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Parrhesia is a Greek concept that literally translates into English as ‘free speech.’  Foucault has used and defined the concept of Parrhesia regarding the political analysis of truthfulness in his lectures. Torben Bech Dyrberg, the author of the book of Foucault on the Politics of Parrhesia, gives an apt explanation of the term. He said, "Parrhesia means speaking truthfully, freely and being up-front in the sense of being open, transparent, engaging and saying everything there is to say about a particular issue in contrast to holding something back, being secretive, covert and manipulative…it is practical as it is from the outset entwined with government, it is risky and takes timing and courage, it requires knowledge, a good sense of judgement and resolve (Dyrberg 2014)." Foucault discusses the concept of Parrhesia recurrently as it connects the dots between the political authority, that is, the Government and its citizens. It assures the smooth functioning of the dialectical relations between these two entities. Parrhesia works as an agent that enables accountability in both ends as it offers a coherent structure of the given promises and the actions taken by both the Government and the citizens. As we discuss further, we can use this idea of Parhessia as a common denominator where it may be seen as a benchmark standard of trustworthiness between the political authorities and the public. As it has already been mentioned before, the primary task of journalism is to question the power or the ‘political authority.’ Therefore, the Media becomes a ‘challenger’ at first, according to Foucault, that must not use politics from their own ‘personal interests’ and to any situation which serves their own purpose. Secondly, Media should always tell the truth to all the stakeholders, in this case, to the citizens of a democratic country.

     Thus, it is pretty understandable that Foucault used the term Parrhesia to denote and explain the complex relationship between the political authority and the public. But in this context of the media and journalism, a question arises: how one can identify who is speaking the truth and who is trying to hide something and being ‘manipulative’ for the sake of their political interests. To provide a justified solution to the problem, we can receive media as what Foucault termed parrhesiastes. According to Foucault, “The parrhesiastic game presupposes that the parrhesiastes is someone who has the moral qualities which are required, first, to know the truth, and secondly, to convey such truth to others” (Foucault 1983). Therefore, we can say that the media should have moral qualities, and they know the truth and convey such truth to the public. However, from the news consumer perspective, the question of truth remained still unanswered. Therefore to understand what is the actual truth and who is speaking it, as Foucault suggested, one needs to question the speech narrative. He said, “If we raise the question of how we can know whether someone is a truth-teller, we raise two questions. First, how is it that we can know whether some particular individual is a truth-teller; and secondly, how is it that the alleged parrhesiastes can be certain that what he believes is, in fact, truth” (Foucault 1983). Hence, with this analysis, we can arrive at a point that denotes that the public, in this case, the news consumers, should ask questions to understand truthful speech properly. Till the readers/viewers question the authenticity of the consumed news and ask about the certainty of their telecasted news, the sense of Parrhesia will prevail in the business. 

        However, the truth shown or written by any form of news media comes as a duty or moral obligation to the reader or audience, something which is considered as Parrhesia. However, if the opposite happens, that means if any sort of ‘truth’ is told under any pressure or compulsion, then according to Foucault, it is not a ‘Parrhesiastic Utterance’. If the media becomes biased to any political authority, then the truth's value distorts its original nature and loses its purpose. In this contemporary political space with globalised formations of diplomacy, truth and freedom provided by many media houses and governments come wrapped in authoritative intentions and intimidations. Therefore, the function of media and “truth” journalism becomes more significant here to fill the gaps in the narrative and engage in speaking the unspoken. To understand the practicability of such exercise of media, one has to look at the interplay of power and authority that goes into the making of news and circulation. In the Foucauldian notion of power-play, “There is no single location where power resides. Instead of centralisation of power, there is a ‘power network. Where there is power, there is resistance” (as quoted in Hurley, 1978). It indicates that manipulation of power comes as a practice at different locations in a functional ‘power network’. This also leads us to the fact that, as there is no single locus of power, the resistance will also come from different locations. Foucault says, “Hence there is no single locus of great refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary. Instead, there is a plurality of resistances…” (as quoted in Hurley, 1978). To understand the ‘plurality of resistances’ and the ‘power network’, herewith, we are focusing on two massive protests that occurred during the last few years in the Indian political space. We probe into the functions of mediation in these protests to lays bare the construction, manipulation, and emergence of alternative media around them.