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

[Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi]

Simple is simply frustrated because her imagination and reportage did not
get the award.?

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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-- 
Rajen.