#ThrowbackThursday: M.D Kini — Freedom of The Press in India (1971)
This article appeared in February, 1971 issue of Freedom First, a prominent Indian Liberal magazine. In this article, M.D. Kini talks about the importance of the freedom of expression, and a free press; and how the greatest threat to this freedom came from the government. In many ways, we’ve come a long way — our press no longer faces the same challenges as are recounted here in terms of obtaining licenses and difficulties in setting up a newspaper. Significant challenges, however, persist and threaten our press and freedom of expression. The State still remains the greatest threat to this vital freedom.
Existence of a free press is sine qua non of a democracy. Without a free flow of news and freedom to comment on it there cannot be any democracy at all. Democracy presupposes discussion and discussion requires facts. Facts can be disseminated only by a newspaper which is free.
Freedom of expression, of which the freedom of the press is a part, is guaranteed by our Constitution. Freedom enjoyed by the press in India is considerable and is the envy of many newly independent countries. Anybody can start a newspaper in India and publish almost anything short of defamation of individuals and institutions. No paper has been banned. There is no censorship, prior or preventive. This freedom is not available in most of our neighbouring countries.
Threats to the freedom of the press can come from various sources. Interested parties may try to distort the news or prevent honest comments on it. It can come from influential individuals or a mob. It can come from the proprietor of a newspaper or their own employees. It can come from those who are in authority, executive or legislative.
An individual who can kill a news item which is true is as much a threat as a mob which burns a newspaper office or its van distributing the newspaper. It is difficult to gather information about the former but about the latter we have many instances. In West Bengal, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Hindusthan Standard and Statesman, and in Kerala, Malayalam Manorama have been the victims of mob violence. Recently in U.K. the printing press workers threatened to stop printing ‘The Observer’ of London if the editor published a report and an editorial on their labour dispute. This may happen in India too.
The threat from the proprietor can be of a similar nature. It is not disputed that the proprietor has a right to lay down an overall policy as far as the opinion columns are concerned. Even the Press Council has conceded this in its report in 1954. But not even a proprietor or anyone else for that matter has the right to black-out news which is of importance to the community. A few years ago the Times of India blacked out a news report about certain allegations about their proprietors.
Threat to the freedom of the press is more from a Government, State or Central, than from anybody else. This is because “the press is an instrument of opposition, among other things” as Mr M R Masani observed in a Seminar on the ‘Freedom of the Press in India’ held in Srinagar. As everybody knows, when a man bites a dog, it is news, that is, when something goes wrong, it is news. Since a modern government has numerous functions, a big bureaucracy to carry it out, naturally many things go wrong and they have many things to hide. In a communist country everything is owned by the government including the press, and it is not difficult at all for the government to publish only those things that they want their people to know. But in a democratic country the press is not owned by the government. The free press exposes the scandals and the skeletons of the government. Here the government resorts to what is called management of news by other means. It uses subtle pressures and persuasions to influence the newspapers.
In India because of the scarcity of many things which are necessary for the functioning of a press the Government exercises a lot of controls. For example, newsprint is a very scarce commodity. All the so-called big newspapers are allowed only some ten per cent increase of newsprint every year while the smaller ones are given more. Nobody denies that the smaller newspapers should be encouraged but the bigger ones should not be penalized for their success. It is alleged that the smaller newspapers do not use all the newsprint quota that is allotted to them but pass it on to the others at inflated prices. The best solution to the problem of scarcity of newsprint would be to have more factories for the production of newsprint. It is surprising that with a lot of raw materials necessary for the newsprint factory like bamboos, etc. being available in India why it has not occurred to the government to have more factories.
