New Delhi: Renowned journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani on Thursday (January 18) said that the public has been denied the free flow of information, hindering their ability to assess the work of the Union government and make informed choices.“As India heads towards another general election, democratic accountability is not possible without a free press,” she said, while delivering the second M.R. Narayana Kurup Memorial Annual Lecture on ‘Media Monopolies, Communalism and the Future of Democracy’ in Kerala on Thursday.The event was organised at the Government College Madappally, Vadakara.Sherwani, who is The Wire’s senior editor, said the Modi era saw the near demise of legacy media.“Many media houses have become part of the majoritarian agenda. Some of them play it safe by not questioning the regime and its policies,” she said.“The crisis of democracy began with a crisis of journalism in India. In this era, truth was the biggest casualty. The daily prime time television debates push majoritarian propaganda and create constant anxiety and insecurity amongst the young generation of Hindus. They are forced to live with a feeling that their culture and religion are being demeaned and stolen by ‘outsiders’,” she said.“This ideology has not just identified but created an artificial political enemy in the form of Muslims, Christians, intellectuals, Leftists, English-speaking political elite, journalists, and activists, who ask for accountability from the government. The rage that arises out of this sense of loss and urge to reclaim what was once theirs justifies even the worst treatment to the ‘enemy’,” she said.This explains the approval of violence and discrimination towards Muslims and everyone else categorised as ‘enemies’, she added.“India has been witnessing systematic dismantling of secularism, liberalism, and the robust constitutional order. We need a strong opposition to counter such efforts,” she said.“Narendra Modi’s rule in India has been a story of capture, control and throttling of the media. The subjugation of the democratic institutions and surrender of the majority of the mainstream media has ensured there is little resistance to Modi’s authoritarian actions,” said the renowned journalist.“As the Bharatiya Janata Party aggressively pursues its goal of turning India into a ‘Hindu Nation’, it realises it is essential to have total control over the flow of information. They have forced most mainstream journalists to work as Hindutva foot soldiers and now want to silence the last remaining voices from the independent media in the digital space. The government is using full state power to muzzle their voices.”
