by PANKAJ MISHRA
The campaign by India’s corporate-owned media to promote Narendra Modi (right) with India’s richest person Mukesh Ambani in October 2013. In May 2014, Modi became Prime Minister. PHOTO/Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
Bold initiatives characterize India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who famously lives in a 27-story building in Mumbai, a city where most people languish in slums. Last month, his company, Reliance Industries Ltd., sought to prevent circulation of a new book which claims that Reliance successfully pressured the previous Indian government to double the price of natural gas. Amazon received a cease and desist notice, as did even an individual who had merely forwarded an e-mail invitation to the book’s launch. And Thursday, Ambani moved to buy a whole swath of the Indian media: Bloomberg News reports that Reliance, which has already invested $11 billion in a high-speed cellular network, will now spend $678 million for majority stakes in two major media companies, Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. and TV18 Broadcast Ltd.
The news was preceded by a series of high-level departures from these companies, which have tie-ups with, among others, CNN, CNBC, Viacom, A&E Networks and Forbes. Two of India’s most prominent anchors in English, Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose, both at CNN-IBN, are reportedly also on their way out.
What’s striking is that Reliance already controlled the two companies through a uniquely Indian system of surrogate ownership. As a long investigative story in the magazine The Caravan revealed last year, it had also enforced the transformation of major news channels and websites into propaganda outlets for Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.
Here is what happened when Vivian Fernandes, a journalist employed by CNBC, was sent to Gujarat to interview Modi:
A person involved with the production of the interview recalled that Fernandes asked Modi a difficult question about water conservation in Gujarat. Modi’s organisers had asked to see the questions before the interview, and demanded the water conservation question’s removal. When Fernandes sprung it on him anyway, Modi broke away from the camera and glared at a public relations executive in the room. “Why is he talking like this?” the person recalled Modi saying. “Are we not paying for this interview?” The production crew realised that the interview was part of a promotion for Modi.
In February, amid reports that she was being pressured to tone down her criticism of Modi, Ghosetweeted, “There is an evil out there, an evil which is stamping out all free speech and silencing independent journalists: journalists unite!” The anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal says that his attacks on Ambani led the media to abruptly mute its coverage of him.
Bloomberg for more