Though the advertising revenue available for all newspapers in India is something like 50 crores, nearly 5 crores, that is, ten per cent is from the various State Governments as well as the Central Government. Apart from this there are so many public sector companies which have a huge advertisement budget. All the private advertisers, of course, go by only one criterion, that is, the circulation of the newspaper concerned. That is the only way they can reach the maximum people. But in the case of the government they have adopted a new criterion, that is, to encourage smaller newspapers. This is a very laudable objective but it is subject to abuse. ‘There have been allegations that the smaller newspapers are favored so that they can be influenced easily by the Government. This is what Mr. Chanchal Sarkar, director of the Press Institute of India, says: “Government is also a big advertiser, perhaps it is the single biggest advertiser, and in the case of the small and medium papers it is probably the decisive advertiser. Most of them unfortunately, are prepared to do almost anything to ensure that advertisements flow from Government. The States have not hesitated to cash in on this power and also, in the States the economic condition of the individual journalist is often so weak and insecure that he becomes more and more dependent on the facilities provided by the Government or the Department of education.” (“Slow March to Fast Music, The Indian Press in Twenty years on Independence” Vidura Vol.V.no.2, May 1968)
We also know the famous case of the Tribune. The Haryana Government stopped advertisements to the Tribune on the excuse that the advertisement tariff of the paper was unreasonably high, and that the Tribune was giving more publicity to Punjab than to Haryana, etc. The verdict of the Press Council in this case is as follows: “In view of these findings the Council has come to the conclusion that the action of the Government of Haryana in respect of the matters above-mentioned is calculated to threaten of the Press and that the withdrawal of advertisements and the attempts to stop the circulation of the paper were in retaliation of the editorial policy of the newspaper which was evidently not relished by the Government. The Council, therefore, considered that this was an attempt to influence the editorial policy of the Paper. The council must record its disapproval of this invasion of the liberty of the Press and of the freedom of the editor in conducting his newspaper and condemn this action of the government.”
It is not suggested that any newspaper has a fundamental right to advertisements from the government since the government collects taxes from the people, the people should know the criteria on which these taxes are being spent. The government cannot use the advertisement revenue as patronage or largesse. The Tribune in a great editorial ‘Press and Government’ exposed the fallacy of the government’s argument “Though advertisements are not a fundamental right, the giving or the denial of advertisements can be used as a lever to influence editorial policy….There is no fundamental right to newsprint either, and the Government can very well say that the right to freedom of expression is not impaired so long as people can express themselves by Kathakali mudras.”
The rotary machine which is necessary for a modern newspaper requires an import license. Here one more complication has been added because of the rupee trade agreement. The rotary machines can only be imported from the U.S.S.R AND East European Communist countries. Recently there was a case of new newspaper from New Delhi. It got the import license but the communist country from where the machine was ordered told the newspaper concerned that it would not be possible for them to supply the machine until after 1972, that is, after the elections. The newspaper has to depend of the sweet will not only of our government, but the government of another country as well.
A modern newspaper has to depend for so many things on the government like the allocation of teleprinter, phone facilities, etc. that only a financially strong newspaper like the Tribune can stand up to the blandishments of the government. It is in the interests of the democracy that the press in India should be economically strong and viable. But our democratic government wants to punish the successful newspapers which are really very small compared to the newspapers of Japan, UK and USA. We have only 16 newspapers with a circulation of over a lakh. Among them 6 are in English, 2 in Hindi, 3 in Bengali, 3 in Malayalam, 1 in Marathi and 1 in Tamil. Out of nearly 600 dailies in India only 16 should claim this distinction is a sad commentary on the situation of the press in India. All these 600 Dailies have a circulation of only 70 lakhs in a population of nearly 60 crores with 18 crore literates. The government’s case against the leading newspapers is that they are monopolistic and have vested interests. It is not true to say that any newspaper, or a chain of newspaper in India is monopolistic. In every city a reader has a choice of nearly half a dozen newspapers, in English and other Indian languages. It is true that except for Hindu, Amrita Bazar Patrika and Hindusthan Standard which are almost family concerns, the other leading newspapers are owned by industrialist. As a matter of fact it is easier for the government to persuade these industrialists to fall in line since they have to depend on the government for permits and licenses for their industry. If in spite of this, there is a lot of criticism in these newspapers of the Government’s policy, the editors and the proprietors of the newspapers should be commended for their courage in opposing the government of the day. As long as the news columns of the newspapers give adequate coverage to all the news that is of importance to the people, it does not matter what the editor writes in his editorial columns at all. In a democracy the government has to take all criticism in its stride because it is a part of democracy itself. But our ministers are used to the applause of newspapers up to now. Immediately after independence there was almost a national consensus on all important policies. Whatever differences were there were muted and muffled by the towering personality of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. With the breakup of the Congress the differences are stridently being heard. In a democracy there cannot be committed judiciary, committed civilians or a committed press. The commitment of judiciary can only be to law and justice and that of civilians to impartiality and fairness while that of the press to only facts sand not to any party or a creed. Press cannot commit itself for a majority, however overwhelming it may be because, today’s majority maybe tomorrow’s minority, today’s creed may be tomorrow’s anathema, and today’s heresy may be tomorrow’s orthodoxy. The sooner the government realizes this the better it is for our nascent democracy.
You can access the original article here. Visit indianliberals.in for more works by Indian Liberals dating back to the 19th Century.
