Column | DPDP Act And The State’s Genius For Self-Deception

Governments have always viewed the press with suspicion. From the British Raj to independent India under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and successive governments since, the relationship between the press and those in power has been defined by a persistent tension between authority and scrutiny.  

The irony is that politicians rarely object to a free press when they are in opposition. They want journalists to take risks, expose corruption and hold the incumbent government to account. But once they occupy the seats of power, their enthusiasm for press freedom tends to evaporate. The watchdog they once cheered becomes a nuisance they would rather muzzle. 

The apparent attempt to restrict the media’s ability to publish investigative stories through the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act is part of this old political reflex. The DPDP Act, 2023 which has been legally challenged by news publications, is expected to thwart investigative journalism by making it legally riskier to collect and publish personal data without consent, even though that information may be essential to exposing corruption, conflicts of interest or abuse of power. 

The law requires anyone handling digital data of a person to notify them and seek their consent. While it grants an exemption from this requirement to research and statistical work, it does not do so for journalism. As such, the media fears that it would effectively mean that a journalist can be compelled to notify the subject of an investigation. This effectively "would allow that subject to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses or otherwise frustrate the story before publication".  

Further, the law allows the government to ask any organisation handling personal data “to furnish such information as it may call for". Publishers suspect this provision can be misused to hinder journalistic work. 

While we talk about a new legislative instrument to impede strong journalism, it is important to recognise that this impulse is centuries old. Governments always seek the freedom to govern without having their decisions scrutinised, their claims challenged or the consequences of their policies laid bare. 

The Irony Of Power 

The present government owes much of its political ascent to precisely the kind of investigative journalism its privacy law now appears to constrain. Between 2004 and 2014, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government faced a series of corruption allegations, including those surrounding the allocation of 2G spectrum and coal blocks. Investigative reports helped bring these controversies into public view, giving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ammunition to attack the Manmohan Singh government and turn corruption into a central political issue. 

Without the press exposing these controversies, it is difficult to imagine the opposition having enjoyed the same opportunity to shape the political narrative. Journalism did not, by itself, bring about the change of government in 2014. But it helped establish the questions that the incumbent could not easily evade. 

More than a decade in power has now brought the BJP face to face with the same institution it once exhorted to uphold democracy. The problem is not that the press has changed sides. It is that the government has changed its relationship with scrutiny. 

Bitten By Social Media 

About a decade ago, the government and its supporters began cultivating social-media platforms and digital influencers as an alternative to the legacy media. These platforms offered direct access to audiences, bypassing the editorial filters and institutional checks of established newsrooms. Politicians could communicate without difficult questions, while sympathetic influencers could build audiences without assuming the responsibilities that traditionally accompany journalism. 

The result was an ecosystem in which accountability became optional and spectacle a business model. Politicians and bureaucrats appeared on podcasts where superficial questions and easy publicity often took precedence over substantive engagement with policy. Many a time, the influencers who they engaged with were typically known for fluff and titillation. They didn’t have any journalistic skill, background or credibility.  

Yet, for shortsighted political communications planners, the arrangement seemed to be mutually beneficial. Algorithm-driven visibility, manufactured engagement and the promise of viral reach helped sustain a cycle of publicity that rewarded access over scrutiny. 

Advertisers followed the audiences, diverting revenue from traditional media and further weakening its economic foundations. A parallel media ecosystem took shape, one in which favourable coverage could be rewarded with access and criticism dismissed as hostility. The government gained a formidable publicity machine without having to submit itself to the discipline of an independent newsroom. 

But political convenience has a way of concealing long-term costs. A platform that helps a government dominate the conversation today can turn against it tomorrow. An influencer who owes no allegiance to editorial standards owes no enduring allegiance to the people in power, either. An algorithm that rewards praise can just as readily amplify outrage when outrage becomes more profitable. 

The government appears to have discovered this at considerable political cost. Social-media platforms that once helped its supporters shape the national conversation have become arenas for abuse, anger and attacks on public officials, including the prime minister. The spectre of regime change, invoked by political actors in the context of digital influence and foreign interference, reflects a deeper anxiety about a communication ecosystem that no government can fully command. 

