NEW DELHI: Indian journalists crawled when Indira Gandhi asked them to bend. So lamented former BJP home minister Lal Kishan Advani, in his memoirs. On Saturday, the crawling and bending seemed to have returned in the name of national security.

According to a news portal, NDTV, a relatively tempered channel, withdrew without explanation an interview it had recorded of former home minister P. Chidambaram. The comments reportedly were critical of the Modi government’s claim of surgical strikes in Azad Kashmir.

The apparent self-censorship has been questioned by thewire.in, among the few news portals standing up to the daily taming of the mainstream media across India. The Wire observed that the malaise was deep-rooted and widespread although NDTV was not expected to be its typical victim. It reported how on one channel the anchor came donned in a flak jacket, another created a war room.

“Even before the army operation, NewsX declared via its editor-in-chief that the channel would no longer be referring to Pakistan as ‘Pakistan’ on its prime time show but as ‘Terror State of Pakistan’. On its part, Times Now has led the charge against the presence of Pakistani artists in India and has even demanded that diplomatic relations with Islamabad be downgraded,” the portal noted.

“It’s too early to tell what this surge of nationalist reporting has done for the ratings of these channels but the aggressive manner in which they have led the charge against analysts and opposition politicians who suggested the government provide more information on the surgical strikes has drawn praise from Amit Shah, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

According to The Wire, the BJP’s position is that it was the army which decided to go public with the news about the strikes and that asking for more information would lower the morale of the army and undermine national security.

Now NDTV has done “a dramatic turnaround which suggests the channel has bought into the BJP’s arguments about the danger of asking questions…NDTV has now declared that it would no longer air any remarks that risk security for political advantage.”

On Oct 6, according to the portal, NDTV decided not to telecast an interview with Congress leader P. Chidambaram — who as a former home minister and finance minister was a member of Manmohan Singh’s cabinet committee on security for a decade — because he was apparently critical of the Modi government’s political handling of the surgical strikes the Indian army had conducted across the Line of Control in Kashmir last week.

In extracts that played out on the channel on Thursday morning, Mr Chidambaram criticised statements made by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in the aftermath of the Sept 29 military strikes and noted that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had since cautioned his ministers against thumping their chests on the issue.

“The full interview, which Chidambaram had recorded with NDTV’s star anchor Barkha Dutt, would be broadcast in the evening, viewers were told. Except that it wasn’t.”

Dropping Mr Chidambaram’s interview wasn’t the only act of censorship at the channel that day. Editors were instructed that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s statement in Uttar Pradesh about Mr Modi trading in the blood of Indian soldiers was not to be run on the channel either, The Wire said.

In an email on Oct 6 to all of the channel’s journalists across the country, NDTV’s editorial director Sonia Singh explained the new editorial policy. The gist was encapsulated thus: national security cannot be compromised by politics.

India’s army cannot be doubted or questioned or used for political gains. The current political debate threatens to do this. NDTV will not air any remarks that risk security for political advantage.

For some reason, the second point — about not questioning the army — was dropped from a graphic commissioned for the new policy, The Wire said.

The Wire sent a series of questions to Radhika Roy, co-founder and chairperson of NDTV, and Sonia Singh, on Friday afternoon — right after BJP president Amit Shah’s press conference was telecast on the channel.

The Wire asked: What prompted NDTV to announce a new editorial policy as mentioned in its message ‘India Above Politics’? Was it true that the decision to not air Rahul Gandhi’s comments was taken pursuant to the new editorial policy? Extracts of Mr Chidambaram’s interview to Barkha Dutt were played during the day on Oct 6 but the full interview was finally never broadcast. “We understand that this decision was also taken in keeping with NDTV’s new editorial policy. Is this true? Was Mr Chidambaram saying things that compromise national security?” It got a reply but not any answer to its questions.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2016