This appeared in the FPJ on April 19th 2001

A scan of the news channels, a glance at an Indian timeline on Twitter, a glimpse at the newspaper, will confirm just one thing. COVID is back, and this time it is worse than before. Across social media there have been calls for help, and the communities of twitter have banded together to help. There are people we know who are infected. There are people who we know, who are dying. Every where we look there is despair – public areas converted to crematoriums, graveyards running out of space, and people dying while waiting for a hospital bed. One of the cases that struck me was a 65-year-old man with comorbidities, who posted his oxygen level and asked for help on twitter. We were later informed that he had passed away.

Each day we are breaking the record for the highest number of cases recorded. On Sunday morning there were about 2.6 lakh new cases in India, about 30,000 more than the previous day’s record. And, most feel that the numbers are underreported. The evidence is in front of our eyes – the numbers of people who we know personally who have been impacted – close friends, family, colleagues does not seem to tally with the numbers that is put out by ‘official’ sources. In each state facing the crisis, there have been questions about the numbers. And, from accounts of journalists, and doctors, it seems that there is no standard way of counting the infected and the dead, and that each medical administrator makes her own decision on how to represent a case.  

While regional media seems to be taking state governments to task and asking them tough questions; the national media seems to find it difficult to get out of its supine position. In the 12 months since the lockdown, the national media has led a vilification campaign against Muslims accusing them of Corona Jihad; managed to miss the story of migrants walking back home – till independent journalists and social media made them take notice; it has managed to convert every issue into a polarised slanging match; it has to divert attention from real issues by stirring the communal pot; and worst of all, it has not told either the government or us, the impending crisis. For example, COVID is not new. We have been under some form of lockdown for the best part of 12 months. Other nations have come out of one lockdown and walked into the next, with numbers surging. And, yet our media has missed the story.  And, yet it is only a week ago that we realize that we do not have enough medical grade oxygen. As the 4^h pillar of democracy, it is the role of the media to highlight issues in the systems. To act as the early warning system. It has abdicated its responsibility either out of fear, or out of desire for favour – and it has let us all down.

BJP ideologue, and former leader, LK Advani famously said of the Indian media during the Emergency period, ““You were asked only to bend, but you crawled.” One is not even sure if the media was asked even to bend. But crawl they did, to be part of the corridors of power. To gain sponsorships for their events, and access to those who wielded power. It is done in every regime, would be the chorus – and it would be right But, no other regime has had to face a pandemic that threatens to suffocate our lives, and our dreams. Where was the media when Oxygen units were not being set up? Where was the media when capacity was not ramped up? Where was the media when enough vaccines were not procured in time? Where was the media when enough vaccines were not being manufactured.? Where was the media raising that sense of urgency in citizens, and that sense of a watchdog watching, for those in power? The mainstream media was busy creating fake bogeymen and trying to divert attention.

Our political system is broken, but I have great faith that it will be fixed. Just see the next generation of leaders – across parties – responding to the crisis and providing help and leadership at a time like this.

The mainstream news media is broken, and there does not seem to be much hope for a model that has no substance, and no soul. Whose purpose seems to be to sell kilos of viewers to advertisers, to peddle their wares. A media that does not think twice about taking money to advertise lies – products that will not help in controlling Corona The news media is called the 4^th pillar of democracy, because it is supposed to question those in authority, without fear or without favour. Our mainstream media is both terrified and works for favours – a dangerous combination.  A watch dog that does not raise the alarm, is of not much use. And this toothless, barkless watchdog is, unfortunately, the mainstream Indian news media. A wake up call for citizens to band together to fund independent media and journalists, beats and issues of interest -that would watch out for us – not for themselves.