An application was filed jointly by Sangeeta Tyagi, the widow of Congress national spokesperson Rajeev Tyagi, and author Kota Neelima, in the Supreme Court on Thursday, saying that certain TV anchors peddle hate to further the government’s narrative.
They have sought the permission of the court to intervene in a pending case against Sudarshan TV’s ‘Bindas Bol’ programme, which accused Muslims of “infiltrating” the Civil Services with the help of terror-linked organisations abroad.
“There is a steady and almost irreversible trend clearly visible these days, whereby the TV anchors and TV debates have debased and degenerated themselves into blatant purveyors of hate speech,” the application, filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes, said.
It said the reasons for this state of affairs are manifold.
“Though increase in Television Rating Point (TRP) seems to be the immediate and ostensible objective, as however the ‘remote control’ of such TV debates by the political class in power, to create and popularise a narrative that would suit their electoral and ideological objectives and discredit, demonise and vilify their political and ideological opponents cannot be ruled out,” the application said.
A three-judge Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had stayed the telecast of ‘Bindas Bol’. The Bench is looking into the aspect of strengthening the independent self-regulatory mechanism for electronic media. The court is also examining what constitutes hate speech on air.
The application said, “the situation of the electronic media in our country bears unhappy and undesirable parallels with Nazi Germany, at least with regards to ‘hate speeches in the electronic media’”.
The application said Mr. Tyagi was himself an unfortunate victim of hate speech on electronic media. He had suffered a fatal heart attack immediately after the TV debate.