Doordarshan’s live telecast of Bhagwat’s speech elicits strong criticism

Elected representatives of the government like the President and the Prime Minister’s speeches are customarily telecast by the government news agencies like the All India Radio and the Doordarshan as well as by many private television news channels. But breaking all precedents, DD News, which comes under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, telecast the RSS chief’s Vijayadasami speech live from Nagpur on Friday, 29 September.

Earlier in August, Manik Sarkar had been denied the opportunity to address the people through Doordarshan and All India Radio on Independence DayDD and AIR had asked the democratically elected Chief Minister of Tripura to change the contents of his speech before they would broadcast it. Manik Sarkar, the CM described the act of censorship as “unprecedented, undemocratic, autocratic and intolerant step.

Live coverage of divisive ideology

Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said on Facebook post : “RSS Chief gets live coverage on National, State TV. Was his speech checked? Remember, this government had the audacity to not run the Tripura CM’s speech on 15 August. Now, orders to telecast from Nagpur reveal the ways in which this government treats democracy. Opposition CM won’t be shown but the unelected bosses of RSS will get full coverage of their divisive ideology”.

It must be recalled that the RSS chief basically supported all the policies of the BJP government including demonetisation, GST, Kashmir stance and the refusal of refugee status to the Rohingyas.