West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee is infamous for her dictatorial tendencies. She has made veiled attempts to scuttle free speech and habitually targets individuals for criticising the government. This time around she has announced another anti free speech policy. While speaking at a cable operators’ function, she stated that the West Bengal government will appoint nodal officers in all the districts. These officers, will check, along with the local police officers, whether any TV show can disturb communal peace and harmony. It is believed that the idea of maintaining peace by imposing unreasonable fetters on TV shows is a mere eyewash. The idea is to soothe a particular vote-bank in the run up to the general elections next year.
During the anti-Hindu communal flare-ups in Basirhat and Baduria in North 24 Parganas district last year and Raniganj riots this year, the government had passed an arbitrary order directing the cable operators to suspend news channels. The Mamata led government alleged that rumors and fake allegations in news programmes triggered hatred amongst communities.
This followed open moral policing by chief minister Mamata Banerjee when she expressed her ‘displeasure’ over the negativity induced by current TV serials. She said that in today today’s time serials mean multiple marriages or conspiring relatives. It is indeed a threatening proposition where the chief minister of a state expresses her ‘displeasure’ over a TV serial. This shows that in the state of West Bengal there is no liberty whatsoever. Mamata Banerjee’s approval is needed even for producing a TV serial. She is all pervasive and you have to incline with her ideology on the premise of morality and communal harmony. There is no room for criticism or fair comments on government policy in the state.
This is not for the first time in the recent past that the Bengal government has imposed questionable restrictions on individual thought and freedom. On 19th April, the Mamata government proposed a ‘gag order’ for state administered universities and colleges. The draft rules under the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulations) Act, 2017 is an open attack on the academic freedom of college professors and employees. It openly provides that no employee of the University shall publish, whether in his own name or anonymously or in any other person’s name, in the electronic media without the consent of the Vice Chancellor. It further restricts the uploading of any document or the making of any statement of fact or opinion that has the effect of adverse criticism of any current government policy. Apart from publication in media outlets, the new set of rules also make it mandatory for all university staff members to take permission from the vice-chancellor if they wish to publish any matter which may not be purely literary, artistic or scientific in nature.
The Mamata government in West Bengal has a history of dictatorial tendencies. Her dictatorial side first came to fore in April 2012 when a professor and his neighbor were arrested by the police. Apparently, their crime was that they had posted a lighthearted cartoon involving Mamata Banerjee and then railway minister, Dinesh Trivedi. The innocent citizens were therefore arrested merely because they dared to exercise their freedom of expression. However, the champions of liberalism and free speech were then silent about the fact that Mamata Banerjee had jailed a person when faced with criticism. The mainstream media which has cried foul over clamp down on the fake news industry remained mum over this state intrusion on fundamental rights. The media feels that Prime Minister Modi should not deny the liberty to publish fake news stories, however, Mamata Banerjee is free to go to any extent in order to guard her party and ideology. Now, it seems that Mamata Banerjee and the TMC have gone a step ahead. They are no longer going against the rules and the laws to silence criticism. But there is an attempt to circumvent the laws and rules relating to freedom of speech and expression.
It is up to the democratic institutions of India now to look into how Mamata government is trying to shut all voices against her totalitarian anti-Hindu regime. By controlling even the cable operators in the state, there are chances that the Mamata government might try to appease its vote bank by selectively manipulating all forms of media. Apart from this, the TMC government may try to impede any objections in connection with its anti-Hindu policies by muzzling free speech and imposing highly restrictive controls on those dissenting with it.
