I’ve been a journalist and columnist for over three decades, having worked in both print and television. Today, I am Member of Parliament-elect for the Rajya Sabha from the All-India Trinamool Congress. Many are asking: why would a journalist, especially someone who has previously inveighed against journalists taking Rajya Sabha berths, throw past statements to the wind and choose to now join a political party? That too an opposition party when we are heading into the 2024 general election, which is apparently a “done deal” for the ruling BJP? This election is seen as one that will establish India as a single-leader, single-party “democracy”, where, if analysts are to be believed, the opposition has no hope of winning.
Paradoxically, it is precisely for this reason that I have joined politics. Today, the era of non-alignment is over. The choices facing us are stark. During the Cold War, India remained staunchly equidistant from the American and Soviet blocs. But the world has changed. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many countries in the world are forced to make a choice: stand with the liberal democracies that respect the rules-based order or throw in your lot with the populist autocrats who disregard national boundaries.
Today, we, as citizens of India, must also take sides between those who believe there is more to democracy than simply electoral majorities, and those whose calling card is majoritarianism. I have chosen which side I want to be on. Have you?
Also Read: Electoral bonds ruling cuts down corporate clout in politics. But it’s more complicated than that
What’s on the line?
Fundamentals are at stake. What kind of democracy do we want to be? Do we want a democracy where a brute electoral majority stamps out dissenting voices, and where journalists are either paralysed by fear or tread so cautiously that they are forever in danger of falling off the tightrope they are forced to walk? Do we want to be a democracy where journalists become targets of vicious street attacks, as was the case recently with veteran journalist Nikhil Wagle? Shockingly, the attack on Wagle by BJP workers was reportedly endorsed by the local party chief. In 2020, journalist Siddique Kappan from Kerala was arrested in Uttar Pradesh and charged under the anti-terror law UAPA simply because he was travelling to report on a heinous crime in Hathras. He had to struggle for two years to get bail.
Do we want to be a democracy where protest is criminalised and activists like the academic Umar Khalid languish in jail for 3.5 years and counting without trial, and are forced to withdraw their bail application because the hearing is adjourned not once or twice but 14 times in 10 months? Farmers who protest are dubbed “Khalistanis”, students who protest are demonised as the “tukde tukde gang”. Even the distinguished activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, honoured by Harvard University for her work, was not spared and jailed under UAPA for over three years.
Tragically, in these anguishing times, most journalists, instead of holding up a mirror to the dark events that are unfolding, choose to either drumbeat support for the Narendra Modi government or escape into a delusionary bubble of manufactured “achhe din”. Only some are brave enough (like ThePrint) to offer space to contrarian or dissenting voices. Glance at a major newspaper or, worse still, switch to TV news and all we see is the ferocious stranglehold of the ruling party on the media discourse, whether it’s spiritual fantasia on the Ram Mandir or a concert-style musical drum roll on a new flyover. The media has been captured. Examination papers leak and students are pushed into torment, opposition-ruled states like West Bengal protest that they are denied central funds, but the headlines are still dominated by a pathetic, jarring government-eulogising cacophony.
Also Read: Congress is drowning. Some heading for the door, others taking note of the emergency exits
Opposition is the last hope
So, back to the original question: why join a political party? I have been a fiercely independent journalist for 30 years, but I left the newsroom three years ago to write books and columns. Simply put, there is little space anymore for quality journalism or what I consider good writing—writing that interrogates, provokes, and communicates ideas.
For example, could I call out political Hindutva for what I believe it is—a totally anti-constitutional force that discriminates between people of different religious faiths? Hindutva should be met with fierce resistance. Could I suggest that the well-clothed emperor is running a polity where data on his fulsome achievements is simply not accurate? This government lives by the dictum of ‘no-data-please-we-are-government’. Can I ask who the contributors are to the PM Cares Fund and how the money was used? Or how many died in India during Covid? How many were forced to migrate? How many MSMEs have been forced to shut down? Why are 95 per cent of Enforcement Directorate cases against opposition leaders? Are we expected to believe all those in power are squeaky clean?
While most of the mainstream media can’t ask these questions anymore, the political opposition can. Shoring up the political opposition thus becomes vital. It is only when the opposition lives that democracy can breathe and get oxygen. An “opposition-mukt Bharat” means no other viewpoint other than the ruling party’s can survive. Of course, those in opposition face numerous challenges, both organisational and in terms of message. But the opposition represents a last gasp of Indian democracy, as a force that is at least keeping democratic competition alive. What is ‘independence’ and who safeguards it? Independence thrives when the political opposition does. Independence is about speaking truth to power every day, all day. Independence is not calling oneself a journalist and then being an outrider and trumpeter of the government of the day.
I did not ask for a Rajya Sabha seat, nor did I lobby for it. I am not a businesswoman who can offer any quid pro quo. But I am honoured both as a citizen and proud Bengali that India’s only woman chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, offered me this berth along with two other women. And so, come with me into Parliament. And for the sake of all of us citizens, join me as I attempt to raise my voice fearlessly: argumentative, and yes, independent.
The writer is a former journalist and MP-elect (Rajya Sabha), All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)