Are we any better as democracy today than 45 yrs ago when Emergency was imposed?

June 25, 2020

New Delhi: Today is the 45th anniversary of Emergency, and  we oberve every anniversay religiously  to express satisfaction that we have left behind a ”black” era when dissent and disagreement was crushed with a heavy hand, and civil, political and personal liberties were attacked and all norms of the accountability of government and administration to the people were given a go by.

But have we really?

The things that are happening today are as disturbing as they were in 1975 for a society that calls itself democratic and progressive.

The way corona lockdown was brutally imposed without giving slightest thought to how it would impact the urban poor, and the way adimistration dealt with the home-bound migrants traversing on foot for a journey of hundreds of miles, braving harsh summer has resulted in a national tragedy of enormous magnitude, which is unprecedented.

The images of hungry and thirsty small children trudging along their parents crushing under the weight of their belongings carried on their heads and shoulders in the blazing sun are to haunt the nation for all times to come.

I personally know instances where toddlers were separated from their parents for about two months because of the sudden announcement of the lockdown, just on a notice of four hours. Their parents had left them with their grand parents living in different cities to do some important work, planning to fetch them back in a day or two, but because of the sudden announcement of lockdown they stayed put where they were.This has resulted in immense trauma for the small children as they remained separated from their parents for so long.

A country of over 1.25 billion peoeple with an area of over 30 lakh sq km was given just four hours to freez its movement!

I wish our administrators had given a little bit more thought to how to go about lockdown, then it would have saved millions of people from untold sufferings.

Moreover, the way freedom of the press is being stiffled by persecuting journalists critical of the failures of the administration, the way student activitism (as evident during anti-CAA protests) is being stiffled labelling it as sedition is a situation not much different from the Emergency days.

And the way democratically elected governments are being toppled allegedly by engineering defections (the job has been done in Madhya Pradesh and news from Maharashtra and Rajasthan is not heartening) has made a mockery of democracy.

All this is a matter of great concern for all those  who love this country and its ethos and want to see it as a peaceful, prosperous, progressive and a socially harmonoius nation.

Today a journalist is persecuted because he reports serious shortcoming in the implementation of a government scheme, a job that he is supposed to do. Recently, a case was registered against Pawan Jaiswal after he exposed that children at a government primary school in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh were being fed only roti and salt.

Again in the same state, Police filed two FIRs against one of the founding editors of The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan, for a news report about Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath violating the national lockdown to take part in a religious event in Ayodhya on March 25. The Wire has held that his presence was a matter of public record and knowledge. A sentence in an article in the portal had wrongly attributed a statement made by Acharya Paramhans to the Chief Minister, which was retracted and a corrigendum issued.

An FIR was registered early this month against Vinod Dua based on a complaint filed by a BJP leader. The complaint has alleged that Dua has engaged in ‘fake news marketing’ through his news show on the YouTube channel HW news.

Two more journalist Vivek Mishra and Ajay Bhadauria were booked by the district administration in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur. Bhadauria had tweeted about the closing down of a community kitchen in the area and Mishra had reported on dysfunctional cowsheds, as media reports said.

The harassment of journalists during coverage of Covid-19 is yet another episode. According to a Delhi think tank report, 55 journalists were targeted for reporting on Covid pandemic.

The report prepared by Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) listed cases that were registered against journalists for their stories on PPE shortage, food distribution and alleged corruption among others.

FIRS were filed against Journalists, they were issued show cause notices, were summoned, arrested, subjected to physical assault and threatened for doing their job and exercising their right to freedom of expression, the report by the Delhi-based think tank said.

At least 22 journalists were named in First Information Reports (FIRs) under the Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Act, Disaster Management Act, Motors Vehicles Act, Scheduled Tribes/Scheduled Castes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for their coverage of
the humanitarian crisis, administrative failure, negligence and mismanagement.

And at least 10 of them were arrested for allegedly spreading fake news, exposing alleged corruption, violating lockdown rules even though the media is a part of essential services, reporting on food shortage and the lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) among others.

Seven have been summoned or served show-cause notices for alleged factual inaccuracies and damaging the administration’s image, and even for publishing an official letter that addressed the shortage of PPE and their poor quality.

The Supreme Court recenty underlined that journalistic freedom was at the core of the freedom of speech and expression protected by aticle 19(1) (a) of the constitution and free citizens could exist when the news media was free and not chained to adhere to one position.

”India’s freedom will rest safe as long as journalists can speak to power without being chilled by the threat of reprisal.” a bench comprising Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice MR Shah said.

The Judges’ observation came during hearing of a case relating to lodging of multiple FIRs against Arnab Goswami of Republic TV. It said lodging multiple FIRs for the same offence at multiple places amounted to harassment of journalists.

Court, however refused to quash the FIR filed for his comments against Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the Palghar lynching case,

It told Goswami, “This balance has to be drawn between the exercise of a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) and the investigation for an offence under the CrPc.”

Recently Anand Bazar Patrika editor Anirban Chattopadhyay resigned after police summons for allegedly publishing news critical of the state government. His news paper was accused of showing the present ruling dispensation in the state in bad light. Though Chattopadhyay gave ”pesonal reasons” for his resignation, but the media community is seeing this as a case of state intimidation.

And in the secod week of this month, UP Police lodged FIR against scroll.in executive editor Supriya Sharma for her report on the effect of corona virus lockdown in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency

The list of causes for concern is long.

Several precious lives were lost in the recent Delhi riots that followed anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests.
Muslims feared NRC as they felt a threat to their very existence as Indian citizens, and their fear was fuelled by statements from the Government that CAA was just a step before NRC.

See this tweet from the Union Home Minister of May 1, 2019.

”First we will pass the Citizenship Amendment bill and ensure that all the refugees from the neighbouring nations get the Indian citizenship. After that NRC will be made and we will detect and deport every infiltrator from our motherland.”

A strong assurance from the Government that no NRC would happend would have saved the country from the spate of protests and all that followed.

We are still not able to bring peace in Kashmir despite claims that scrapping of the special status, which was done so brutally, would be a panacea for all evils in the border state. Every day we hear news of encounter and people, including our jawans, being killed. It seems the scrapping of the special status is yet to achieve its objective.

I think this anniversary of Emergency is an occasion for serious introspection for us as a nation to know whether we are paying just a lip service to the democractic values which we mourn were undermined during the Emergency.

—–India News Stream