[Reader-list] "Before asking Muslims to introspect, shouldn't the media do so?"

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

The trouble with relying on police sources

These days, two kinds of sensational events dominate our media: bomb
blasts and large scale mob violence. But the difference in the way the
media has handled them is glaring.  Laziness and deadline pressure are
at least partly responsible for the communal stereotypes perpetrated
by the press says JYOTI PUNWANI.

Posted Wednesday, Sep 24 13:03:08, 2008
http://thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3338&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=19&valid=true



What if Abdus Subhan Qureishi, now known as `Tauqeer', turns out to be
not India's `Osama', as he is being labeled, but just another young
fanatic who left home and job to pursue religion, and is now too
scared to come back?

Does this possibility sound bizarre? Why? Because the ATS can't be
wrong? After the July 11, 06 blasts, three of the many `masterminds'
and `key links' arrested by the ATS soon after the blasts – Mumtaz
Choudhury from Navi Mumbai, Khalid Ahmed from Madhubani and Akhmal
Hashmi from Srinagar -  were discharged by it within three months for
lack of evidence.  Their arrests had been announced by the ATS as
`major breakthroughs'. The media had gone ballistic  the same way they
are doing now over the `techie bombers' allegedly responsible for all
the recent blasts.

Like we've forgotten these and other  `desh drohis' who had dominated
the media just two years back,  `Tauqeer' and the other `new faces of
jehad'  may also be forgotten by us as some other sensational event
takes over.  Maybe their families should just have patience and bear
with the blinding  spotlight till then. (A mail from Azamgarh informs
us that Atif Ameen's father died three days after his son was killed
in the Delhi `encounter' that is still creating headlines.)  After
all, sensationalism is an intrinsic part of the media. And Muslims
aren't its only targets. Celebrities and crime, for example, make for
fantastic copy and visuals.  Salman Khan, Maria Susairaj, Manu Sharma,
Sanjeev Nanda –the list of those who complain of being  `targeted'  is
endless.

Old-timers will remember the sensational incident in which theatre
giant B V Karanth allegedly set on fire actress Vibha Mishra in
Bhopal. The police allowed a few reporters into the room where Karanth
was about to confess – of course without his knowledge. His confession
was then flashed in the newspapers. The entire theatre world accused
the press of "trial by media', of being used by the police, of
insensitivity… More recently, the Shivani Bhatnagar killing made
headlines, with the wife of the accused police officer R K Sharma
calling a media   conference to refute the `confession' the police
claimed he had made,  and daring  the media to question BJP leader
Pramod Mahajan on his role in the murder. As she lashed out,
flashbulbs focused on  Sharma's two teenaged daughters, waiting to
meet their father in custody.

Sensationalism –not animus against Muslim Personal Law, as Urdu
journalists allege - also dictated the continuous coverage received by
the Imrana case. Rape within the family, an outrageous fatwa by
mullahs (who are, let's admit, the media's favourite whipping boys), a
woman who fights back – what more do you need for a Page One story? It
may be recalled that the Roop KAnwar sati episode also dominated the
front pages for weeks, with editorials and feature pages condemning
the Hindu leaders who defended the burning alive of an 18-year-old
bride, as shrilly as they had the maulvis who declared Imrana haraam
for her husband after her father-in-law raped her.

These days, two kinds of sensational events  dominate our media: bomb
blasts  and large scale mob violence. But the difference in the way
the media has handled them is glaring. While the media relays the
smallest detail about the lives of India's alleged `new  terror
techies'- down to their Orkut posts, it is deafeningly silent about
details of those who have been continuously burning churches and
attacking Christians in Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala. The irony is
that the church-burners revel in brandishing their weapons in front of
the camera, while the alleged Muslim bombers operate in secrecy.

The media has chosen instead to focus  on the New Life evangelists
–the alleged provocation for the attacks on Karnataka's churches.
While it is important to know what provokes violence, we don't find a
similar scrutiny of VHP leader Swami Laxmananand Saraswati's record,
that might help understand what may have led to his killing.

One obvious reason for this skewed emphasis is that the police, who
tell the media everything about alleged Muslim terrorists, don't do
the same about violent Hindu extremists - not even about their
leaders.  Of course the police isn't one homogenous entity, but across
the country, their behavior is disturbingly similar on this count.

Compare the manner in which the ATS in Mumbai publicly profiled the
Muslims picked up for the July 11, 2006 train blasts, and its silence
on the RSS members arrested in the Nanded blasts in 2006, who it has
also accused of perpetrating blasts outside mosques in Maharashtra
since 2003.  Again consider this:  the day after any bomb blast, the
police blame SIMI, LeT, HuJI… but in the charge-sheet filed in the
Thane blasts case this year, the ATS has not even mentioned the
organization to which the accused belonged, the Sanatan Sanstha, run
by the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti.

