The space for dissent is shrinking rapidly

A photograph published in The Sun , of Queen Elizabeth giving the Nazi salute as a six-year-old, has expectedly raised a storm in Britain, and left Buckingham Palace furiously objecting to the publication of the picture from its royal archives.

The still is from a brief 1933 video clip from the royal personal collection and shows Elizabeth playing with her sister Margaret, mother Elizabeth, and uncle Edward VIII, who later become king.

While going soft on the Queen — after all, she was only a child then — The Sun has lambasted Edward for teaching the Nazi salute to his nieces. Saying this gave a “fascinating insight into the warped prejudices of Edward VIII”, the tabloid calls him “part of a clique of anti-Semitic aristocrats”.

The paper has, of course, defended its decision to make the picture public since it is the people who pay for the monarchy. What is most interesting, apart from the furious tweets suggesting that the British people should stop funding the monarchy, is the official response of the British government.

British Culture Secretary John Whittingdale actually defended The Sun , arguing “they decided clearly there was a public interest and the British public will judge whether or not they were right”.

He added, “Sometimes editors have difficult decisions. Sometimes people will think they are right, sometimes wrong.”

Can you imagine an Indian minister, particularly from the present dispensation , saying something like this? While we do not have monarchies to worry about, similar revelations of impropriety and/or blunders by our ruling monarchs — the netas — would get us homilies from the government on our abject lack of “nationalism” and spoiling India’s image. Not one Brit who dared to heap abuse on the monarchy on the social media has been arrested.

In Madhya Pradesh, as the horrendous Vyapam scam unfolds, with the Supreme Court telling us that the dental college admission scam in the State appears much worse, BJP spokespersons have squarely blamed the media for “sensationalising the story”, and blaming Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. One RSS ideologue even called him the main “whistleblower” in the scam!

For her part, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has lambasted the media for everything. According to her, the spate of rape cases in West Bengal were “cooked up” by the media, and intellectuals were “paid” to give suitable quotes to malign the State government! Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav too has blamed the media for painting his State as a haven for crimes against women “even though such incidents (rapes) don’t happen in UP alone”.

Down south in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has a single response to any news report she dislikes — defamation case. Tamil Nadu has a record number of defamation cases filed against the media: over 100, the latest being for those reporting on her health. Besides, Jayalalithaa rarely talks to journalists or holds press conferences.

As Gujarat’s chief minister, Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only gave the royal snub to the media, he often told senior journalists in off-the-record conversations that after being maligned for the 2002 Gujarat riots, he no longer cared what the media wrote, and would engage with his audience on the social media.

He rarely gave interviews to journalists for a decade and even in the 2014 elections, his interviews came only in the final phase.

While launching the Ahmedabad edition of BusinessLine in 2014, he took quite a few swipes at the media and said he would be using more and more of social media to connect with the people. He has kept his word.

But in a democracy, displaying contempt or sidestepping the print or television media is not healthy. This doesn’t happen in either the US or the UK, despite their governments getting scathing indictments from the media over a host of issues.

In India there are mafiosos perched on social media platforms such as Twitter to abuse and vilify editors and anchors who write or say anything against the BJP. At one time, NRIs of a certain political persuasion would pounce on journalists for writing anything critical about the BJP.

That group has now embraced social media platforms and continues its tirade against “sickular” journalists and non-NDA politicians alike.