Ex-judges’ report on Anti CAA protests lifts veil on media’s role in igniting hate against Muslims

A report on anti-CAA protests authored by four retired judges and a former Home Secretary of the central government has been made public. It claimed that several mainstream English and Hindi TV news channels appear to be creating an atmosphere of hatred against Muslims. They wanted to create baseless fear and vindictiveness against the Muslim community about the anti-CAA protests.

The report noted, “Whipping up an enraged environment, planting ungrounded fears of the anti-CAA protests, and creating vindictiveness against the Muslim community, where a forceful end to the protests may appear valid” appear to have been the larger outcomes being pursued by several mainstream English and Hindi TV news channels”.

The report has been authored by a committee chaired by Justice Madan B. Lokur, former Judge of the Supreme Court. The other three members of the committee were Justice AP Shah, former Chief Justice of the Madras and former Chairman of the Law Commission, Justice R.S. Sodhi, former Judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice Anjana Prakash, former Judge of the Patna High Court and G.K. Pillai, former Home Secretary, Government of India.

Six news channels with the highest viewership including two English channels, Republic TV and Times Now and four Hindi channels including Aaj Tak, Zee News, India TV, and Republic Bharat have been taken for the study. The committee adopted content analysis method for the study.

The report concluded, “Anchors and panelists repeatedly referred, dismissively, to Muslims as “they” or “these people”, alluding to a supposed unified “they” as a religious block with designs against Hindus or the country. In tandem with hostility towards the Muslim community was the equation of the supposedly violent and conspiratorial nature of the anti-CAA protest movement and protesters. Again, antagonistic terms were coined and repeated – “tukde-tukde gang”, “danga brigade”. The Quint reported.

The report pointed out repeated instances where panelists used offensive terms or expressed calls for violence, with no rebuttal from the anchors to challenge misrepresentations or denounce the violent calls.

The report adds, These channels uniformly cast anti-CAA protesters in a specific light and repeatedly used words like “vandals”, “rioters”, “potential terrorists”, “anti-national”, “tukde-tukde gang”, “victimizers”, “cowards”, “blackmailers” and “dangerous” to describe the anti-CAA protesters.

The report noted that the panelists and anchors made provocative and inciting comments during their shows.