#ChandrashekharAzad’s illegal detention: How the media bowed down to state’s mandate

On his first visit to Mumbai, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad was illegally detained in his hotel room by the Mumbai police for three days. Azad had come to address a public meeting on December 29 at Jambori Maidan in BDD Chawl, Worli, for which the police had denied permission.

Over the three days of his stay at Hotel Manali in Malad, many activists of the Bhim Army were detained by the police while the hotel was turned into a security fortress, with at least three police vans and five gypsies guarding it at all times and restricting entry to visitors, including the press.

While the police action has come in for criticism—and according to a writ petition in the Bombay High Court on December 30, deemed illegal and unconstitutional—the tepid response by the media was equally disconcerting. It was reflected in its failure to report on facts and hold public institutions accountable to the public. Most media houses went with the police’s version in the case, which was to deny that they had detained or arrested anyone. Even though it was painfully obvious that the police had been restricting the entry of the media inside the hotel for all three days that Azad was confined there. Forget outrage at being denied access, there was not even a mention of it in the copies.

Here’s what actually transpired. On December 28, Azad was scheduled to address a press conference at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh in the afternoon. As the police had prevented him from leaving the hotel, the event was cancelled. Some journalists decided to visit the hotel, thinking the press conference would be held there. But outside the hotel, a platoon of police personnel was restricting the entry of people inside. None of the media persons were allowed in, without any explanation from the police. In the evening, after waiting for hours to be let inside, a minor scuffle broke out between Azad’s supporters and the police personnel, after which the latter allowed the already thinned-out clutch of mediapersons to meet Azad for a few minutes.

The city editor of Free Press Journal, Neeta Kolhatkar, says this is more of a systemic problem in media organisations. “A lot of media houses don’t want journalists who can question, but who can do multiple beats and get maximum stories. As for those reporters barred from meeting Azad, I doubt they even felt that their rights were being violated.”

Later that night, Azad—who was keen to visit Chaityabhoomi, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s memorial at Dadar—was allowed to travel with a police escort. However, as soon as he and his supporters got off at the gate of the memorial, a police team rounded them up in a van and took them on a police station darshan drive across Mumbai.

The following day, instead of recounting the events as they unfolded, most media outlets reported the story as Bhim Army’s word against the police, with the police’s denial featured prominently. On December 29, The Times of India carried a tiny single column piece on the incident in their inside pages. The column parroted the police’s claim that they had not detained or arrested anyone, even though photographs and videos on social media—as well as personal accounts by journalists at the site—showed otherwise.

This raises interesting questions about the view-from-nowhere, neutral-type journalism where getting both sides of a story is seen as sufficient and par for the course. When the police formally deny their culpability in an action that demonstrably did take place, what are media houses to do? Reproduce their statements willy-nilly or put the facts out for the public?

Activist Teesta Setalvad, in a series of tweets, criticised mainstream newspapers for “dishing out the Police’s version”, and that “not one mediaperson challenged the undemocratic ways of the police at Manali hotel”.

It would, however, be unfair to squarely lay the blame on the journalists or the police. With the heavy restriction imposed by the police, those gathered seemed reduced to fighting for crumbs, instead of asserting their right to free access. And earlier, while speaking to the media from behind the gates, Bhim Army Maharashtra president Ashok Kamble clarified that their grievance was with the state and not the police, who were just “following orders from above”, before being whisked away by the police.

The fact that the news piece was relegated to the inside pages is also telling. One would imagine that a prominent leader of Bahujans—the majority demographic of the country—would qualify for a prime time discussion, or at least a first page slot. On top of that, the police had acted illegally, adding grist to the mill. But the mainstream coverage of the event was largely negligible. And when they did report, they seemed to take the side of the establishment. Instead of questioning the illegality of the police detention, one media house went the extra mile to argue that the police had succeeded in “puncturing” Bhim Army’s movement in Mumbai. It was not even framed as a question, but passed as a judgement.

Geeta Seshu, a senior journalist based in Mumbai, noted with dismay the response of many media houses to the illegal detention of Azad. “In my 35 years of experience as a journalist, I have never come across a case where a politician or leader was detained by the police without giving any reason, and the media barred from meeting him or her.”

She added that even Indira Gandhi, after her massive defeat in the post-Emergency elections and at the height of the public outcry against her, was not barred from holding a press conference. “This was an unprecedented situation and journalists should have raised a stink at being barred from doing their job.”

Normal journalistic rigour was also absent in the reporting on the case. Once it was known that Azad was being detained, the logical next step was to ask why and under what provisions. Here was a case where the police, at least in practice if not on paper, had not only violated an individual’s fundamental right to air his views, it had also prevented the media from performing its duties as the fourth pillar of democracy. But instead of holding the police or the state accountable and interrogating them, the media simply caved in and played the waiting game. On December 30, at a brief media interaction that was allowed by the police with Azad minutes before he was whisked away to Pune, not a single reporter questioned the police. Instead, questions about the state’s motives behind the detention were addressed to Azad, and even when he pointed to the police, no one asked them.

Azad told Newslaundry that this was a prime example of the undeclared Emergency that has been going on in the country. “It’s shocking that in the karmabhoomi of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, the government is openly defying constitutional provisions and violating my fundamental right to personal liberty.”

According to Nitin Satpute, the advocate representing Azad’s writ petition in court, the Supreme Court has said that “freedom of speech and expression includes the freedom to circulate one’s views through print media, radio, or television”. Satpute added that Azad was not a criminal, and therefore the police’s actions in restricting the media’s access to him were illegal.

Dolphy D’Souza, convenor at Police Reforms Watch, said that such illegal detentions only happen in autocratic or dictatorship states. “Under the CrPC, the police, while making a detention or arrest, have to substantiate why they are doing it. The Supreme Court judgement in the DK Basu case also makes it very clear. In normal circumstances, the one being held would be produced in the court of law or before a magistrate. But here, the police are not even revealing the grounds of illegal detention.”

D’Souza added that unless there is a restriction from the court, the police cannot prevent the media from talking to anyone.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dahisar, Vinay Kumar Rathod, who was present at the hotel, offered an explanation for the police’s actions. At first Rathod denied that the police had detained Azad or prevented the media from meeting him. “This is a private property. Why would we bar anyone? No one came to visit Chandrashekhar Azad, and that’s not our fault,” he said. But when questioned further, he admitted that the police had barred the media to avoid a law-and-order situation. “The way the media rushed in when we opened the gates, who would be responsible if anyone got injured?” When asked about the video clips on Twitter showing Azad’s detention in the police van, Rathod declined to comment.

Another police official, who did not wish to be named, said the police had tried to convince the Bhim Army to hold their event at an indoor hall, but the outfit had refused. “They were adamant about holding the event in an open space, and that could result in a law and order problem for us, which is why we detained some of their activists.”

The Bhim Army president of Maharashtra, Ashok Kamble, who was also detained for 48 hours by the police, said that while the police had denied permission for the Worli event, there had been no written assurance about the indoor event. “It was just a delaying tactic by the government to keep Azad bhai from meeting his supporters.”