Abstract
Wealthy Indian families have been trying to shape the news in their interests since independence. Journalist
Economic expansion over the last two decades has meant that the power-distribution within India’s business class is no longer oligarchic, but the great wealth amassed by some magnates – the term favoured locally is “industrialist” – means it retains distinctly oligarchic characteristics. One of the expressions of this concentration of economic power is the desire among some of the richest of these industrialists to control the narrative around the behemoth corporations they run, whether through direct ownership of the media or the exercise of influence in other ways.
An example of this phenomenon was revealed in 2010, when the transcripts of a series of taped conversations between the publicist Niira Radia, who had links to two of the biggest of the country’s corporations, Tata Sons and Reliance Industries, and a number of very influential politicians and journalists, were published by two news weeklies. The transcripts, known as the “Radia tapes”, revealed a degree of collusion and information-sharing between these three vital nodes of society that left many in India greatly disturbed, but perhaps not surprised. Such influence-mongering is seen by most as common practice.
The real surprise was that the transcripts had been published at all. It is well known now that other media houses had been given the transcripts but had chosen not to publish them before the first magazine, Open, a relatively small publication, went ahead, rapidly followed by another current affairs weekly, Outlook. In doing so these weeklies seem to have disturbed a venerable compact between business journalists and large corporations in India that had long resulted in a failure to examine fully the practices of such companies. It is sometimes argued that it was the same compact that, in the decades following independence from colonial rule, cemented the quaint but widely accepted notion of the Indian industrialist as benevolent patriarch instead of profit-seeker.
One of the interesting developments in the short time since the publication of those transcripts has been the entry of some of India’s biggest corporate houses into the media business, though it should be pointed out that there is no reason to believe the two are related. This development has been especially noticeable in television news. In the past few years three of India’s richest men, all previously without any direct news media interests, acquired significant ownership stakes in the biggest media groups in the country. These companies had grown at unsustainable rates in the years of India’s brief economic upswing. During the lean years following the global recession, each struggled for long periods, cutting costs and jobs periodically while searching for an infusion of funds that could revitalise their business.
On the face of it, the new interest of corporate magnates in television companies should have grave implications. Yet there is reason for hope. The problem in India is not one of direct censorship from corporate owners. Interviews and conversations with a number of high-ranking editors and reporters contacted during the writing of this piece indicate something quite different.
The prevailing sentiment is that in this regard it is self-censorship that comes into play. A new owner does not need to send any messages to his journalists, and nor will he risk his reputation by doing anything so unseemly. Yet there is no denying that the importance of keeping these individuals happy motivates editorial boards to act differently than they would otherwise. In the same vein, as in the case of the Radia tapes, editors who did not carry the story also did so out of professional fealty, unwilling to impugn the high-ranking journalists involved.
How does one address this self-censorship? As the media base in India broadens, and bearing in mind the unique challenges to information-control that the web and social media present, perhaps there is no need to. Here is a counter-intuitive example: in May last year, India’s sixth-richest man, Kumar Mangalan Birla, acquired a large stake in Living Media Group, which runs a popular news channel and India’s biggest news weekly. In October, he was named in a preliminary report filed by India’s Central Bureau of Intelligence in a matter pertaining to the allocation of coal deposits to one of his companies.
ABOVE: A woman reads India Today magazine, owned by Living Media. India’s sixth-richest man, Kumar Mangalan Birla, acquired a 27.5 per cent stake in the company in 2012
Credit: dbimages/Alamy
The news channel he partly owns and the daily newspaper owned and operated by his sister largely ignored the news. Yet every other major newspaper led with it on the front page and every other news channel reported on it frequently.
India now has a media space large enough to ensure that a story like this will comprehensively enter the public domain. Crucially, the social media sphere has been especially diligent in taking news channels and newspapers to task for what they see as biased reporting. There is in-depth analyses on websites about who reports on what. It takes its toll on reputations.
The under-reporting of the Birla case by the media organs he and his family own has been seen as a derogation of media responsibilities, and certainly a disservice to their consumers. However, Indian media has been funded by rich corporate families since independence. When it is not censoring itself, it has operated with a great deal of freedom. For instance, the publications that first published the Radia tapes are both owned by industrialist families, but the decision to publish was taken at an editorial level. As the public avails itself of more and more disparate sources of news, the ability of the rich and politically powerful to control what is written and said about them seems to diminish by the month.
In the past few years three of India’s richest men have acquired significant ownership stakes in the biggest media groups in the country