THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Union government is terrorising minority communities, especially Muslims, and labelling voices of dissent as ‘anti-national’, senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan has said.
He was delivering the 21st N Narendran Memorial Lecture on the topic ‘Challenges to truthful media, robust institutions and a vibrant democracy’ at the Trivandrum Press Club here on Sunday.
Varadarajan, presently editor of the news portal ‘The Wire’ said the recent farmer’s movement forced the government to change its decision in favour of the citizens. He expressed his despair over the media failing to report the zenith of the farmer’s protest. He also emphasised the role of social media and independent news platforms in the coming decades.
“Social media enables the voiceless to raise their concerns. The Union government wants to regulate it but it has failed to do so till now,” he said. He reminded that the ‘dharma’ of the media is to raise questions to powerful institutions. The difficult questions are reserved for the Opposition and the destitutes, he remarked.
He also expressed his anguish over the functioning of the Supreme Court under the Narendra Modi government. He pointed out that important cases relating to Article 370, and love jihad have not been taken up. Several human rights activists such as Teesta Setalvad and journalists like Mohammed Zubair and Siddique Kappan have been incarcerated without allowing them to express their version, he said.
He lamented that institutions such as the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, CBI, and ED have been compromised under the Modi regime.
The government and their devotees are still living in a bubble but the dissenters of communalism and those in favour of democracy are in big numbers, he said. The lecture is held every year to commemorate N Narendran, a former journalist of The New Indian Express. Senior journalist N Madhavan Kutty, who presided over the function, said the vernacular media has to be more vocal on the issues affecting the people.