Misuse of Press Freedom: What Will Be Allowed and What will be Punishable in India

 

Misuse of Press Freedom: What Will Be Allowed and What will be Punishable in India

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Swarajya magazine is one of the pro-BJP internet journals.

 

It's latest issue  proudly gives us an article titled: "IT Ministry's New Rule To Empower PIB To Counter Fake News Related To Central Government On Social Media Platforms":

https://swarajyamag.com/tech/it-ministrys-new-rule-to-empower-pib-to-counter-fake-news-related-to-central-government-on-social-media-platforms

 

The very first two paragraphs of the article are as follows: "The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Thursday (April 6) notified new rules that will give the Press Information Bureau (PIB) powers to fact-check any “fake” news about the central government and ask social media platforms to take it down.

These platforms will lose their safe harbour immunity if they fail to comply with the rules, which gives them immunity against any objectionable content posted on their platform by users."

 

 

The exact connotation of these new notifications is given in the following article elsewhere:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/pib-can-now-flag-fake-news-on-govt-ask-fb-twitter-to-bin-it/ar-AA19yZ9V?ocid=Peregrine

 

This is a short article and can be reproduced here in full:

 

"NEW DELHI: The IT ministry on Thursday notified a new rule that will give powers to the Press Information Bureau (PIB) to fact-check any “fake, or false, or misleading” information about the central government and ask social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to take it down.

 

If the companies refuse to abide by the order of the PIB fact-check, they will lose their safe harbour immunity that guarantees them protection against any illegal or false content posted by users on their platforms.

The changes, which had generated controversy earlier when they were proposed as part of amendments to the IT Rules 2021, will allow the fact-check unit within PIB to keep tabs on any “misleading” or “fake information” related to the working of the central government. The move had been criticised by the Editors Guild of India as well as The News Broadcasters & Digital Association, which had said that it will give sweeping powers to the PIB, while resulting in “censorship” of the press.

 

Minister of state for IT & electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the idea is “not to censor the media”. “Let me also add that there is no obligation on the intermediaries to take down the content flagged by PIB if they conclude that the fact-check report is erroneous. In this case, they will lose their safe harbour, and the matter will be taken to a court of law.”"

 

 

So is this right or wrong? There will be violent arguments from both, the pro-BJP and the anti-BJP, sides about whether this kind of Control on Press Freedom (or alternately, Control on the Misuse of Press freedom) is right or wrong. I will not desire to go into the rights and wrongs of this matter. My point is a different one, not concerned at the moment with the question of Democracy or of Press Freedom or Misuse of Press Freedom. I think both sides are fully capable of fighting their battles.

 

 

My point is concerned with the question of  What Will Be Allowed and What will be Punishable in India (after this new weapon in the hands of the BJP government, in addition to the IT, ED, CBI and other unnamable institutions, becomes fully functional).

 

To begin with, anyone in India (or in any of the media platforms) has always been free to say or write anything about Hinduism and Indian culture ─ any amount of lies, misrepresentation, slander and libel has always been freely allowed. After this notification becomes functional, anyone in India (or in any of the media platforms) will still be free to say or write anything about Hinduism and Indian culture ─ any amount of lies, misrepresentation, slander and libel will still continue to be freely allowed. At the same time, I need not take the trouble of giving chapter and verse about the facts relating to whether or not anyone in India is free to even speak the truth about Islam or Christianity.

 

Hindus who protest have always been told that the government can do nothing about these things ─ (a) this is after all a democracy, (b) the government cannot do anything to provoke its national and particularly its international critics who are watching every move of this government, and (c) the government anyway has other more important things to do ─ and Hindus who don't like this state of affairs must fight it out on their own (and be punished like Nupur Sharma and countless others) or just learn to lump it.

 

Well from now on, the government will certainly be able to punish people (or the media platforms) for writing things the BJP does not like about the Central government ─ Democracy, Critics and Other Important Things be damned!

 

We know the famous Muslim adage: "Ba-Khuda deewana basho, ba-Mohammad hoshiyar (Say what you want about Khuda, beware what you say about Mohammad)".

 

Here is the Political Hindutva version: " Ba-Hindu-Hindutva deewana basho, ba-Modi-BJP hoshiyar (Say what you want about Hinduism or Hindutva, beware what you say about Modi or the BJP)".

 

Ameen!