Hyderabad: 'Satyameva Jayate' is what Indian culture tells us to practice, saying “Truth shall Always Prevail”. To put this into perspective and also give the highest importance to the saying, the Constitution of India, had instilled the democratic ‘Right To Speech” as an important input while formulating the Indian Constitution.
Journalism, which is hailed as ‘The Fourth Estate’ and one of the major pillars upon which a democratic nation stands, is all about finding and advocating the Truth and nothing more or less than that. If this freedom of expression is trampled upon just because it has been digging up and bringing out the unwanted and unhappy truths of the leaders ruling over us, it would be the trampling of democracy as a whole.
It is the journalists too, who have been working shoulder-to-shoulder, with the rest of the front-line warriors such as doctors, health workers, police and sanitary workers in fighting the war against the Corona epidemic. Journalists are those torchbearers who have been showing the way forward to all the hierarchical officials by showing them a mirror of the deficiencies and shortcomings in providing public safety and health services to the citizens, thereby helping the officials in the proper use of resources.
And filing false cases on such torchbearers and torturing them is nothing but axing the spirit of the largest democracy of the world!!
Prime Minister Modi said in a statement on the last week of March during his monthly speech - ‘Mann Ki Baath’, being broadcast on radio, last Sunday of every month that we must draw inspiration from the frontline warriors such as doctors, nurses and soldiers who have been fighting the war on the Corona pestilence. The central government — which stated it shall not tolerate violence against health workers — has also issued an ordinance aimed at their safety.
Many doctors around the country have been claiming that there is a shortage of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to protect them from the effect of virus-infected patients. Even after the involvement of the Supreme Court, it cannot be said that the situations have improved. Needless to say, the situation in the nation's capital is far worse.
An FIR was also filed by the government, which suspended a doctor for the act of recording and portraying the state of affairs at the government hospital. The Supreme Court, which has taken it seriously, said that the Delhi government should stop from acts like filing cases and harassing doctors and the state of affairs should be improved instead of resorting to such acts of revenge. Not just Delhi, but there are quite a number of other places, where such acts are being resorted to, by the Governments, in order to suppress the voice of the journalists.
When the corona pandemic started spreading its ugly wings and affecting the lives of thousands of people around the globe, it was the pen-warriors who have brought their plight to the notice of the rest of the world and the governments were literally bemused by the same. Such governments started blaming and accusing the journalists and the media of false accusations. FIRs have been filed against 55 journalists for the 'Maha crime’ of exposing the conditions of the people and the non-compliance of lockdown regulations.
The UP government has been angered by the news that people were starving during a lockdown in the village of Varanasi adopted by Prime Minister Modi. Several cases have been filed against Supriya Sharma of the ‘Scroll-In Portal’, who wrote a series of articles summarizing the experiences of people in Domari village during the lockdown and their experiences. There is nothing wrong with the fact that the dysfunction of the public distribution system, the inability of the bureaucracy, and corruption are the causes of food shortages and people's misery.
They are well suited to the governance mechanism for reviewing field conditions and addressing loopholes. However, a woman named Mayadevi complained that she had been misrepresented in the news item and she filed a complaint against the respective journalist, under the SC and the ST Atrocities Act, along with the IPC section 269 (reckless endangerment of life-threatening epidemic) and 501 ( defamatory publication).
Two FIRs were filed on Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of 'The Wire' for publishing the news that Chief Minister Adityanath had gone against the lockdown rules to participate in a religious campaign in Ayodhya on March 25th, 2020. While the corona crisis is supposed to be a fight against the ugly head of Corona, by an all-inclusive team of fighters, what message do the governments offer to people with such type of intolerance and revenge act mechanisms?
"Whenever the newspapers are free to comment and publish the truth in its true facade, (even if they misrepresent the circumstances, at times), does it tend to be a true expression of voice!!”, said Mahatma Gandhi. The editors' guild concern on the alarmingly sinister trend of such heinous act of filing cases and torturing the journalists is being seconded by many intellectual thinkers and analysts.
Analysts such as Amartya Sen opined that journalists and reporters play an important role at times when disasters such as famine and epidemic threats happen, and these pen warriors are more likely to open up in democratic countries rather than in dictatorial societies.
Any government that wants to capitalize on minimal resources as a maximum benefit - especially in the event of disasters - must recognize the importance of the media and provide it with the freedom of expression. And more importantly, honesty should be respected.
“Courts across the country must save the freedom of expression. It is the responsibility of the courts to see that no government will act against this right.”, Stated the Supreme Court almost around three and a half decades ago.
“Every citizen has the right to criticize government machinery with extreme terminology. Only if any case of violence is instigated, the government can sue anybody for treason”, the Bombay High Court ruled about five years ago itself. Even then, the governments who have been unable to stand up to the bitter truths being written about them, are trying hard to mock the democratic values, thereby crushing out the civil rights. Would you be able to disagree?
