Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Press Freedom report for the year 2021-22 has come with the usual biases with its horrific indices, hilarious methodology and uncanny grading system. The recent report downgrades India from a 142 rank last year to 150th even below regimes like that of UAE, Hong Kong and Mexico where advances against members of the press are a given. On the World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and nine other human rights organisations did not forget to ask ‘Indian authorities to stop targeting journalists and online critics’ for their work. However, it was found that their own work was laced with euro-centric biases, uncalled demotion of India in the ranking systems given in the report.
Apart from RSF’s Press Freedom Index, its website has published a ‘Fact File‘ for each country, including India, that explains its rankings. While its flawed methodology and appliance of unequal standards have been exposed already, the Fact File document on India paints a picture of a blurred, rhetorical understanding of the country ‘Reporters beyond Boundaries’ has. Devoid of academic fundamentals and professional layerings, the India fact file has trapped itself in its own assumptions, whereas its own data – if considered to be true is enough to challenge its conclusions in the report.
Thus in our multi-report series doing a threadbare dissection of RSF’s claims on Press Freedom in India, this article premises itself only on the information included in the RSF 2022 index and assumptions made by the analysts in the report. Even if we consider what the reporters’ organization is deemed to be the truth, its claims do not seem to reiterate what its data reflects on many fronts.
Press Freedom declined after Modi came to Power?
RSF has claimed that press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy” since 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi – “the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right” came to power. If only India’s erstwhile rankings in the index provided by RSF since 2002 are considered, its claims of Narendra Modi being responsible for curbing press freedom do not hold much water. Let us look at RSF rankings for India for each year from 2004 to 2022 which cover a span of 10 years of the Congress-led UPA rule from 2004 to May 2014 and 8 years of BJP-led NDA rule from 2014 to 2022.
As evident from the above chart, The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) which came to power in 2004 started off with an RSF Press Freedom ranking of 120 in 2004 and ended up with a 140th rank for India in 2013. Press Freedom, as credited by RSF was the ideal at 105th rank for the years 2006 and 2009, whereas it could be seen continuously dipping since 2010. Contrary to the claims of Press Freedom being purged in India after Modi came to power in 2014, its own data claims that Freedom for Journalists in the country has been drastically decreasing since 2010. From 105th rank in 2009, it decreased to whooping 17 places down at 122nd in 2010, then subsequently 9 places down at 131st in 2011-12 and 140th in 2013.
This also shows that the Press Freedom rankings for India during the Congress-Left regime have dwindled from 105 to 140 with a decrease in the difference of 35 positions.
In 2014, when the Narendra Modi-led BJP government with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of Right-wing and Right-of-Centre parties came to power, the Press Freedom rankings produced by RSF for India remained at the same 140th position as last year. From 2014 to 2021, the RSF Press Freedom Rankings for India continued to remain more or less at the same position from 140th in 2014 to 142nd in 2021. It is only in 2021-2022 that one could see a sharp dip of 8 places to 150th for India. However, while Press Freedom did not necessarily improve during the Modi Years according to RSF, as their own rankings have shown, its conclusion that “Press Freedom has come under threat in India after Modi came to Power” completely falls flat.
When both – the UPA and NDA scenarios are compared, we witness a drastic decline in Press Freedom during the UPA years from 105th (best) to 140th (worst) position which is 35 negative places; whereas ranking data during the Narendra Modi regime continues to revolve around the same figures 133rd (best) to 150th position (worst) i.e. overall decrease in 17 places. Hence, RSF’s data points when connected with its narrative conclusions do not match each other.
We have to keep in mind that RSF’s methodology itself is flawed, so none of these numbers are to be taken seriously. However, it becomes necessary to point out that according to their own data (however flawed), their claims tailor-made to target PM Modi don’t hold water.
Mainstreaming of the ‘Bhakt’ slur
With RSF’s India Fact-File, its claim of being an independent non-profit organization has come under scrutiny. In the ‘Political context’ segment of its methodology, RSF casually writes about Indian journalists who are too critical of the government being ‘harassed’ by ‘Modi devotees’ known as ‘Bhakts’. While neither the draft writer nor the editor seems to have given a thought about the (non-existent) academic credentials of the report, the mainstreaming of slurs like ‘Bhakts’ can only be credited to the ‘Left-liberal’ journalists in India who are hell-bent upon categorising everyone who either voted for PM Modi or does not subscribe to the Left-Liberal narrative of PM Modi or Hindus at large, as ‘devotees’ of Modi.
