The press should stop acting as agents.

Chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice M Katju has formed a 3 member team to investigate complaints of violation of press freedom in Bihar. There have been allegations of journalists being transferred or threatened and government advertisements being cancelled from any newspaper that criticised any minister in Bihar. The government in Bihar is formed by the Janata Party of Nitish Kumar, supported by the BJP, who trounced the Congress in the last assembly elections. Large sections of the press in India act as agents for the Congress, distorting or suppressing news harmful to the Congress while highlighting news harmful to parties opposing the Congress. We do not know what transpired in Bihar but we do know that the Times of India has been running wall to wall coverage of the riots in Gujarat 10 years ago. It is almost as if the Times is celebrating the anniversary because of, what it sees as, a weakness of the BJP. Everyday for the past week the Times has been running articles criticising the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who is of the BJP, and Hindu organisations such as the VHP and Bajrangdal. Articles invariably feature the same picture of a bearded man, no doubt a Hindu, wearing white trousers and a purple sweat shirt with a red cloth tied round his forehead and holding aloft, what looks like, an iron rod in his right hand. His clenched left hand is also raised and he seems to be screaming. These articles coinciding with the last phases of elections in UP seem designed to incense Muslims, who form 20% of the population of UP, so that they vote for Congress. It is possible that the Congress senses that it is not doing as well as expected which would be a serious setback for the Crown Prince. There has already been some talk of President's Rule in UP if there is a hung assembly. Will the Times continue its strategy of inciting Muslims later in the year when Gujarat holds assembly elections? If so, will it be held responsible if passions are inflamed and further rioting takes place? Strangely Punjab also had elections a few weeks earlier but the Times did not utter a peep about Operation Blue Star on the Golden Temple in 1984 or the massacre that followed the shooting of Indira Gandhi. The Congress is expert at tarring opposition with baseless allegations. Last year it defamed civil society activists supporting Anna Hazare in his protests for a strong Lok Pal. Now there are allegations that people protesting against the nuclear power plant in Kudankulum in Tamil Nadu are being supported by money from the US. Three NGOs have been banned and a German national deported. It is the duty of the press to investigate such allegations and inform the public with the truth but they do not. When the fourth estate behaves as a fifth column it is most dangerous.