People's Democracy

Twentieth Congress: Distortions and Lies in the Media

Commentator

THE coverage of the 20th Congress by sections of the corporate media was marked by a string of distortions, half-truths and lies. Ever since the CPI(M) withdrew support to the UPA government in July 2008, there has been a sustained barrage of hostile propaganda carried out by some of the big business media. The traditional anti-communist newspapers in West Bengal and Kerala have been in the lead in this campaign.

In the run-up to the 20th Congress of the CPI(M), a section of the Bengal media led by the Ananda Bazar Patrika group propagated that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was not happy with the central leadership of the Party and therefore he was refusing to attend meetings of the Polit bureau and the Central Committee. On the opening day of the Congress both in the print and electronic media belonging to West Bengal and Kerala, news was published that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had requested to be relieved from the Central Committee and the Polit Bureau and that he had sent a letter to that effect to the general secretary. Even when the content of the letter he had written to the general secretary requesting that he be excused from attending the Congress due to health problems was reported to the media, the speculation persisted that he would not be in the Central Committee and the Polit Bureau. The purpose of such propaganda was to portray that there are deep divisions in the leadership of the Party.

The Congress is the highest body of the Party where major policy and tactical questions are discussed. One can expect critical comments and views being expressed in the media about various aspects of the Party’s role and work. But what was seen was a concerted effort to distort information, present falsehoods as facts and use them to give a spin and publish them as authentic reports. Some of the media persons reporting on the Congress seem to have given the go by to such elementary tenets of journalism such as presenting facts, verifying them and drawing conclusions from them.

Some glaring instances can be cited. The reports appearing in the Telegraph, the English daily of the Ananda Bazar group excelled in purveying falsehoods. On a single day on April 9, two front page stories on happenings in the Party Congress were published. The first dealt with the voting on the ideological resolution which was adopted. It named two delegates who had abstained on the ideological resolution. The names mentioned were wrong. In any case, in the press briefing held on that day it had already been reported that one delegate out of 727 had voted against the resolution and three had abstained. Such voting is nothing unexpected, or, abnormal. In the Congress of the CPI(M), delegates discuss and express their views freely and they have the right to exercise their vote on any matter which has to be decided. In the Political Resolution too, two delegates had voted against the resolution and two had abstained. But what the report in the Telegraph and the Indian Express sought to portray was that it was a manifestation of the differences between two leaders in the Party.

Any person conversant with the Communist Party would know that a resolution presented to the Congress does not represent the views of any individual leader but that of the Central Committee. Whether it be the Draft Political Resolution or the Draft Ideological Resolution, they were the products of discussions and the common understanding arrived at by the Central Committee.

Unable to find any basis for differences at the Congress, a section of the media sought to manufacture such differences.

The other front page news prominently displayed in the Telegraph was headline “Economist Leaves”. The report claimed that Prabhat Patnaik had left the Congress “in a huff” on the fourth day of the Congress even though he was “scheduled to leave for Delhi after the completion of the six day long Congress”. The report alleged that he was criticised by a delegate and he was upset by the attitude of the leadership.

The story was a complete fabrication produced by the same reporter who wrote the other headline story. Prabhat Patnaik had to clarify through a letter to the editor that he had taken prior permission from the general secretary, before the Congress began, to leave earlier given an illness in his family.

The Malayala Manorama the leading Malayalam daily in Kerala did not want to be left behind in the competitive myth-making. It published a six column headline report after the Congress about how one of the senior Polit Bureau members had been downgraded in the list of Polit Bureau members who had been elected and announced. It made much of the fact that his name was ranked third in the list instead of the second. The list of the Polit Bureau members announced was in the order of precedence of when a person entered the Polit Bureau and his or her seniority in joining the Party. The order of names that appeared was the same as in the previous Congress. The Manorama report made a belaboured attempt to cite this as an indication of sharp differences in the Party.

The 20th Party Congress displayed a high degree of unity and purpose in adopting the political-tactical line of the Party, in arriving at common ideological understanding and in providing direction for the future course of the Party’s work.

It seems some sections of the corporate media are unable to accept this outcome of the Congress. Whatever be the views that anyone may hold regarding the CPI(M), one would accept some degree of objectivity and stating of facts as a fundamental basis for journalism.