The media should not be penalised for others' faults
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Following the incident in which the Kerala State Secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI) PM Arsho was declared passed in an exam at Maharajas College in Kochi that he did not appear for, and his mark list published, a chief reporter of Asianet News Channel was booked under a charge of conspiracy. The act has brought disrepute not only to the ruling Left government but to the entire state. The news of Vidya a former student having forged experience certificate in the name of Maharajas College and getting selected for college teaching jobs in different colleges on the strength of that certificate, came at a time when Maharajas College deserved to hold its high in being listed among the top colleges of the country. It is at the same time when complaints have been in the air about the higher education sector of Kerala that one with connections to the ruling Marxist Party put the party and the government on the defensive. It was when the party was trying to wriggle out of the embarrassment that news leaked, adding insult to injury, of a CPM student leader passing an exam that he did not write. Asianet News channel's reporter Akhila and their cameraman arrived on the campus to prepare a report about the forged document case of Vidya, SFI leader in Maharajas College. The reporter talked to a faculty of the Malayalam Department where Vidya was a student and the Principal and aired the news live. She also talked to the Kerala Students' Union (KSU) leader who was present in the Principal's office. During the conversation, the student raised the matter of fake mark-list saying there was a more serious violation. When it transpired that there was more than what meets the eye, the government and the ruling party got in a quagmire.
It was at the end of this that based on a complaint filed by the SFI leader, Kochi Central police filed a case making the journalist the fifth accused. The course co-ordinator of the Archaeology Department of Maharajas College, Dr Vinod Kumar, Principal VS Joy, State KSU President Aloysius Xavier and KSU Unit leader CA Fasil are the other accused. The charge on accused one and two is that they conspired to insult the complainant before the public by preparing a fake result in which he was shown as passed in an exam for which he had not registered himself. The guilt put on the others was that they publicised this result through the media and social media. The response to Arsho's complaint was an unusually rapid 'police action' even as there was no quick move to identify or arrest the culprit in the inquiry of the forgery case. As soon as a complaint was lodged with the ADGP- Law and Order in Thiruvananthapuram, a special crime branch squad led by ACP was formed for a quick investigation. The CPM is apparently in a spirited bid to evade the adverse publicity caused by both incidents to the government and the party by blaming the media. The grave violation that the police accused the journalist of, was her meeting the college authorities and student representatives to gather their reactions, which in fact was part of her duty of news gathering as a TV journalist.
But that this move against the journalist was not a natural or incidental police action, and that it was at the instance of the left government and the CPM, soon became clear from the press release issued the other day by CPM state secretary MV Govindan. The party head, who justified the charging of the case, also warned that if anyone conducts anti-government or anti-SFI propaganda, cases would again be filed against them. The party chief also had a piece of advice that the media should have the right stances. The party and the government are in overdrive mode to evade the issue by concealing every fault and failing of the government and its machinery under the label of 'media creation' and 'conspiracy'. As regards the passing of Arsho in the exam he did not write, it was explained at the college governing council that the SFI leader's name got included in the list of exam candidates, and he was marked 'Passed' in the mark list, due to a glitch in the National Informatics Centre (NIC) system. The meeting was also informed that in the past too, NIC had made such serious errors and it was due to software glitches. The meeting also concluded that the errors were due to the lack of co-ordination between the college and the office of the controller of examinations and there should be greater vigilance against repetition of such errors. But the move to hide all these, and to put the journalist in the dock by floating a conspiracy theory to implicate her in a case, can be seen only as part of a fascist thrust against media freedom. It is the policy of the BJP at the Centre that there shall not be any media criticism or scrutiny against the ruling party or the government. But the ruling party in Kerala, which asserts that their stance need not be equated with that attitude of the Centre, will have to make an introspection of its recent positions towards media and mediapersons. In Kerala, the Marxist party and its exponents are at the forefront in resisting the press-muzzling laws of the Centre, the cases against mediapersons, and within Kerala itself the Governor's curbs against mediapersons. Their media and publicity machinery is their armament against adversaries. That being so, instead of treating the maladies in the administration and party establishment, hounding those who expose them amounts a contempt and mockery of freedom and democracy. Those who venture to do that will only make a laughing stock of themselves.
