Press charges

It is one thing for the Indian government to be embarrassed about the medias loud and tactless China chant in recent days,which has ratcheted up unnecessary tension in neighbourly relations. It is another thing altogether to take a cue from the Chinese playbook and threaten punitive action against journalists for inconvenient reports.

Certainly,some sections of the media have exploited our simmering and unspoken China paranoia,pointing attention to repeated military incursions into Indian territory. Like a snowball rolling down a hill,these rumours gained force and momentum as talking heads on television and newspaper reports touched on the repressed trauma of 1962 and issued dire warnings. It was left to the prime minister himself to tamp down the anxiety,and assure the country that all was well on the Chinese front. As the matter threatened to destabilise a delicate diplomatic balance,the foreign secretary,the army chief and the national security advisor all stressed that while a low-level military back and forth is routine for a porous and contested boundary,there has been no significant increase in Chinese incursions along the entire 4000-plus kilometres of the border.

Now,the government is contemplating more serious action,threatening to file FIRs against those who reported on Chinese firing across the border. After a complaint by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police,debunking a report that two Indian soldiers were injured in firing by the Chinese in northern Sikkim,there is an attempt to address such wrong reporting with punishing consequences. But why allow things to come to this pass? Inaccurate reporting must be fixed with facts why did the governments information establishment simply sit by as the stories swirled,instead of providing the correct context and data? Instead of handling the scare-mongering with calmly presented facts,such punitive action would suggest that the government now wants to paper over its own inadequacies by launching this harsh and unusual action against the media. The cold fact remains that the Indian state needs to reorient its own placatory,fearful relationship with China and compete openly,with our own aggressive infrastructure projects. Perhaps if our official bilateral relations were robust and clear,these mutterings in the media would not appear quite so threatening.