RSS wing says it could not find more than three journalists in Bengal who uphold its idea of Bharat

When the Viswa Samvad Kendra, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, held an awards ceremony for journalists in Kolkata on Saturday, on the occasion of Narad Jayanti, it came with a rider. The organisers said the West Bengal media had failed to live up to expectations by not being fearless and objective when writing about the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in the state.

Narad is a travelling musician and storyteller, a wise but also mischievous harbinger of news, who appears in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Explaining the significance of holding the awards ceremony, the first ever, on Narad Jayanti, the organisers said the adi samvad vahak or mythological reporter had equal access to the warring sides and never hesitated in criticising both – a quality the state’s journalists greatly needed.

“There is a distinct tendency among journalists in Kolkata nowadays to surrender meekly before the might of the ruling government and toe the line of Muslim appeasement,” said one of the organisers, who did not wish to be identified. “With the media becoming subservient to the ruling government and its administration, democracy is at stake in Bengal. This has to change.”

The Viswa Samvad Kendra member said they wished they could have given awards to 30 reporters but could not go beyond three. “There is even fear in accepting the awards given by us as if they would be branded,” he added.

Speaking at the event, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh national spokesperson Dr Manmohan Vaidya listed guidelines for members of the media to follow: “It is high time journalists have a lakshya [mission]. The mission is to enhance the idea of Bharat and to uphold the spirit of Bharat Atma [soul of Bharat], in all the work they do as journalists.”

He added, “Unfortunately, the Sangh Parivar, Bharat Mata and Hindutva have come under media attack in different forms in recent times and in this process, the balance of the media seems to have been lost to a great extent.” He complained that journalists were “becoming increasingly agenda-driven and biased”.

Media in a tug-of-war?

With the political heat between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party rising in the wake of the latter’s stunning victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March and its plan to expand its footprint in West Bengal, pressure is evidently mounting on the media as well, from both sides. If the Sangh organised the Narad Jayanti celebrations, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also been sending signals to the media. On World Press Freedom Day on May 3, she tweeted:

“The press and the media are important pillars of a democracy. The pen is mightier than the sword. Even television channels and the digital media have all become powerful tools of communication all over India and the world. Nowadays in our country, it has been observed that the media cannot play a completely impartial and effective role because of the political circumstances. In a democratic setiup, this is not acceptable to the people. Freedom of the press must continue. News must always be impartial and bold, so the reader / viewer/ internet user/ always gets justice. This is freedom. We congratulate the press and media. Let them hold their heads high and their profession proud.”

While the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP want a “nationalist” media with a mission to uphold Bharat Atma, free access to information and opportunities for unhindered news gathering have shrunk under the Trinamool Congress government. Much of the information flow to the media in the state today is controlled and geared to project the brighter aspects of governance.

Nationalist journalists

At the Narad Jayanti awards, veteran journalist Sukhoranjan Sengupta – who has worked with the Ananda Bazar Patrika, the state’s leading Bengali language daily, for most of his professional life – was among the three to be honoured. Young reporter Mohammad Safi Shamsi of the News18 Network was also honoured for his “outstanding performance” while the recepient of the third award was a group of young men behind the Facebook page “Kechcha”, Bengali for scandal. The organisers complimented the social media group for consistently reflecting “nationalist thoughts”.

Umesh Upadhyay, a media personality who was among the speakers at the event, pointed out that “social media has now become the mainstream media” and credited it with “democratisation of information”. Other speakers accused the mainstream media of trying to suppress information, citing communal clashes in Howrah district’s Dhulagarh town over a religious procession in December and the attack on Kalichawk police station by a Muslim mob last year as examples. They said these incidents would not have come to the public’s notice had it not been for social media.

In his criticism of the media, Vaidya cited their coverage of the “garbh sanskar” (birth purification) programme held across India by Arogya Bharati, the Sangh’s health wing, in the past week. He said the media, in its bid to attack the Sangh, had lost all balance and had not even bothered to speak to the specialists behind this programme – which, according to news reports, is aimed at customising babies, a contention Vaidya has denied.

“The media may not believe in Ayurveda but how can it defy modern science?” the Sangh spokesperson asked. “Also, one of the early proponents of this project was Dr Snehalata Deshmukh, a reputed gynaecologist who was vice-chancellor of the University of Mumbai.”

He advised the media not to be “solely profit- and TRP-driven” and to “work for society and perform according to dharma”. Dharma, he explained, is “not religion but the underlying ethos of society”.

Vaidya added that there was an international design to destabilise India and discredit organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that are working for the betterment of Bharat Atma. But such attempts, he said, would not succeed. Citing the enrolment figures of the Join RSS online campaign, he pointed out that it had started with a modest 1,000 requests per month in 2012 but that number had now risen to 28,000 in March 2017, while the monthly average for this year was 14,000 requests.