His voice was calm as ever, but the message that the well-known television presenter Ravish Kumar last week caused consternation in the Indian media landscape: he left news channel NDTV. Immediately. For viewers of the channel he had a warning. “Every good side of journalism is being systematically destroyed in this day and age.”
The ominous words refer to the takeover of the media company by the tycoon Gaumat Adani, the richest man in Asia. The media arm of his Adani Enterprise had announced in August that it had indirectly acquired a 29 percent interest in NDTV. At the end of November, it opened a public offer to become the majority shareholder. Monday evening it was announced that Adani has acquired 37 percent of the shares.
A ‘hostile take-over’ and an attack on press freedom according to critics, because as the largest shareholder he has a say in the approach of the media company. Founders Prannoy and Radhika Roy opposed the takeover and left the holding company that bought Adani. The couple still own shares in NDTV; the major shareholders could therefore come into conflict with each other.
24-hour news channel
NDTV (New Delhi Television) is one of the few impartial media companies in India. It started in the 1980s as a production house for the public and then only broadcaster Doordashan. It launched the first 24-hour news channel in 1998, today viewers can choose: NDTV India is in Hindi, 24×7 in English. In the 2000s it also set up channels for lifestyle and financial news, although these were financially problematic.
Unrest at the top of the media company did little to detract from the image of NDTV reporting. According to journalist Ruben Banerjee, NDTV expresses a “sound that is scarce in the Indian media”: nuanced and balanced criticism of both those in power and the opposition. “Indian TV channels are loud, literally and figuratively. Commentators and anchors screaming and presenting the news partisan. But at NDTV the news is not in your face”, he describes on the phone.
According to research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, three-quarters of BJP (the ruling party) voters and 81 percent of other voters consider NDTV a reliable source of information.
For a long time, the company behind the channels operated independently. With the takeover by a conglomerate like that of Adani – he amassed his billions in energy production and logistics, among other things – this would come to an end. Many other channels, magazines and websites are already owned by another Indian tycoon, Mukesh Ambani. These two richest businessmen in India also have close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The billionaire Adani and the politician are from the same state. They are seen at dinner parties and in the same social circles.
In the same period, the press in India has been increasingly curtailed, the journalists themselves write and international organizations conclude. Modi’s BJP government tolerates little public criticism; journalists are threatened with legal prosecution for defamation. Physical violence against reporters has increased. The press freedom organization Reporters without Border put India this year down several spots on the annual Press Freedom Index to number 150, the country’s worst rating ever.
Lap dogs
Departing NDTV presenter Kumar speaks of a “devastating effect” in the farewell video he posted on YouTube. He specifically referred to the god media’, the term borrowed from Hindi denoting media that meekly take the government’s position as ‘lapdogs’. “Whoever wants to work in journalism now becomes a real estate agent [in informatie].”
Fellow journalist BanerjeeThat wrote a book about the “deep rot” in the Indian press, understands the concerns about editorial independence. According to him, however, this has nothing to do with political color: “It is problematic that the media are swallowed up in a construction in which business interests are put above real journalism. No company has the courage to go against the government anymore. Adani is not the only one, certainly not the first, to acquire a media company. The system is harmful.” In recent years, the laws have become stricter and legal action against critical journalists has become more resentful, he agrees. “The pattern of this influence has now become clear. Each subsequent government now knows how to pressure the media and control the national narrative.”
For Banerjee, it is encouraging that Ravish Kumar, widely loved, has made his opposition public. He points out that one million social media users subsequently subscribed to his YouTube channel: “In any case, there are Indian news consumers who do need this kind of serious journalism.”
Whether impartial reporting at NDTV would disappear completely after a takeover by Adani remains to be seen. The businessman spoke in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times earlier about his ambitions for a global Indian media brand.