RSS-BJP writers as columnists

The late Vinod Mehta during his editorship of Outlook where I worked for 12 years evolved a strategy following Income Tax raids on the magazinersquos proprietor during the A B Vajpayee government He began commissioning pieces from writers in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak SanghBharatiya Janata Party at a greater frequency than previously This was as he told us to ensure he had people in the BJP to intercede on the magazinersquos behalf in inevitable conflicts with the governmentCall it the fear factor that every editor must countenanceIn order to read the barometer of fear today I trawled the archives of three national newspapersmdashThe Times of India The Indian Express and Hindustan Timesmdashfor days checking on who from the RSSBJP wrote for themmdashand how often The exercise was cumbersome the index of writers seemed incomplete prompting me to search the internet for writers who I remembered had written for them I did not include The Hindu as politicianwriters are few and far between in itVenkaiah Naidu and R S PrasadI excluded Swapan Dasgupta and M J Akbar from my search They were journalists for many years before they underwent a metamorphosis But I did include journalist Balbir Punj who remained in the Sangh and went on later to hold important posts in the BJP apart from twice representing the party in the Rajya Sabha This preamble is to underscore that the numbers I compiled on RSSBJP columnists are lower than what they would be in reality Yet this helps to read the barometer of fear operating in Indian media todaymdashor to figure out the degree of imbalance in journalismAlso Read Will our democracy survive ModiSince May 2014 when the BJP swept into power its members have altogether written 640 opinion pieces over approximately 3000 days This means a piece from the RSSBJP stable was being published in one of the three newspapers every fifth day Of the 640 pieces IE accounted for 337 HT 97 and TOI 206 IErsquos figures are high partly because its archive is the best among the three Its opinion pages are vibrantmdashproprietors and editors fear a backlash only when they speak out against the governmentI found that 399 of the 640 pieces or 6234 per cent mention Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his government at least once In one piece RSS leader Ram Madhav mentions Modi 20 times in another 18 times Former President Ram Nath Kovind referred to Modi 22 times in just one piece written thankfully after he demitted office Union Minister Bhupender Yadav did so 21 times in an article Most BJP spokespersons possess a sycophantic inclination to needlessly repeat Modirsquos name in their piecesGuess they owe it to Modi for turning them into writers Since May 2014 Madhav has written 101 pieces for IE 25 for HT and six for TOI The IE index of authors shows he began writing only in May 2014 Former VicePresident Venkaiah Naidu has written 68 pieces across the three newspapers Bhupender Yadav 34 MP Dr Rakesh Sinha 31 for IE for which former minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has penned 22 Spokesperson Anil Baluni has 26 bylines for IE and his colleagueShehzad Poonawalla 20 for TOIModi has written 18 pieces for TOI and nine for HT Home Minister Amit Shah has written 12 pieces for TOI and two for IE one an extract from his speech Shah credits all that is good in India to Modi Generous and cute right Seventeen out of the 30 Cabinet ministers have written for TOIItrsquos hard to figure out whether editors accept articles from RSSBJP writers out of their fear of offending them or whether they commission them to send pieces Journalist Harish Khare in How Modi Won It Notes from the 2014 Elections writes ldquoIt seems the onset of the election schedule has emboldened media professionals to come out of the closetrdquo Khare is suggesting that journalists are ideologically Sanghis This is difficult to proveBut the rush among media outlets to publish RSSBJP writers certainly creates an uneven playing ground for the Opposition Sure P Chidambaram has a column as does Derek OrsquoBrien Shashi Tharoorrsquos byline appears frequently But balance demands that media outlets should have published 640 pieces of Opposition leaders or at least 500 during the last eight years That has not happenedThe unfair advantage accruing to the BJP is the reason the Opposition carps about the media Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was recently criticised for being brusque with a journalist at a press conference The video recording of the press conference shows Gandhi was first asked what he thought of the BJPrsquos charge that the remark for which he was convicted for defamation was an insult to the OBCs he answered it Next came the question about Congress Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel doing ldquodhandardquomdashwidely considered a derogatory termmdashwith the Adanis Gandhi replied He lost his temper at the question regarding the lsquoOBC insultrsquo being tossed athim again Gandhi unlike Modi has never shied away from holding pressers Yet journos seem disdainful of those who are democraticmdashor out of power This partially explains the mushrooming of columnists from the Sangh stableThe numbers speak for themselves RSSBJP columnists have written 640 pieces since May 2014 Indian Express accounted for 337 Hindustan Times 97 The Times of India 206 623437 mention PM or his government at least once A column of RSSBJP writers appears every 5th day in 1 of 3 national newspapers Ram Nath Kovind mentioned Modi maximum no of times in a single piece 22Leader No of pieces writtenNarendra Modi 27Ravi Shankar Prasad 32Bhupender Yadav 35Venkaiah Naidu 66Ram Madhav 132The writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper