Friday, 17 May, 2024
Freedom speech and independence of the media have always been a contentious issue in India
Freedom speech and independence of the media have always been a contentious issue in India. The debate over them has become more and more acrimonious since 2014 when Narendra Modi led the BJP to a historic Lok Sabha victory and became Prime Minister. Since then, legions of his critics have accused the regime of stifling free speech and subverting the media as an independent institution. His fans have scoffed at the critics. IndiaTracker is not into opinions and heated debates over issues and prefers to look at data to find out what exactly the numbers say. In the last few days, two controversies related to free speech and independence of the media broke out in India.
In one, the anchor of a TV show made misleading statements against Rahul Gandhi and subsequently apologised for it. But numerous cases were filed against him in Congress ruled states and Chhattisgarh police even landed up at his residence in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh to arrest him. In the second case, a documentary film maker posted a poster of Goddess Kali smoking a cigarette and holding a LGBT flag in social media. To promote her film. There have been widespread protests and a\growing clamour for her arrest even though she is living in Canada at the moment.
What do ordinary Indians think about all this? C Voter-India Tracker conducted a survey to find out the answers. And they would not provide any comfort to Indians who believe in absolute freedom of speech. During the survey, respondents were asked if the insistence of Chattisgarh police to arrest the TV anchor even after he had issued a public apology was the correct decision. Overall, 55% of the respondents were of the opinion that the Chattisgarh police was doing the right thing.
As the accompanying chart shows, there was a big difference along political lines as the issue has become a BJP vs Congress bone of contention. While, two thirds of opposition supporters backed Chattisgarh police, more than 60% of NDA supporters called it a wrong decision. Rural India was less enamoured with free speech rights with 58% backing Chattisgarh police while 48% of urban respondents shared the same sentiment. The gap between lower education and higher education respondents too was vast.
While 61% of the former backed Chattisgarh police, 41% of the later did the same. When it comes to the Kali poster and the film maker, there was a total blurring of political divides. Overall, two thirds of the respondents wanted the documentary film maker to be arrested. As the accompanying second chart shows, two thirds of the respondents from both the NDA and opposition camp wanted the documentary film maker to be arrested.
A higher proportion (72%) of urban respondents wanted the arrest of the film maker compared to rural respondents (62%). One big divide was noticed when income categories of respondents were analysed. While 61% of lower income respondents wanted the arrest, 71% of higher income respondents wanted the arrest.
Clearly, the data suggests that no matter what ideologues and intellectuals discuss and debate, a majority of Indians support neither absolute freedom of speech nor the freedom of media to say, write or telecast anything it wants. Data from dozens of similar surveys have shown that Indians
remain conservative.
