Smriti Irani is in Choppy Internet Seas: Packs Online Media Panel with Babus

Smriti Irani tried to hang the mainstream media with the accreditation sword citing fake news. But ‘fake news’ is double-edged. It bites both ways and Irani got bitten hard. Here’s a report, for Different Truths.

Information & Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani is the talk of Online Town. From the wire to the scroll, she’s commanding attention and grabbing eyeballs. The lady minister wants to regulate online content. Especially, because there is an impressive building that the Modi Government is dangerously close to getting into the bad books after being years in the good books. And media the mirror is reflecting the government’s twists and turns, ups and downs.

For example, Chole-Bhature might be the Congress party’s preferred energy-snack to fill up on before going on a fast. But when a section of the television media toeing the government line makes a feast of the news and questions Rahul Gandhi’s taste-buds, online media keeps it out of their menu. Chole online is peanuts. And Bhatura just another desi pancake. Even those flattened and served in Chandni Chowk’s many gullies.

What is food for thought is that as 2019 closes in and the opposition glues in, minister Irani has the toughest task any minister in the Modi government has: Regulate media; prevent it from slipping out of the government’s hands. Television news channels are doing that – airing the exploits of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav; Mamata Banerjee and Chandrababu Naidu. And that in words and visuals not flattering to the government/BJP/Modi.

And then Irani faltered. She tried to hang the mainstream media with the accreditation sword citing fake news. But ‘fake news’ is double-edged. It bites both ways and Irani got bitten hard. The hangman said ‘No’. That move nixed, Irani shifted goalposts. She revamped the PIB and PCI with G-Men and G-Women (‘G’ for the government). Nobody could do a thing about it except crib on television shows of perceived anti-government TV news channels of which there are a few, all left of centre.

To up the ante, Irani has now set up a nine-member committee to form rules and regulations for online media. Five of the nine members are secretaries from the ministries of I&B, Home, I&T, Industrial Policy and Promotion and Legal Affairs. There is a representative each of the National Broadcasters Association (NBA) and Indian Broadcasting Foundation. And a member of the Press Council of India (PCI).

But there is no representative of the online media. It is as if online media doesn’t exist! And online media is what Smriti Irani and the Modi government want to regulate, draw rules for! If that is not bizarre, what is? Don’t expect an answer from Smriti Irani. She will be too busy cooped up with bureaucrats in Shastri Bhavan drawing up not to cross Lakshman Rekhas – norms for licensing and content creation, foreign investment policy – for online media.

Hugging and other close-contacts with Google and Facebook apparently did not work. And with Indians plaguing online and Social Media like a virus gone viral, these news aggregators are also targets. Maybe it has just dawned on Smriti Irani that the China-model is by far the better – keep the servers closer to hand, with India boundaries. Google and Facebook are the mother lodes that feed the info-rush. So, get hold of the data mining rights. Simple!

That means junk the open internet regime policy. Sounds great if you are the government. Sounds greater if you are a failing government and are in choppy Internet seas. Facebook with two billion users globally and Google with 500 million Indian vernacular language users have empowered hundreds of online news media platforms in India, given them the means and motivation to go unbridled after a fumbling and bumbling government.

The problem for Irani is: Only a few young people read newspapers and not every one of them is glued to TV news channels. Online media is where the young voter flocks to get info. And Smriti Irani is not the young bahu anymore to command audience. She has the power but not the weight!

The only ones who she can command and who are at her beck and call are the ‘babus’. They make up her team of online media-breakers. The good news is ‘babus’ are shiftless beings and their loyalty is always to the winner. So, unless Modi regains pre-2014 form, Smriti Irani might be out of Shastri Bhavan faster than a journalist without PIB accreditation. But, then, what guarantee the new other regime’s I&B minister is not a chip of the Irani-block?