Tightly leashing media at home but proponent of press freedoms elsewhere, Pinarayi Vijayan’s many hypocrisies

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

“The unprecedented actions taken by the IT Department at the BBC's Indian offices are highly questionable, raising concerns over media freedom. Infringement on press freedom is objectionable and can embarrass our nation on the international stage," Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had tweeted, hardly a fortnight ago.

A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, Pinarayi Vijayan has long been accused of employing a heavy-handed approach against the media. Doubting Thomases need only take a look at the plight of Asianet News anchor Vinu V John, against whom a summons with stringent conditions was issued by the Kerala Police recently.

The Backdrop

Last year, during the two-day ‘Bharat Bandh’ called by the ‘joint forum for central trade unions’, Kerala witnessed widespread violence. The Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the trade union wing of Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), was at the forefront of enforcing the bandh, and its general secretary Elamaram Kareem had mocked the hapless victims by likening the mishaps to ‘scratching and pinching’.

John, playing to the gallery as is his wont, merely asked whether Kareem would be as flippant, had he been at the receiving end of it. Dubbing it a call to violence, CPI-M and CITU workers took out marches across Kerala to bureaus of Asianet News. A poster was plastered on John’s property by trespassers owing allegiance to ‘CITU Peroorkada Area Committee’.

Nearly a month later, he was booked without any intimation, which the anchor found out to his horror when renewing his passport, underlying the carefully-laden vindictive plan of action. The notice issued last week to John was a follow-up on that.

CPI-M Doublespeak

This is not a one-off case. In 2020 the Vijayan government had to roll back a contentious amendment to the Kerala Police Act, ostensibly to prevent cyber-attacks against women which, in reality, was meant to curtail media freedom.

The Vijayan government has also utilised Covid-19 to keep the visual media away from the Kerala Legislative Assembly, continuing with these restrictions long after the lifting of the Covid protocol. True to its doublespeak, when the Union government banned the Media One channel last year, the Marxists wasted no time in condemning it.

The CPI-M has devised a clever strategy to keep Kerala news channels on a leash, periodically issuing threats to withdraw its panellists from primetime debates. When the gold-smuggling scam broke out, the Marxists had come under immense pressure, with its spokespersons heckling not only fellow-panellists, but also anchors.

There was also a short-term boycott of Asianet News in its wake, when the CPI-M allegedly put forth the demand that John be sacked. MG Radhakrishnan, functioning as editor of the channel back then refused to buckle down, although he managed to get the CPI-M to go back on its boycott by using his good offices with it.

Vijayan And The Press

The CPI-M’s disdain for the media in Kerala is championed by none other than the CM himself. Vijayan’s frontal attacks on the press, which he collectively dubs “right-wing”, is amplified by the party and its social media warriors. His gripe with the fourth estate dates back to the days of factionalism in the CPI-M, when VS Achuthanandan became the darling of a section of the press.

Accusing the media of operating like a ‘syndicate’, Vijayan had responded by getting Deepika, Kerala’s oldest daily, to publish front-page editorials in his support. This was aided by Faris Aboobacker, a businessman alleged to be close to him, acquiring its controlling stakes.

Vijayan’s run-ins with the press continued even after taking over as chief minister, with the infamous “Kadakkoo Purathu” (“Out Of Here”) episode playing out at the KTDC Mascot Hotel in Thiruvananthapuram, when he accused the press of turning up uninvited for a dialogue with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Soon after assuming office, Vijayan also discontinued the long-standing custom of the chief minister’s weekly press conference, something his predecessors followed without fail.

Left Intelligentsia’s Role

CPI-M’s contempt for a free and fair press is no more evident than in their collective reference to journalists as Ma Pra (abridged from Madhyama Pravarthakan or media personnel) pejoratively. How does the CPI-M get away with this?

It is probably on account of the Left intelligentsia which plays a big part in opinion formation.  Known to cry hoarse whenever the media is maimed in Delhi, these commentators choose to keep a studied silence when the boot is on the other foot.

At times they become active accomplices, as it happened when poet Balachandran Chullikad seconded Vijayan’s foul language for then Mathrubhumi editor K Gopalakrishnan when it ran a series of exposés in 2007. The presence of a large number of journalists who are open about their Left predilections is an added bonus.

Vinu V John’s predicament is a throwback to the days of pioneering journalist Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, exiled to Madras for criticising the then Diwan of Travancore, in 1910.

Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.