Smriti Irani forgot the lesson learnt by Vasundhara Raje and allowed recent history to repeat itself

Smriti Irani doesn’t need to look too far to understand why history always repeats as a U-turn if its lessons are not learnt. Just a few months ago, Irani’s BJP colleague and senior, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, had burnt her hands trying to gag the media. After introducing a bill in the state Assembly that curtailed the powers of the media, her government had to  quietly bury the proposed law because of a severe backlash . Raje’s misadventure should have been enough to deter Irani from embarking on her own adventurous assault on the freedom of the media. But, perhaps she let Raje’s embarrassment slip out of her smriti (memory).

This U-turn on the decision to punish journalists found to be ‘propagating fake news’ must be really hurting her knowing that she’s not one to back down, even when a defeat looks imminent. But she brought it upon herself. For no rhyme, in an already packed season of controversies, she opened another front while the government was busy battling Dalit anger over the Supreme Court judgement on the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and a few other skirmishes.

There was a time when Irani could merrily ride into battle against Dalit scholars, get away with one-liners and taunts when faced with anger over Rohith Vemula’s suicide or ride roughshod over JNU students. But that was the season of the Modi government’s honeymoon not of growing discontent.

The problem is that the minister’s ’let me straighten them up’ outlook has become a dominant theme of her administrative style. Every few months — except for the relative halcyon in the textiles ministry — she gets into a public spat with people and agencies under her baton.

Had somebody been listening, Irani had given proper warning of her planned misadventure. Her current diktat against journalists did not come out of the blue. She had given a sneak peek into her mind at the recent News18 Rising India Summit, when she hinted at some legislation to monitor the online ecosystem.

“I think it’s a balance and a very delicate one… Online is an ecosystem where legislation in terms of news, legislation in terms of broadcast content material, is not very clear. That is something that the ministry is currently undertaking, and in conversations with stakeholders,” Irani had said during a panel discussion. Obviously, something was cooking in her ministry. How this firman that was in the works for some time escaped the PMO’s radar would remain a mystery. Perhaps, as Arun Shourie argues , it was a trial balloon floated by the government. When the wind didn’t favour it, the PMO shot it down, leaving Irani embarrassed.

The irony is, Irani’s own record on dealing with fake news is a bit hazy. Earlier this year, her ministry had shortlisted for a plum job a journalist accused of propagating fake news

Prior to that, her own aide Shilpi Tiwari was under the lens for her role in a fake video showing JNU students shouting ‘anti-India’ slogans. The U-turn and the accompanying embarrassment are perhaps fruits of her own close encounters with fake news having slipped from her memory.