The Arnab Goswami Episode

An infringement on Press Freedom or a step toward it?

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still, more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” – John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton.

The above quote by Lord Acton uncannily delineates the character of a certain right-wing news anchor in a pro-government television channel, an anchor who dabbles less in factual reporting and more in opinionated ultra-nationalism. The person in question is, of course, Lewis Prothero, the passionate propagandist employed by BTN and commonly known as “The Voice of Fate” in the revolutionary film, V for Vendetta. Not to draw a parallel with any existing personality, but it is especially noteworthy how pitifully he died covered in nought but a towel and with drugs in his system.

Let us move on to the actual issue, the apparent systematic attempt to mar the public image of a reputed journalist — not Ravish Kumar who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2019; certainly not Gauri Lankesh who was shot down at her doorstep for daring to speak up against the rising abuse of power by those revelling in it. We speak of our very own Arnab Goswami, the owner of Republic TV who was recently arrested for allegations of abetting an architect’s suicide back in 2018. Now, any government official dabbling in baseless accusations indicates an explicit abuse of power. Though the grounds of Goswami’s apprehension lie under section 306 IPC, Hon'ble Home Minister Amit Shah took to Twitter to label it as an attack on the “Free Press” by the Maharashtra government. It is not up to the uninformed and unqualified to judge the nature of an arrest. Though he may as well have been correct in his assumption, interfering with an ongoing investigation without evidence is a serious breach of the law. Overlooking that, because he’ll never face the consequences for it, the question remains, what exactly did we lose when we were temporarily robbed of the loudest voice in our ears? Was it, as Shah claims, a devastating blow to the Freedom of Press? Or did it secretly allow other channels and viewers alike to breathe a small sigh of relief?

Amit Abraham once said, “The pen had been mightier than the sword, but then the tongue took over”. Arnab Goswami has become a very controversial loudmouth on television who admitted to being the “judge, jury, executioner” in his shows during an interview on Radio City. He has been warned by the Delhi High Court on peddling fake news in the form of media trials after he asserted the death of Sunanda Pushkar (late wife of Shashi Tharoor) as a murder despite the chargesheet saying otherwise. Other instances where he blatantly communalized issues to rile up the populace are the Palghar lynching and the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide. In the first instance, the victims were two Hindu Sadhus and their chauffeur, who were passing through the Palghar district of Maharashtra, India. It was caused due to the massive spread of fake news through WhatsApp. The BJP-led opposition in Maharashtra no doubt attempted to communalize it, and who better to entrust the responsibility but their unofficial spokesperson? The second was a genuine suicide by a young actor, as ultimately concluded by Dr Sudhir Gupta of AIIMS. From alleging Bollywood of having connections with ISIS to linking Rajput’s death with a drug racket, Goswami stopped at nothing to remain the news headline. His channel even condoned aggressive invasion of privacy, characterized by accessing Rhea Chakraborty’s confidential messages and hounding Deepika Padukone 24/7.

After his arrest, many have emerged among the common masses who claim he represents the average citizen and a targeted attack on him undermines democracy as a whole. That would indeed be true if the name of Dr Kafeel Khan was not already known throughout the nation. When the country was reeling from the CAA crisis in 2019, a middle-aged paediatrician voiced concerns about the yet-unpassed Bill being discriminatory toward Muslims. While addressing a gathering of about 600 students, he criticized the government and accused it of using the then CAB to bypass more deep-rooted issues like the declining health of children, the collapsing economy, and the consequential implosion of the job sector. The Yogi Adityanath government did not take kindly to being called out. Dr Khan spent more than 200 days in prison. Considering the above case, any ardent follower of political proceedings in the country is bound to raise an eyebrow at how Goswami obtained bail within merely a week of his arrest.

Media is one of the four pillars of democracy. The moment it begins having under-the-table ties to either the Legislative or the Executive Assemblies, it heralds the fall of said democracy. Furthermore, Republic TV currently being under investigation for running a TRP manipulation scam does not help his case.