The irony is hard to miss. Having helped elevate platforms that operate beyond the reach of conventional editorial accountability, the government now finds itself struggling to control the forces they unleash. It has learnt that reach is not control and publicity is not persuasion. And a Frankenstein’s monster, once let loose, does not remain loyal to its creators. 

When Scrutiny Becomes A Threat 

The contrast with traditional media is instructive. Established newsrooms operate within a framework of editorial responsibility, legal liability and professional norms, including the guidelines laid down by the Press Council of India. These safeguards are imperfect, and traditional media is hardly immune to political pressure, commercial interests or editorial failure. But a newsroom has identifiable editors, reporters and owners who can be held accountable for what it publishes. 

Consider the recent controversy surrounding the implementation of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls and reports of disagreements within the Election Commission. The Indian Express brought questions about the process and the functioning of the institution into the public domain. The value of such reporting lies in raising questions that deserve answers from the authorities concerned.  

Those questions can be debated in Parliament, tested in court and addressed by the institutions responsible for conducting free and fair elections. The opposition’s decision to use the issue to mobilise protests is part of the ordinary contest of democratic politics. Governments have faced protests throughout independent India’s history. Disagreement, even when politically inconvenient, is not evidence of a conspiracy to overthrow a regime. 

Yet the present political climate reveals a growing unease with the speed at which digital platforms can transform a report, a grievance or a local dispute into a national controversy. Their algorithms are controlled by private companies, many headquartered beyond India’s jurisdiction, whose commercial incentives do not necessarily align with the interests of the Indian state. Governments can attempt to regulate these platforms, but they cannot simply dictate what millions of users will believe, share or amplify. 

The mistake is to confuse the source of the problem with the institution that exposes it. The suppression of reporting can’t eliminate the underlying grievance. It can only make the government less informed about the public’s concerns and less capable of responding to them. 

The Press As Feedback 

There is another reason for governments to resist the temptation to curb investigative journalism. The press is not merely an adversary to be managed. It is also a feedback mechanism through which the state can discover where its machinery is failing. 

Consider the government’s ambition to build India’s deep-tech research capabilities. Public funding and grant allocation are essential to this effort, but their effectiveness depends on the speed and competence with which officials implement the schemes. To that effect, an investigative report on delays in the disbursal of grants under a government initiative, like the one done by The Indian Express on the subject recently, can alert policymakers to administrative bottlenecks that may otherwise remain buried in official files.  

Last year, as Chinese AI model DeepSeek made the world go gaga, Outlook Business questioned in a cover story (“Losing Our Minds”) why India was failing to retain and woo its top researchers back to the country. As the government announced recently that it wants to embark on a project to bring Indian researchers back to our shores, it validated a simple truth yet again. For a country seeking to achieve big things, strong reporting is an early warning system against policy paralysis. 

No influencer producing favourable content about the government can perform this function with the same independence. The purpose of investigative journalism is not to embarrass the prime minister or undermine a minister. It is to reveal the gap between policy intent and administrative delivery, giving those in power an opportunity to correct course before failure becomes entrenched. 

This is particularly relevant to the government’s Viksit Bharat ambition. A national mission of that scale requires the state to identify its weaknesses, scrutinise its institutions and respond to evidence that its policies are not delivering the intended results. A government insulated from uncomfortable information may enjoy a more flattering public image, but it risks becoming less effective. 

The press, therefore, serves a purpose that extends beyond its readers. It helps the government understand the consequences of its own decisions. To weaken that function in the name of controlling misinformation or protecting personal data would be to sacrifice an important instrument of governance. 

The larger lesson is that governments cannot build a democratic information ecosystem around convenience and then complain when it produces consequences they dislike. They cannot celebrate unfiltered communication when it amplifies their message and demand restrictions when it amplifies dissent. 

The press has never promised governments an easy ride. Its function is to ask questions, test official claims and bring matters of public interest into the open. Governments may dislike the scrutiny, but they need it. The greatest danger is not a newspaper that asks uncomfortable questions. It is a government that begins to believe it would be better off if nobody asked them at all.