[Reader-list] ‘As Hindus, We Were Expected To Further The Cause With Our Stories’

[Sanjay Kak]

As an 'insider' account of the workings of India's mainstream press,
and its professionalism and politics, this is a most valuable account.
Best
Sanjay Kak


>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 22, Dated Jun 06, 2009
CULTURE & SOCIETY
personal histories

‘As Hindus, We Were Expected To Further The Cause With Our Stories’

Simple M Pani
Is 32. She is a journalist based in New Delhi

Illustration: UZMA MOHSIN

EVERY YEAR, I look starry-eyed at the awardees of the Ramnath Goenka
Excellence in Journalism Awards and at the stalwarts handing over the
honours. For grit, hard work, tenacity and honesty to the trade,
without a care for reward, getting richly rewarded. But this year, I
couldn’t quell a queasy feeling in my stomach when the virtues of fair
reporting were spoken about at the event. This has been happening
since the Amarnath land agitation, when I was reporting for the Jammu
bureau of a leading national daily. It visited Jammu like a gale,
sweeping away in gusts the sense of fair play and discrimination of
many scribes. In our morning meetings, it was assumed as a given that
being Hindus, we (reporters, photojournalists and other staff)
supported the agitation for restoration of land to the Amarnath Shrine
Board. Not only were we expected to support it whole-heartedly but it
was considered our ‘moral’ duty to further its cause through our
stories. It was routine for our editor to ask, “So how is the
agitation faring in xyz place?” and an over-zealous colleague to
answer passionately, “Excellent. It’s got a tremendous response there”
and for the editor to rub his chin and say, “But find out what
challenges they are facing in abc place and how it could be
strengthened there.” If you were in Jammu, you had to sing paeans to
the agitators. What smacked of fascism was that no other line of
thinking, let alone criticism of any sort, was brooked. The few media
houses that did judge it critically, were a woeful minority.

Two quixotic features of the agitation stood out. First, to refuse to
recognise the real. To pretend not to see something as stark as an
economic blockade of the Valley, imposed by the stone-pelting
agitators by attacking and burning Valley-bound trucks. (I’ve seen
trucks burnt to rubble by agitators, on the Jammu-Pathankote National
Highway, but naturally, it wasn’t considered newsworthy in several
publications because the Jammu media had decided there was no
blockade. This assumption ruled out any question of trucks being
attacked.) This kind of dangerous, deductive logic crafting an
alternative reality was rampant at the time. The storyline would be
decided in the office and reporters would be asked to select data from
the field to support it. For instance, to prove the nonexistence of a
blockade, we would be asked to report that medicines were available in
plenty in Jammu. If there were a blockade, then Jammu would be equally
hit, ran the specious logic. In reality, Jammu faced a severe shortage
of medicines!

Second, to fancy the unreal as real, by drawing parallels between
itself and the India’s Freedom Movement. Like praising the Emperor’s
new clothes, which despite any empirical reality, were extolled to the
skies. Eulogies of “those brave, nationalist, heroes,” the agitators,
who went about uprooting railway tracks, smashing windows of public
transport that dared to ply on the roads in defiance of the bandh
call, and violently attacking trucks entering the state, filled reams
of newsprint every day. Strangely, the mute common man of Jammu, the
poor news vendor and hawker on the streets seemed to be more
discerning than the city’s intelligentsia. They knew that there was
much more to nationalism than flag-waving xenophobia. That sporting a
‘Bhagat Singh moustache’ wasn’t enough to equate one with the martyr.
They knew that vandalism couldn’t pass for bravery and that they would
have to repay the loss caused to the state from their pockets; all of
which the intelligentsia missed, in a misplaced fervour.

Despite the claim that the struggle was solely for the restoration of
land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, the fact is it did degenerate into
hate for the ‘other.’ Gujjars’ kullas were burnt in hundreds. The word
“Kashmir” was knocked off from the Kashmir Square Mall, a Delhi-style
mall in town, and was rechristened ‘City Square Mall.’ Such sentiments
are dangerous for any civilised society, more so when the media, the
supposed watchdog of liberal values, is gung-ho about it.

>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 22, Dated Jun 06, 2009