With no substantial basis, Business tycoon Mukesh Ambani has been referred to as a ‘personal friend’ of Narendra Modi. The report also mentions the rise of “Godi Media” that mixes ‘pro-BJP propaganda with populism’ to suit its purpose. One cannot be excused of sweeping assumptions and unparliamentary language used while reading the ‘fact file’ for India which RSF and its Indian footsoldiers have asked us to take seriously.
RSF claims to have press freedom that it is “accepting” of politically divergent views, going as far as to say that even acceptance of “political affiliated” views is also a prerequisite. However, here they specifically demonise media houses like Republic TV and Times Now, that choose to not toe the Left’s line.
On Mukesh Ambani and Government’s so-called hegemony over the narratives
The RSF report on India claimed, “…In the mid-2010s when Narendra Modi became prime minister, (he) engineered a spectacular rapprochement between his party, the BJP, and the big families dominating the media. The prime example is undoubtedly the Reliance Industries group led by Mukesh Ambani, now a personal friend of Modi’s, who owns more than 70 media outlets that are followed by at least 800 million Indians.” Last we checked when Mukesh Ambani acquired a 75% stake in the News 18 group that owns and operates its various national and regional news channels, it also runs joint ventures with other media companies to run a number of channels in the News 18 universe.
For example, News 18 has partnered with CNN, a media company which runs a progressive left American news Channel CNN International. Plus, News 18 has had a long venture with Marathi news media group Lokmat and jointly runs a Marathi news channel ‘News18 Lokmat’. The Lokmat Group is owned by Vijay Darda, a senior Congress politician from Maharashtra. While RSF thinks it’s straight-jacketing of News18 ventures as right-wing hegemonies in the media space, it is only after Reliance’s takeover of the company from 2011 to 2014 that its ventures have allowed a multiplicity of views from the non-left ideological space as well.
Talking about the influence of powerful families in the media, India has had a history of politicians funding or directly owning news channels or media groups with Akali Dal’s Sukhbir Singh Badal owning PTC News and Sun TV Network owned by Kalanithi Maran – grand nephew of erstwhile DMK supremo M Karunanidhi. The political affiliation of channels often reflects their broadcasting biases including the quintessential Left-sympathetic NDTV owned by Pranoy Roy whose wife Radhika Roy is the sister of Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Such examples find no consideration by RSF in its report.
If individual personalities are concerned, the journalists often employed in these news channels pre-2014 were close to the Congress establishment and formed an ideological ecosystem with support from the state to monopolize the political narrative. Now with the internet boom and gravitation of masses towards the right, the need to accommodate multiple viewpoints has emerged, which in turn has opened the floodgates of expression. Youtube videos, news websites, tweets, newsletters, etc have become tentacles of independent media used by the right and the left equally.
Had there been purging of dissenting voices against the state or its actors, there would have been no successful attempts of having potshots at India through International media and its generously well-funded lapdogs in India. If RSF blames the Republic and Times Now for parroting BJP propaganda, there are enough variables on the other side including The Print, The Wire, Scroll, and Newslaundry (funded by the global Omidyar Network), MOJO, The Quint and others on the Left.
We found that RSF’s own data points are not in tune with its tall claims of Modi hegemonizing the whole media canvas. While according to its own standards, the press freedom in India fell dramatically during the Congress years, putting the onus of the same on Modi is a contradiction in itself. Furthermore, RSF’s data collection and methodology and layered with its bias towards the Left, as evident with the usage of Hinduphobic derogations like ‘Bhakts’ in its conclusive document. Its mired understanding of Indian peculiarities with comparisons drawn with the western-normative context hence does not justify its abysmally low ranking of India.
It is India’s zeal for diversity and the will of an average Indian to listen to all the sides that keep the future of press freedom in the country shining. Perhaps, organizations like the RSF should interview common Indians as well, going well beyond the versions of its local lapdogs.
