#MainBhiChowkidar (I Am Also a Watchman): Indian Journalists Responding to a Populist Campaign Challenging Their Watchdog Role in Society

Abstract

During the 2019 Indian general election, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi launched his #MainBhiChowkidar (I am also a watchman) campaign, which can be understood as an attempt to undermine the institutionalized watchdog or monitoring system, including journalism, in democratic India. Through the lens of positioning theory, this qualitative study examines how 89 Indian journalists responded to Modi’s populist campaign on Twitter. Findings show that the Indian journalists used self-positioning but especially other-positioning practices to discursively negotiate their position as watchdogs of Indian society. The other-positioning practices reveal that the journalists position Modi and his followers as “fake” and “failed” Chowkidar by providing evidence that the self-appointed Chowkidars are derelict in fulfilling their duties as watchmen. Thus, instead of engaging in an outright discursive struggle with Modi over the watchdog position in society, Indian journalists upheld their position by acting like watchdogs.

Keywords:

• Narendra Modi
• BJP
• India
• positioning theory
• role negotiation
• watchdog role
• journalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use the term ‘watchman’ and ‘watchmen’ in a gender-neutral sense. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other English word that adequately captures the meaning of ‘Chowkidar’.