If the media continues to rely primarily on the police in its bomb
blasts reportage, Azamgarh will gain notoriety, but Nanded, Kanpur and
Tenkasi will get no special attention. (Thanks to the media, what
Azamgarh now symbolizes needs no explanation.  Nanded, Kanpur and
Tenkasi are all places where RSS members were arrested for making
and/or planting bombs.) Time and again, the police version of communal
violence in Mumbai/Maliana/Bhagalpur/Punjab/ Kashmir has been proved
wrong. The police force of these places has been indicted by sitting
and retired judges  for communal conduct. Why then does the media
choose to treat whatever the police say as gospel truth? Is it just
laziness, and the race for `breaking news'? How much easier –and more
importantly, quicker - it is to get the story from the police than
actually go to the place and get as comprehensive a picture as
possible.

Laziness and deadline pressure are at least partly responsible for the
communal stereotypes perpetrated by the press. Urdu journalists allege
that only two kinds of Muslim voices, always of the same persons, get
heard in the English press:  liberal and conservative. True, the
ambivalent  views of the average Muslim rarely make it to the
newspapers because s/he isn't easily available for  `quotes'  on the
phone! Also, it's mostly the liberal Muslim who writes in English. Who
will bother to translate? Similarly, if pictures of only burqah-clad
and topi-wearing Muslims are published, it's often because these are
immediately identifiable as Muslims and their pictures are always
available in newspaper libraries. Actually sending a photographer to
the nearest college or call centre, computer repair office or timber
mart – places where Muslims abound – is just too much trouble.

Besides, many of the Muslims working there may not fit the popular
image of a Muslim, and that instant identification appears to be very
important for the media. So be it Imrana or education, Eid or
elections, you have the same black burqah, beard and rows of bent
namazees. Even when the majority of signatories at a street corner
campaign in Mumbai on the Srikrishna Commission Report were
non-Muslims, the cameraman  chose to click the only burqah-clad
signatory, making what was as much a human rights issue into a purely
Muslim issue.

But what explains the headlines and use of language? It is revealing
that even after it was clear that Hindu terrorists were responsible
for the Thane blasts, no newspaper used the word `terrorist' or even
`extremist' in the headlines to describe them; the most they said was
`Hindu radicals'.  What makes English journalists use terms of
endearment for the likes of rabble rousers such as Bal Thackeray and
Uma Bharti?  When does the Babri Masjid become a `disputed structure'
and an economic blockade of the Kashmir Valley imposed in the glare of
cameras, an `alleged blockade'? And what makes them devote more space
to the violent protests against the mutilation and murder of a Dalit
teenager and her family in Khairlanji, than to the barbaric act
itself?

Recent reports revealed that  `reserved category' students have fared
better than many general category (hence automatically `meritorious')
students in the IIT entrance exam; that while reserved students who
score zero in one subject will now get in (thanks to further lowering
of  cut-off marks for them) , many general students scoring zero have
already got in. Guess what the headlines were: not the discovery of
the truly meritorious performance of the SCs/STs/OBCs, but the
lowering of the cut-off into these `hallowed'' institutes.

So is there truth in the allegations of communal bias that were being
made long before the `Indian Mujaheedin's emails made them into
headlines? (They should have added caste bias.) Yet, can we ignore the
fact that this is the same media that exposed the RSS' violence in
Gujarat, and that shows its revulsion whenever Hindutva goons act as
violent censors? In Gujarat 2002, even the Hindi channels went all out
against the massacre of Muslims.

Nor is the Urdu press free of communal bias and actual rabble rousing.
The most recent example was the regret expressed by leading Urdu
dailies that Taslima Nasreen wasn't attacked more brutally, when her
meeting was disrupted in Hyderabad. If the English press dutifully
publishes the police version of every bomb blast – that Muslims are
behind it , the Urdu press is at the other extreme. It attributes the
blasts to anyone – RSS/security agencies/Naxalites/USA/Mossad – but
Muslims. Not all Muslims agree; indeed, some were so disgusted by the
Urdu press' refusal to acknowledge the possibility that Muslims could
be responsible for the 2006 train blasts, that they switched to the
`communal' English press.

However, the Urdu press can harm only its readers, which in itself has
repercussions for everyone. Imagine the  harm done by the English
media! Before asking Muslims to introspect, shouldn't the media do so?