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By Devendra Gautam

Any Bill worth its name is a weapon. And a weapon can be a force for good or bad depending on the intent of the bearer, though its use for the former is very rare as the annals of human civilization suggest. 

A short contemplation on the Bill may be quite relevant at a time when the government is just a seal away from enacting a Media Council Bill for reasons best known to it. 

The stated purpose of the instrument, though, is to make way for the establishment of a Media Council Nepal in place of the existing Press Council Nepal, a statutory body of the government meant to promote the standards of a free press in a democratic society and to advise the government on matters relating to the development of healthy and credible journalism in the country. 

Furthermore, as an autonomous regulatory body, the Media Council aims to develop and protect clean, independent, and accountable journalism by promoting self-regulation and maintaining professional conduct in the field of journalism. 

Apparently, words like ‘clean’ and ‘self-regulation’ remind a conscious citizenry of the tendency of the Nepali state, governments of all hues and shades in particular, to ride roughshod over civil liberties on the strength of a majority in the Legislature and the much enviable legal authority to crush all sorts of dissent through the use of the brute force of the state. Equipped with such tyrannical powers in a state where other organs of the state are quite subservient and a people, most of whom are in a perennial struggle to make a living, which ‘democratic’ government would not want to give ‘benevolent dictatorship’ a try?    

By clean and self-regulation, do the powers pushing this Bill actually mean ‘sanitized’ and ‘self-censorship’? Indeed, a fourth estate that sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil will provide a huge relief to our government that has become synonymous with scandals as well as other organs of the state. 

Perhaps words like these have set off alarm bells among our illuminati that has been shouldering the responsibility of protecting democracy and human rights for long, providing a huge relief to a populace waging a perennial struggle for bread and butter against ever-rising market prices in a domestic economy that seems to be in a state of perpetual decline.     

The Bill has earned its share of criticism, which is but natural in a democracy, which comes in very many shades throughout the world, however watered down the versions may be. Anyway, the love for ‘democracy’ is so pervasive around the world that even tinpot and steroid-powered dictators helming fruity republics like to make the rest of the world, save their very own peoples, believe that theirs is a real democracy.  

Leading lights, including practicing journalists, those associated with umbrella organizations of the free press (self-styled or otherwise) and experts have offered their nuggets of wisdom on the Bill as it awaits the final approval. They have pointed out that the government intent is to control the fourth estate through the new regulatory body rather than making it autonomous and allowing it to play some role in the development of a free press that is in a crisis of existence, with even salaries becoming a luxury for most of the working journalists.   

A free press capable of showing the mirror to the three other organs of the state and itself! Wouldn’t that be great? Or would it be a tad too discomforting? 

It all depends on where you are coming from. 

The critics fear that government handpicks (chair—with qualifications on a par with a Supreme Court justice—and all), who will helm the chair and other positions at the new media regulatory body, will have a vice-like grip on the fourth estate and they won’t allow it to exercise its constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms.

Wrapping up, a question looms as to the purpose of the Bill—and the new council. Is it meant to develop a crisis-ridden fourth estate as a watchdog devoted to the country and democracy or turn it into a lapdog of powers that be?