Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is showing no mercy for the Media.
And those speaking of upholding journalistic values high are also falling in line. The 98-year-old Anandabazar Patrika, a Kolkata-based leading Bengali newspaper stands as an example.
The newspaper group talked about high journalistic ethics over a petty issue with union minister Babul Supriyo two years ago, but looked the other way when Mamata government “forced” its editor to resign.
The Bengal Chief Minister is in offensive mode against the media. She accused the ABP group of “creating panic, spreading apprehensions and provoking people”.
Even the Chief Minister took the group to the task for the layoffs and salary cuts by the newspaper management. “You people do business in Bengal, sack people here and even cut the salary of your employees. You would have been taught a lesson if you were in any other state, and under any other government,” Banerjee thundered.
The group vulnerably “surrendered” when it came to its owner and renowned journalist Aveek Sarkar. In the run-up to the Assembly polls in May 2016, the Anandabazar Patrika and its sister publication The Telegraph carried on a relentless and often highly biased campaign against Banerjee.
In June 2016, Aveek Sarkar resigned as editor-in-chief soon after Mamata came to power for the second term. He was replaced by his brother Arup Sarkar as “part of the ongoing process of streamlining news operations”. And the group also ceased to criticise, even mildly, Bengal’s ruling party and the government. As a result, it started getting advertisement from the government.
The group did not utter a single word when the Bengal government put its high ethics and freedom at stake. For it, the values and ethics are applicable only for the BJP and its leaders.
Much hue and cry was made when ABP News’ Managing Editor Milind Khandekar and anchor Punya Prasoon Bajpai resigned. The Congress party slammed the Narendra Modi government, accusing it of wanting to suppress ‘truth being spoken to power’.
But in Bengal, none dare to speak against “Didi”. After all, the state has an appalling history of gagging the media.
James Augustus Hickey, the champion figure of journalism, launched the first printed newspaper Hickey’s Bengal Gazette from Kolkata. It hit the stands for the first time on January 29, 1780. Hickey ruthlessly carried out tirades against the East India Company.
Soon Bengal Gazette provoked the ire of the then Governor General, Warren Hastings. Soon he filed a case against him and Hickey was imprisoned. Hickey was stubborn. He continued to publish his Gazette even when he was in jail and his criticism grew harsher. Finally, Warren Hastings seized his printing machines and typewriters, and March 1782 saw the end of Bengal Gazette.
It was a big setback for the freedom of the press.
