[Reader-list] Is elections in Kashmir all about what media tells us?

[M Yousuf]

http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3815&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=22&valid=true

A poll boycott that is not news

*Kashmir remains alienated despite the substantial turnout in the assembly
elections last year, but the national press has no space for that
story. * SEVANTI
NINAN contrasts national and local reporting on the third phase of elections
in Kashmir.
 Posted Friday, May 01 21:57:53, 2009

Uttar Pradesh has elections for 80 Lok Sabha seats, Jammu and  Kashmir for
six. Both have five phase polls. It figures then, that each of those  6
seats is eminently newsworthy.  Low, medium or high, the turnout makes news
both in the national and local press.



On April 30 the turnout in the Anantnag  constituency as in many other parts
of the country was low,  but the contrast in how the story was reported (and
framed) in the national press, and in the local English press in Srinagar is
significant.



Each of the national papers takes care to mention that the low turnout  (26
per cent) was in sharp contrast to the assembly polls last year. And given
that there is nothing to celebrate, some  do not waste space on this non
story. The *Times of India* gives it three paras on its 'Dance of  Democracy'
page, in *Mail Today* it gets a para in an overall round up story on the
third phase of polls.



*The Indian Express* did not cover Kashmir at all in the main paper, it did
in its web edition, in the section called Kashmir Live.   The framing is,
"Unfazed by the poll boycott call by separatists, nearly 26 per cent of the
11.65 lakh electorate cast their votes in Anantnag."



The *Hindu *headline is, 'Vote amid threats, strike action, boycott calls',
with a photograph of  women queued up to vote and the caption, "Despite the
poll boycott called by separatists in Kashmir, people turned up at polling
booths. A scene at Pahalgam, south of Srinagar." The story gets top of the
page display on an inside page.



The Hindu report says "the overall mood is one of defiance," though whether
the voter is defying the separatists'call for a boycott or  the Central
government's effort to get them to vote is not clear. Because at one place
the report also says "At some places like Tral, people alleged that the
security forces threatened them of dire consequences 'if we don't vote.'"  Yet
the turnout there was just 3 per cent, says the report. One takes it that
people chose to defy the threat of dire consequences if they did not vote.

* *

*The **Hindustan** Times* in a report datelined Jammu  which gets a quarter
of a page on its My India My Vote page strikes a different note. It says,
"Anantnag goes with separatists, turnout poor." The rest of the reporting
which is two different stories does not mince words either: it says the low
turnout is clearly because of a boycott and  quotes individual voters, one
of whom says why he voted in the assembly elections and why he will not do
so now. "We need  a government in the state which we can approach with our
problems. Lok Sabha elections are to form a government at the Centre. What
do we care who forms the government at the centre?"



 HT is also the only paper to explain what the very varied  turnout at
various segments of the constituency means. The high turnout is in the areas
where  NC and Congress have sitting MLAs,  therefore the results will
benefit the ruling combine.



As framing goes, the story to beat them all is the one in the *Economic
Times,* obviously put together by a creative desk in Delhi. The paper
chooses to compare Anantnag and Lalgarh in West Bengal in a report titled,  'Mr
Bhattacharjee, do you know Anantnag better than Lalgarh'.



It begins,



ANANTNAG/LALGARH: Jammu and Kashmir may still be known for poll boycotts and
low turnouts, but on Thursday voters in Anantnag did what some of
their  counterparts
in West Bengal could not. They defied Kashmiri separatists’ call and turned
up in large numbers to vote while most in Jhargram’s Lalgarh stayed indoors.




Large numbers? The story explained that:



Anantnag figures were low compared to many other constituencies. But
considering that it is a separatist stronghold, the figures were impressive.
“Of around 11 lakh electorate, over 3 lakh participated in the polling. The
voting percentage stood at 25.5% by early estimates. “It will go further
when the final tabulation is done,” said chief electoral officer B R Sharma.




The newspapers in Kashmir saw considerably less virtue in Anantnag's
turnout. The headlines of half a dozen stories each in *Greater Kashmir* and
*Rising Kashmir* are self-explanatory.



*Greater **Kashmir***

* *

*Islamabad**: Boycott, isolated violence mark LS polls* (Islamabad is the
name of a town here.)

*Freedom camp buoyed*

*Dip in South vote*

*Polls in South, siege elsewhere*

*Not boycott call, 'broken promises' keep voters away*

*Low turnout in Pulwama, Shopian*

*People prefer farms to polling booths*

*'Omar trained in RSS lab to rule **Kashmir**'*

*Seeking removal of CRPF, Khaigam boycotts*

*Muftis 'abstain' from voting*

*Muftis' abstention shows PDP duplicity: Farooq*





*Rising **Kashmir***



*South reverses 2008 turnout / 56 reduces to 26*

*Separatists greet people/ Geelani: Follow suit on Sgr, B'la*

*Teenagers: We won't vote till **Kashmir** is resolved  *

*Red-Green war continues/PDP is BJP's extended arm: Rather*

*Omar grew up in lap of Advani, Modi: PDP  *

*Muftis 'boycott' voting  *

*Brakpora votes to teach NC lesson for April 2000 killings  *

*When past voters repent, join poll boycotters *

*Farmer family prefers field to polling booth  *

*For 80-yr-old Sabir voting since 1951 has turned futile  *

*Women outnumber men in voting *



There is also an editorial: *Security restrictions*



"The state claims that the people turn out in larger numbers during the
polling but refuses to admit the fact that in order to conduct polls in any
particular constituency two-thirds of Valley is rendered out of bounds for
common people. The public movement is strictly restricted and the whole
place turned into a garrison; it's worse than in Palestine or Iraq or
Afghanistan. This should concern the powers that be. The authorities
especially our much celebrated chief minister should not comfort himself by
the statistics of voter turnouts in elections; he should rather address this
core problem of alienation. Similarly, the separatist forces should review
the policy of getting military leadership into the affairs that are purely
political. When the militant arm of a separatist alliance intervenes into
the public affair of voting or boycotting in an election, the state gets a
readymade pretext to mix up the military muscle with a purely political
exercise."



The paper also has a photograph which is very different from the one in the
*Hindu:* that of officials sitting in a completely deserted polling booth.



Six seats have to go to the polls in five phases in Jammu and Kashmir  so
that the rest of the state  can be turned into a garrison. That is the truth
about elections in Kashmir. It doesn't quite come through, does it, when you
read about it in the papers described as the national press?

* *

The fact that a successful boycott is not news for the *Indian Express, Mail
Today *and  *Times of India*  is an editorial comment in itself. If readers
and viewers in the  rest of India don't quite get the fact that
Kashmirremains pretty alienated despite last December's turnout, they
have the
Delhi-based media to thank.





*(The Hoot will run articles and studies on the media in Kashmir through
2009.)*