Arnab Goswami programme leads to £20,000 fine for UK licensee

NEW DELHI: Worldview Media Network Ltd, the UK licensee for Republic Bharat, the Hindi arm of Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV, has been fined £20,000 (almost Rs 20 lakh) by the UK communications regulator for a Republic Bharat programme, “Poochta Hai Bharat”, that contained “uncontextualised hate speech” seen as “potentially highly offensive”.

Besides the financial penalty, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has directed the licensee to broadcast a statement of the findings on a date and in a form to be decided by Ofcom because, it said, though it had noted that an apology had been broadcast “279 times”, it found the wording of the apology “would not convey the nature of Ofcom’s concerns”. A detailed Ofcom statement said it had also directed that the programme not be repeated.
The programme in violation of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, aired on September 6, 2019, was about India’s Chandrayaan-2 moon mission. The debate led to exchanges in context of comparisons between India and Pakistan’s technological advances, the dispute over Kashmir, and Pakistan’s “alleged involvement in terrorist activities against Indian targets”.
Ofcom found that the host, Goswami, and other guests made remarks that “amounted to hate speech against Pakistani people, and derogatory and abusive treatment of Pakistani people”.
Among the comments during the debate, Ofcom found that the presenter, “addressing Pakistan and/or Pakistani people, said: ‘We make scientists, you make terrorists’.” One guest, a retired major general named Sinha, remarked: “Oh you useless people. Beggars. Oh beggars, oh beggars”, and went on to threaten that the Indian military would “barge inside your home in Baluchistan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in Karachi … and kill you”.
Ofcom also took exception to the usage of “Paki”, calling it a “racist term” and “highly offensive and unacceptable” to audiences in the UK.
The regulator said it saw these comments as “ hatred based on intolerance of Pakistani people based on their nationality alone” and that they “spread, incited, promoted and justified such intolerance towards Pakistani people among viewers”.
Republic Bharat said it was “deeply concerned” that the programme may have been viewed as containing expressions of hatred based on intolerance of Pakistani people.