Even after two back-to-back sweeping election wins, the second bigger than the first, the government’s still looking for dramatic ways to boost its public image and combat what it believes is the “pseudo-secularist” hold on the media that colours reporting on its actions.

Nine ministers, including media stars Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani and foreign minister S. Jaishankar, were involved in a massive exercise that culminated in a 97-page report written after consulting leading figures from the media and industry.

The report, which caused a stir when it was first reported in Caravan Magazine, reveals how the government mistrusts the press and looks upon it as an adversary dominated by its enemies.

Also, the report’s tone, has provoked a strong counter-blast from the Editors Guild of India, which expressed “shock and disbelief” at the report and its attempt, “to control the narrative”. The Group of Ministers’ report hints, “at increased surveillance and targeting of writers and journalists who depart from the government’s narrative,” the Editors Guild statement added.

“We should have a strategy to neutralise the people who are writing against the Government without facts and set false narratives / spread fake news,” says Law & Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. On a similar note, Smriti Irani suggests, “We should track 50 negative and 50 positive influencers.”

Striking an almost menacing tone, Surya Prakash, who’s former chairman of Prasar Bharati, says: “Pseudo-secularists were marginalized earlier. The problem is starting from them. Indian Government has enormous power to utilise the position to control them.”

The government’s efforts to influence the media dialogue appear to go further than just seeking to put a positive spin on emerging stories. “A list of media personnel and prominent persons, who are pro our line of thought – both nationally and globally, should be prepared,” adds Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Union Minister of Minority Affairs.

On a similar note, the report says media entrepreneur and strategic affairs analyst Nitin Gokhale suggested that journalists could, “be colour-coded green: fence-sitters, black: against’ and White – who support and promote favourable journalists. Gokhale has strongly denied making such a suggestion.

The fact that the Group of Ministers (GoM) held six meetings that included in-person interactions and video conferences with leading journalists and industrialists and had a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an indication of how worried the government is that its performance is being portrayed negatively.

Other ministers in the GoM included Minister of State for Civil Aviation Hardeep Puri, Minister of State for finance and Corporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sport Kiran Rijuju and Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Babul Supriyo.

Some of the discussions elicited many bizarre and worrying suggestions. “News to carry a mixture of truth and untruth,” was the Orwellian suggestion from S. Gurumurthy, co-convenor, Swadeshi Jagran Manch and editor, Tughlak magazine. Gurumurthy also suggested the government needed to “distinguish between mass communication and elite communication.” Gurumurthy didn’t clarify exactly what he meant.

At another level, participants felt the government needed to occasionally create a “Pokhran Effect” -- a big bang whenever it had a huge success to report. Gurumurthy built on this by suggesting that allies like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar or Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik should be roped in to create a greater impact. “To create a Pokhran effect, let Shri Nitish Kumar or Shri Naveen Patnaik say something about it…We need a Pokhran to turn the narrative.”

Journalists from a range of publications including The Hindustan Times and Organiser, came up with a variety of ideas, some which went far beyond just projecting the government’s image. Anand Ranganathan, editor Swarajya felt the party needed to delve into history to ensure that people had the right perspective on the BJP’s actions. Said Ranganathan: “We lack historical narrative like Tipu’s manifesto talked about annihilation of Hindus. The history books should be more objective.” Some journalists said they were called for the meeting but hadn’t been told what it was about.

Another journalist, Abhijit Majumdar, argued that, “Wikipedia is trying to rewrite history. It has clear bias. Serious note and action on the same should be taken.”

Majumdar also felt the BJP should reward journalists who were on its side. “Help Op-India and retweet Op-India’s tweets,” he said, referring to the strongly pro-ruling party portal.

He threw in strong criticism of ALT News which is dedicated to checking and countering fake news. “ALT News propaganda is vicious,” he said.

The government’s extremely keen the world should see it in the right light and is eager to send out the right message to the foreign press but the committee and the people it consulted appeared to have confused thoughts on how this might be achieved. This issue has assumed particular relevance as US-government-funded think-tank Freedom House just cut India’s status from “free” in 2019 to “partly free” in 2020. India’s score fell to 67 from 71 with 100 being the top ranking for the most free country.

Jaishankar suggested special care should be taken for the foreign media. “We should prepare separate, appropriate and different narrative for international media.” And Naqvi felt that, “embassies should play (a) more active role in reaching out to international media and people globally.”

On a very different note, Thakur felt the BJP should be in touch with likeminded parties abroad and said: “The right-wing parties of other countries need to be roped in so that some common ground could be found.”

More ominously, the committee said the government had already acted to control negative reports on it by foreigners and pointed out that, “Steps have been taken to ensure that the news reporting on digital media is not biased primarily due to its foreign investment component. It has been decided to cap the foreign investment to 26 per cent and the process to implement the same is underway.”

Many participants felt that the Government should turn the spotlight on what it called, “10 big narratives of the Government.” Simultaneously, it suggested that each ministry should play a part in building the Government’s image and that, “Every ministry should identify two major public outreach programs in a year along with one day of pre-event publicity and one day of post-event coverage. This way for around 300 days in a year there will be coverage of one or the other government program.”

The government also hopes to send out a positive message by giving a, “massive push to publication of articles by experts/ministers.” It added: “More than 60 articles have been published so far.”

However, this suggestion was opposed by Ashok Malik, policy advisor in the ministry of external affairs, who forcefully argued against such pieces, saying: “Stop Op-ed by ministers, top bureaucrats because it has become an epidemic and it is counterproductive, because it sounds like propaganda and it is not being read.”

Many journalists and ministers suggested that there should be more interactions with the press at different levels. However, nobody suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has never held a press conference in the last seven years, should change his attitude and make himself more accessible to the press.