Insight: BBC tax raids shine light on Indian media freedom under Modi, some journalists say

DB

04/03/2023 07:21

By Krishn  Kaushik, Devjyot Ghoshal, Saurabh Sharma and
Aditya Kalra
       NEW DELHI, March 4 (Reuters) - At around 11 a.m. on Feb
14, some 20 Indian tax officials and police burst into the BBC's
offices in New Delhi, shouting at staff to step away from their
computers and hand over their mobile phones, according to two
people present. 
    At the company's bureau in India's financial capital,
Mumbai, tax officials launched a second raid. The government
said the BBC had failed to respond to repeated requests to
clarify its tax affairs related to the profits and remittances
from its Indian operations. 
    The BBC has said it is cooperating fully with tax
authorities and hopes to resolve matters quickly, adding its
journalists would continue to report "without fear or favour".
It declined to comment for this story.
    Three weeks before the raids - which the government called a
"survey" - the BBC released a two-part documentary that included
an examination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role in
sectarian riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002 when he was
chief minister there. The documentary, which was only broadcast
in Britain, accused Modi of fostering a climate of impunity that
fuelled the violence. 
    Modi's government has called the documentary "biased" and
reflecting a "colonial mindset". Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar
told the ANI news agency last week it was "politics by another
means" and suggested its timing was intended to undermine
support for Modi. The BBC has said it stands by the reporting.
    The 72-year-old prime minister enjoys high approval ratings
and is expected to run for reelection next year for the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
    In late January, Indian authorities ordered the removal of
social media posts sharing the documentary and police detained
some Indian students who tried to screen it, saying it would
disturb the peace. They were released shortly afterwards.
    The tax inspections at the BBC's offices - during which
officials cloned the mobile phones of some senior staff and
searched computers, according to the two people present - have
highlighted the concerns of some journalists and media rights
watchdogs about what they say is a decline in press freedom
under Modi.
    Reuters spoke to eight Indian journalists, industry
executives and media analysts who said that some media which
reported critically on the government have been targeted with
inspections by government agencies, the suspension of state
advertising, and the arrest of reporters.    
    "There's never been a golden age of Indian journalism," said
Abhinandan Sekhri, chief executive of independent online media
group, Newslaundry, whose offices in New Delhi were surveyed
twice by tax officials in 2021 after critical coverage of Modi's
administration. "But it has never been like it is now."
    A criminal case filed by the tax department against Sekhri
alleging tax evasion and forging a valuation report was thrown
out by a judge in Delhi in November. Sekhri has sued the
government for attacks on his fundamental rights and freedom of
expression; the case is being heard in the Delhi High court.
    Modi's government has vigorously denied the BBC tax
inspection - the first against an international news
organisation in decades - was a response to the film. 
    "The BBC operates under two private companies in India: like
any other foreign company, they are open to scrutiny and tax
laws apply to them," said Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser to the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The BBC had received
more than 10 tax notices before the documentary aired, he said.
    Reuters was unable to confirm this independently. The tax
agency did not respond to request for comment for this story. 
    Since Modi took office in 2014, India has slid from 140th in
World Press Freedom Index, an annual ranking by non-profit
Reporters Without Borders, to 150th place last year, its lowest
ever.
    Modi's government rejects the Index's findings, questioning
its methodology, and says India has a vibrant free press.
    The world's most populous democracy with 1.4 billion people,
India has thousands of newspapers and hundreds of TV news
channels.
    Gupta, the advisor to the information ministry, denied any
government agency had targeted the media in response to
coverage, or suspended any advertising. He said the government
had stated repeatedly that harassment of journalists was
unacceptable and against the law.
    
    CHOKING FUNDS
    The Editors Guild of India, an industry association, said
the BBC raids were part of a trend of "government agencies being
used to intimidate and harass news organisations." It cited four
similar tax inspections against media in 2021.
    In one of those, the offices of Dainik Bhaskar, one of
India's largest newspapers by circulation, were raided in July
2021 by tax authorities, who alleged it evaded taxes on income
worth 7 billion Indian rupees ($84.47 million). The paper has
contested the charge and the case is ongoing.
    The newspaper - part of DB Corp  DBCL.NS , one of India's
largest newspaper groups – had published a series of articles
alleging authorities mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and
underreported deaths. The government has denied mistakes in its
response and undercounting.
    A senior Dainik Bhaskar executive, who asked not to be
identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the
raids followed an unexplained halt in advertising by the federal
government and six BJP-controlled states from February 2021. The
suspension lasted until August 2022 and cost the newspaper more
than 1 billion rupees ($12.25 million), he said.
    A spokesman for the newspaper declined to comment. The state
governments did not respond to requests for comment. Asked about
the case, Gupta, the senior advisor at the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, said the government did not pull
advertising because of critical reporting.
    In a report last year, Reporters Without Borders said that,
despite high readership, many Indian news organisations were
vulnerable to economic pressure because of their reliance on
government advertising.
    The acquisition of some media groups by billionaires seen as
close to Modi has also led to the silencing of independent
voices in the Indian press, it said.
    Between 2014 and early December 2022, the federal government
spent 64.9 billion Indian rupees ($784.34 million) on
advertising in print and electronic media, it said in a
statement to parliament at the end of last year. However, the
figures showed spending has declined in recent years.
    Gupta said there had been complaints after the government
reduced its advertising spending but that was not an assault on
media freedom.
    "Government doesn't exist to fund media. We don't want a
media which is loyal to us or beholden to us because of the
money that we give them," he said.
    'CRITICS AS AN ENEMY' 
    Reports from international press freedom watchdogs,
including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), say that -
in addition to the financial pressures on media organizations -
the federal and state governments in India have detained an
increasing number of journalists for their reporting.    
    At least seven journalists remained behind bars in India as
of December, the highest number in 30 years, according to the
CPJ’s annual global tracker released on Dec 14. 
    In some instances, reporters have been detained by state
governments - which control local police forces - after
reporting on minor issues.
    On March 29, 2022, Ajeet Ojha, a reporter with the
Hindi-language newspaper Amar Ujala in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh, wrote a story about high school examination test
papers being leaked to students in advance in the town of Balia.
Ojha wrote that an investigation into who leaked the papers was
ongoing.
    The next day, the 42-year-old reporter was arrested by
police and accused of leaking the test papers himself, according
to the police report, reviewed by Reuters.
    "I spent 27 nights in jail," Ojha said, adding that he is
still accused on two counts, though police dropped some criminal
charges. Balia police did not respond to requests for comment.
    Gyanendra Shukla, a veteran reporter who led the campaign
for Ojha's release, said the BJP-controlled state government
viewed "critics as an enemy".
    "They have forgotten that the work of a journalist is to
highlight problems and criticise the system," he said.
    The Uttar Pradesh government did not respond to requests for
comment. Gupta, the ministry advisor, said the arrest was a
matter for the state authorities.

 (Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal, Aditya Kalra and Krishn Kaushik
in NEW DELHI and Saurabh Sharma in LUCKNOW. Additional reporting
by Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR
Editing by Daniel Flynn)
 ((Krishn.Kaushik@thomsonreuters.com;
Devjyot.Ghoshal@thomsonreuters.com;))