Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan accuses the Modi govt of ‘Saffronisation of News’

Amid the debates on the Saffronisation of News media, here comes a new development that may affect news broadcasting in the long term. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has now subscribed to an RSS-linked news agency after cancelling its subscription to the news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) in 2020. Prasar Bharati which hosts Doordarshan and All India Radio has signed an exclusive two-year contract with the Hindusthan Samachar agency.

Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi informed, “We had a prior contract with Hindusthan Samachar, which was renewed this month. Hindusthan Samachar is the only wire service that offers content in multiple Indian languages,” Indian Express reported.

Prasar Bharati had been taking feed from this agency on a trial basis since 2017 but entered into a one-year contract with the agency in February 2020. Whereas the new contract is for 25-and-a-half months, from February 14, 2023, to March 31, 2025, for the supply of newsfeed in 12 languages.

Founder and Affiliation of Hindustan Samachar

Hindusthan Samachar was set up by Shivram Shankar Apte in 1948, who became the first General Secretary of the RSS affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Apte said, “the country needed a news agency that would not only cater news through its languages but was also inspired, motivated and informed by a spirit of true Bharatiya (Indian) nationalism.”

A Hindustan Samachar conclave held in Ujjain in May 2016 was concluded by PM Modi and attended by senior RSS leaders. Apart from this, the proof that it is linked to BJP is the chairman of Hindustan, Ravindra Kishore Sinha, who served as a Rajya Sabha MP of the BJP from Bihar from 2014 to 2020. Sinha served in the position until April 2022, when he was replaced by Nagpur-based Arvind Mardikar.

Saffronisation of News

After the news came out, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accused the Modi govt of “Saffronisation of News” by subscribing to the Sangh Parivar-affiliated news agency as the only news source of state-run broadcaster Prasar Bharati.

A statement issued by the Kerala Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) read, “This was a move to bring Doordarshan and Akashvani into the folds of the Sangh Parivar and was therefore a threat to democracy. It was evident from the Centre’s 2020 decision to appoint Jagdish Upasana, the group editor of RSS publications Panchajanya and Organiser, as the chairman of Prasar Bharti’s recruitment board.”

He also alleged that Prasar Bharti showed live RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s Vijayadashami speech, but did not broadcast the Independence Day speech of the Chief Minister of Tripura.

Vijayan added that all this indicates the implementation of the fascist desire that no voice of dissent should be heard and urged the secular democratic society of the country to recognize and protest against this threat to democracy.

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