Freedom of Indian Press under attack from a mis- adventurous Legislature

The Indian Press is reputed to be one that enjoys the highest freedom in the world. This is especially significant when viewed in the backdrop of the blatant media misuse by the US government during the Iraq conflict.

Article 19 of the Indian Constitution guarantees this freedom and judicial interpretation has strengthened this. This freedom was shamefully violated on November 7 by a decision by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, in the name of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
The police sought to enforce the decision in a blatantly illegal and offensive manner by raiding the offices of the newspaper as well as the homes of four of its five senior management and editorial representatives whom the Assembly had sentenced to 15 days simple imprisonment.
The persons targeted were S. Rangarajan, Publisher; N. Ravi, Editor; Malini Parthasarathy, Executive Editor; V. Jayanth, Associate Editor and Chief of the Tamil Nadu Bureau; and Radha Venkatesan, Special Correspondent.

About 30 minutes after the Assembly passed its order this evening, police jeeps carrying about two dozen policemen, some of them in riot gear, arrived at the head office of The Hindu here to arrest the journalists.

When Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N Ram asked the police on what authority they entered the premises, and if they had any papers, they turned tail. The half a dozen jeeps also rolled out as silently as they had come in, while the uniformed personnel melted away. Television crews had started arriving at the scene, hearing of the police entry into the offices of The Hindu and Mr. Ram made a statement condemning the police action as an assault on the freedom of the press.
Well after the Supreme Court's dusk deadline on arresting women, two male police officers landed at The Hindu office here to arrest the Executive Editor, Malini Parthasarathy. After 8-30 p.m., they searched the room of Ms. Parthasarathy.

This ran contrary to the statement of the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, that the then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi had no alternative but to arrest her in the morning in December 1996. "The laws of this land are very clear that no woman should be arrested and kept in police custody between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m."

Late in the evening, Mr. Ram spoke to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and apprised him of the day's happenings. Mr. Vajpayee expressed his concern over the developments.
All this was done in the name of protecting the privileges of the Legislative Assembly.

The Hindu, determined to expose the Jayalalithaa dispensation's grave misadventure factually and truthfully and to face the latest challenge to its freedom and independence and to the fundamental rights and personal liberties of five of its senior and valued representatives with every resource at its command, has decided immediately to take the matter to court.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly based its action on a total misreading of the Constitution. The power of legislative privilege was aimed at strengthening the independent functioning of the legislature; it was certainly not meant to intimidate and stifle criticism and to create a `chilling effect' on the freedom of the press.

The articles that earned the wrath of the Tamil Nadu Assembly's Privileges Committee, dominated by the AIADMK, were three news reports and an editorial titled " " published in April this year. Quite extraordinarily, the allegedly offensive portions in the reports were descriptive words such as "fumed", "incensed", "stinging", "diatribe", and "high-pitched tone" employed to give a feel of Ms. Jayalalithaa's speeches on a few occasions.

The editorial was a well-reasoned and upstanding response to the decision to refer these reports to the Assembly's Privileges Committee. It made the important point that privilege must be invoked only when there is a material obstruction of the functioning of a legislature and that the power must not be used to insulate legislators against comments or criticism.

The Privileges Committee's decision comes against the disturbing backdrop of a systematic attempt by the Jayalalithaa Government to harass and browbeat the independent press. Since the AIADMK came to power in May 2001, the Tamil Nadu Government has filed a large number of defamation cases, criminal and civil, against an array of publications. The Hindu faces 16 criminal defamation cases and one civil defamation suit, all of them completely baseless.
As Mr. Ram escorted the police to their car after the search, about 200 employees mobbed them, shouting slogans, "Down with police high-handedness," "Down with Jayalalithaa" and "Long live the press".

Pacifying the crowd, Mr. Ram said: "The authors of this outrageous misadventure will pay heavily for this."