Downward Spiral” (Freedom House, June 4, 2019), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-media/freedom-media-2019.
[3] “U.S. Press Freedom Tracker,” U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, accessed July 2, 2019, https://pressfreedomtracker.us/.
[4] Bill Chappell, “‘Another Suspicious Package’ To CNN Is Intercepted In Atlanta,” NPR, October 29, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661757946/cnn-says-another-suspicious-package-was-intercepted-in-atlanta.
[5] “United States: Unprecedented Violence Targets Journalists,” Reporters Without Borders, accessed July 2, 2019, https://rsf.org/en/united-states; John Woolley, “How Different Are Sarah Sanders’s Press Briefings?,” The American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara, October 22, 2018), https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/analyses/how-different-are-sarah-sanderss-press-briefings.
[6] Nikhil Inamdar, “How Narendra Modi Has Almost Killed the Indian Media,” Quartz India, March 11, 2019, https://qz.com/india/1570899/how-narendra-modi-has-almost-killed-indian-media/.
[7] “India: Attacked Online and Physically | Reporters without Borders,” RSF, accessed July 2, 2019, https://rsf.org/en/india.
[8] Pragya Mishra. Remarks at “Democracy Dialogue: Tactics to Protect Civic Space in Russia, U.S. and beyond.” Open Gov Hub. Jul 22, 2019. Used with permission.
[9] “India: Attacked Online and Physically | Reporters without Borders,” RSF, accessed July 2, 2019, https://rsf.org/en/india.
[10] Pragya Mishra. Remarks at “Democracy Dialogue: Tactics to Protect Civic Space in Russia, U.S. and beyond.” Open Gov Hub. Jul 22, 2019. Used with permission.
[11] “India: Attacked Online and Physically | Reporters without Borders,” RSF, accessed July 2, 2019, https://rsf.org/en/india.
[12] Aman Madan, “India’s Not-So-Free Media,” The Diplomat, January 23, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/indias-not-so-free-media/.
[13] Jeffrey Gettleman, Mujib Mashal, and Hari Kumar, “India’s Narendra Modi Appears Headed for Re-Election, Exit Polls Show,” The New York Times, May 19, 2019, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/india-modi-election-polls.html; Peter S. Goodman, “Modi Promised Better Days and Bridges. India’s Voters Are Still Waiting.,” The New York Times, May 16, 2019, sec. Business, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/business/india-modi-election-economy.html.
