Reuters/New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has anointed India’s state-backed broadcaster as his media brand of choice, helping shield his government from tough questions and prompting private news outlets to complain that they are being kept out of the loop.
Starchy and unpolished, Doordarshan News and All India Radio (AIR) were not the obvious choice for a government that took power in May after a high-octane election campaign that used special effects to beam Modi’s image to rallies across the nation.
But the old-fashioned outlets are expected to offer one big advantage over their slicker private rivals: a less combative and questioning platform from which Modi can get his message out to tens of millions of people.
Carefully controlled communication has been a defining characteristic of the new government since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power.
Critics see it as one symptom of a broader leadership style under Modi that has weakened opponents, sidelined ministers and concentrated power in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said Modi’s preference for the public broadcaster was not an attempt to suppress information or limit access.
“I think everyone must welcome it. He has not banned anybody, his programmes are telecast live, practically on all channels, so where is the issue? There is no denying somebody access.”
“There is complete freedom in our regime,” he told reporters.
Modi has never given a news conference as prime minister, but he has been active on Facebook and Twitter, where he has over 7mn followers, bypassing traditional media and spurring editors to complain about a lack of two-way communication and debate.
Now, for the first time, an Indian prime minister has a direct link to voters’ living rooms in his home.
Last month, the state broadcaster set up a recording studio at Modi’s official residence where he will record “Man ki Baat” (“talking from the heart”), his regular address to the nation on AIR that debuted earlier in October.
Doordarshan has been contracted to build a television studio at Modi’s residence so his talk can be televised as well, according to an engineer working on the project.
Separately, the government has sent a letter asking ministries to engage more with the publicly funded broadcaster, according to the India Today news website, and has given its journalists coveted spots in a significantly reduced press corps that travels with the prime minister overseas.
Thirty or more journalists usually travelled with the previous prime minister. But on Modi’s recent trip to the US, only nine - the majority from state-funded organisations - accompanied him, according to the foreign ministry.
Private news outlets say diminishing interaction with the government has made their jobs harder.
“There has been a lot of communication from the government, but it’s been very top-down,” said N Ravi, editor of The Hindu newspaper and president of the Editors Guild of India, which issued a statement in September calling on the government to interact more with journalists. “It’s been a one-way street.”
The Guild statement noted “a certain deficit of transparency in the functioning of the government,” citing the delay in setting up a media liaison in the PMO and restricting access to ministers and bureaucrats.
Modi has had rocky relations with the media since 2002, when at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in religious riots in Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time.
Local and international media reported extensively on the violence, raised questions about the state government’s role and some blamed Modi for failing to stop the brutality.
Modi has always denied any wrongdoing, and courts have never found sufficient evidence to prosecute him.
