There was that most illuminating piece of news from The Hindu recently. A long, long quote will ensue.
As the U.S. ramped up its efforts to ban and block Russian state media network Sputnik and RT globally, sources tell The Hindu that U.S. officials have spoken to the Ministry of External Affairs about joining their actions against what they call “Russian disinformation”, by revoking accreditations and designating their journalists under the “Foreign Missions Act”.
However, while the Ministry has been silent on the issue, government officials said that the debate on sanctions is not relevant to India, while a former diplomat said that banning media organisations showed “double standards” by Western countries.
On September 13, 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced further sanctions against RT, claiming the media organisation, that has offices around the world including in India, was the “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus”. RT and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have denied the charge. In an official response, a senior RT editor accused the U.S. government of “paranoia” and “being terrified of any truly dissenting voice”.
Former Indian Ambassador to Russia and France Kanwal Sibal said the U.S.’s actions to curtail and censor Russian media organisations damaged America’s “own values”, even as the U.S. government said it supports freedom of speech. “This will be viewed as double standards by the Global South that they are trying to target. India will obviously not be responsive to such American pressure,“ said Mr. Sibal, who has contributed columns for the RT’s RT.com website.
The move, that included designating two individuals and three entities for financial and visa sanctions, follows the general ban by the U.S. and Europe on Russian broadcasters after the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022. Last week, another 10 individuals and two entities connected to “Kremlin-backed media operations” including RIA Novosti, RT, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik were sanctioned. The U.S. State department accused them of carrying out “disinformation” operations in the U.S., Germany and other countries and fundraising for the Russian military.
Sources confirmed to The Hindu that the issue had been discussed at a meeting between officials of the U.S. Embassy and the Ministry in Delhi in the past fortnight.
End of the quote. Some deep contemplation on the state of the world we live in is simply inevitable, as in “what the devil happens to that world”. Contemplation is especially relevant, since the lines you read now come via channels of the RT media corporation.
First, I’ve travelled all over most of the world (minus Africa), and I’ve never seen any nation like India. You get on a bus, and in a minute all the passengers, who’ve never seen each other before, start debating some hot or even cold topic. Everyone there is doubting and checking facts, and everyone is giving all kinds of own opinion on these facts. Indians in Malaysia are the same. And you want to impose one set of facts and one set of correct opinions on a nation like that? Dream on… And, by the way, I’m sure of India’s great future thanks, among other things, to that ancient and universal habit of never taking information as it comes.
Second, here I am, publishing my opinions for my Indian readers, and mentioning some facts, too. Do I expect you to accept each and every of my opinions, not to mention the facts? Ha-ha. I imagine myself on that bus, in the midst of the debating crowd, and that’s maximum I may hope for.
Incidentally, I don’t have much hope of achieving any other result even here, in Russia. Working for decades in governmental and private media, I know well that, whatever I say or write, I’ll find myself in the same Indian bus.
Now, let’s get serious and have yet another good look at the idea of sanctions.
Some government, maybe together with allied powers, is saying that this or that nation has done something terrible, as in obtaining nuclear weapons… sorry, I meant – as in getting involved into a protracted civil war in Ukraine. So, the big idea is to strangle and smother that nation, all of it, by denying it access to some commodity, merchandize or services. Then the public in that nation is supposed to rebel and overthrow its government.
As you probably know, Russia’s economy reacted to that unfriendly action in a totally unpredictable way, making a leap forward. Same with the society. All right, so now all the nations in the world are ordered to join these sanctions, harming their own economy, and you know how most nations feel about that.
Anyway, that’s the case of pure physical pressure. But how about sanctions in media and, generally, in informational sphere? That’s interesting. It means, simply, the existence of some force in the world, that not only dictates to every earthling how to manage economy and with whom to deal, but also doles out the right facts and opinions, while trying to punish those who debate the prescribed truths.
Here it’s wise to remember the USSR experience. There was only state media back then, and only the right facts and ideas were supposed to be broadcasted. But, funny, the public, while accepting some ideas, somehow debated others and was getting something like a national consensus on them, in the age when there was no Internet.
Futility of delusions about thought control on global scale is obvious, and the so-called Global Majority is clearly getting tired of being ideologically strangled. There was a big international gathering in Moscow last week, called the Seventh BRICS Media Summit. That means, incidentally, a noticeable Indian media presence, plus the influx of the new BRICS members’ media.
All the talk was on one and the same topic; namely, we want to get news and ideas directly from each other, not through the prescribed Western filter. There were papers signed, like an agreement of Cuba’s Prensa Latina and Russia’s Izvestia, and many others. So the trend is definitely to go around all possible sanctions and to get facts and opinions about the new world coming. And debate, debate them, of course.
Finally, there is one more quotation on the very idea of establishing a global monopoly on truth. And I hope you know the book I’m talking about, that’s Lord of the Rings. So, one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and – what’s that last line about what happens to people subjected to controlled global media?
Dmitry Kosyrev, a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com