How a movie and a court judgement exemplify India’s crisis of growing Islamophobia

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on March 17, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/03/17/how-a-movie-and-a-court-judgement-exemplify-indias-crisis-of-growing-islamophobia

March 15, 2022. By coincidence, not by design, three events took place that converge in different ways.

First, the United Nations adopted a resolution (opposed by India) to declare March 15 as International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

Second, the Karnataka High Court gave the much-awaited ruling on the ban of hijab, or head covering, in government schools and pre-university colleges in Karnataka.

And third, for the first time the prime minister of India went out of his way to endorse a Bollywood film.

The connection between the three events might appear nebulous. But the way events are playing out post the Karnataka High Court ruling, and the promotion of the film The Kashmir Files fit neatly into the growing atmosphere of Islamophobia in India. Hence, the significance of a UN designated day to fight this, for whatever such days are worth.

First, let's look at the 129-page hijab judgement, as it has come to be known. Only the concerned and the affected might plough through the text of the judgement. For the ordinary person, it is the media that explains what the ruling is all about, whether it has flaws, whether it is sound, etc.

Here, the popular media’s failure is spectacular. I have argued this before, and must reiterate, that even the best of television channels (and their numbers can be counted on the fingers of one hand) that at least make an attempt to address social and political issues seriously fall short because of the format they have adopted, and which they do not want to change.

In half an hour, three or four people are invited to give their views on a ruling that requires explanation, not opinion. As a result, you have people trying to say something and just when they get to the core of their argument, anchors plead that they have completely run out of time! Why, when you know the time allotted, do these channels not come up with a format that allows for a proper presentation of facts on such a subject? The mystery remains.

Print media, which is now on the decline as shrinking advertising revenue is being swallowed by television and digital, still provides hope. You get well argued articles by legal scholars that explain this kind of judgement. It cannot be abbreviated into a few paragraphs. You also get shorter editorial comments, like this in Indian Express and this in the Hindu, that provide perspective. The latter, especially, is worth reading because it reminds us that the judgement, which has focused on religion, has missed the point entirely. “Freedom of religion is important because freedoms are important, and not because religions are important,” the editorial concludes.

And you get explainers, like this in Scroll, that provide you with more details about the judgement.

Although this is a commendable effort, print and many independent digital platforms are struggling to survive. Often many of the best articles are behind a paywall. Thus, unless you get the physical edition of the newspapers, or subscribe to the digital edition, you miss out on these explanatory articles.

The biggest problem now is that many, especially of the younger generation, are not watching news on television or reading the newspapers. They get their news through social media sites, like Facebook or Instagram, or through WhatsApp forwards, or through news aggregators like InShorts that give you headline news.

This means they just get bullet points without the substance of any development. When it comes to something like the hijab judgement, all you know is that the court dismissed the plea by the students to wear the hijab inside the classroom. How did it come to this conclusion? A headline cannot capture that. In any case, journalists who have worked in print media know that headlines often fail to accurately reflect what is reported. They are designed to attract eyeballs.

Even more insidious are the posts on social media that twist the subject to suit the belief systems of the audience. Therefore, if the aim is to demonise Indian Muslims, it is easy to distort the entire hijab controversy by either blaming the students for being rigid and unreasonable, or, as is being done by some BJP leaders in Karnataka, alleging that they are part of a “terrorist group” and have been instigated to oppose the ban. It is this kind of “news” that gains currency on certain social media platforms and is lapped up and shared widely.

Incidentally, while on the subject of social media, one of the most important investigative stories to emerge in these last weeks is by the Reporters' Collective on surrogate political advertising on Facebook. The story on the Al Jazeera website stretches into several parts. Each one is long and detailed as it draws together the connection between a big business house, Reliance, a company owned by it that paid for the political advertisements, and Facebook.

The series is a must read because it explains the ecosystem that has evolved over these last years that privileges one perspective – that of the right-wing groups and parties, over others, and the crucial role played by social media.

And finally, you have the recently released Hindi film The Kashmir Files.

Irrespective of the merits of the film, which focuses on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the state in the early 1990s at the height of militancy, the timing of its release, the endorsements it has received, and the response of the audience have to be noted within this larger context we are discussing.

In the last week, many senior BJP ministers, including the prime minister, have gone out of their way to urge people to watch the film. It has been given tax free status in the BJP-governed states and dozens of special screenings have been organised for elected representatives.

In this article in Newslaundry, writer Asim Ali gives his views on the contents of the film, what it got right and what it did not. But more interesting is his description of the audience response at the showing he attended in a theatre in Delhi. He posted videos of people jumping up and shouting religious slogans and openly communal, anti-Muslim ones. Social media, in fact, is full of videos of this kind of response from different parts of the country.

The Kashmir Files is not just another Bollywood film. Even though it is being projected as an effort to right a historical wrong, which is the lack of acknowledgment of the sufferings of the Kashmiri Pandits, it is more than that. It comes at a time that suits those invested in cleaving this country on religious lines. The audience response, and the hate-filled cries for vengeance after screenings, confirms this.

Alongside the fallout of the hijab verdict, which is primarily on the future of Muslim women students, to the heightened communal atmosphere stirred up by this film, resulting in police in Delhi, for instance, being asked to be alert in mixed neighbourhoods where the film is being screened, we are in for more difficult times.

Apart from Russia-Ukraine and assembly polls, here are other news stories we must not forget

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on March 3, 2022

Just as we were getting over the war against a virus, the world, or at least Europe, has been plunged into another war. And the repercussions are being felt everywhere.

But amidst the fog of war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that understandably dominates the news everywhere, including in India, and even as the cacophony of the assembly elections in five states subsides, there are some other stories that must be noted, reported and not permitted to be overwhelmed by the immediate.

In January, I had written about what the sudden closure of the Kashmir Press Club meant to the already beleaguered journalists working out of Kashmir. At that point, only Sajad Gul, who was a trainee journalist with Kashmir Walla, had been arrested. The digital platform's editor, Fahad Shah, was still free. Today, both these journalists are in jail.

Both of them were first called in for what appeared to be routine questioning. When they went to the police station, they were arrested in one case. As soon as they got bail, they were immediately rearrested in another case.

The pattern was identical, the charges frivolous. But the laws under which they have been detained – the Public Safety Act in the case of Gul and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in Shah's case – are anything but frivolous. They ensure that the chances of their being released on bail are practically non-existent.

Since Shah's arrest on February 4, it has become evident that there is a clear method to this madness in Kashmir, as this story in Newslaundry outlines. It is to intimidate, threaten and control any and all journalists who want to do their jobs – which is to report as accurately and truthfully as they can about what is going on in their state. Their passport to safety is compliance. Stick to the government narrative and terminology and you will remain untouched. Stray from it and you risk not just the routine interrogation and surveillance but the virtual certainty of a jail term.

All this is happening despite the ruling by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in 2021, quashing the FIR against another journalist Asif Naik, which stated: “No fetters can be placed on the freedom of press by registering the FIR against a reporter who was performing his professional duty by publishing a news item on the basis of information obtained by him from an identifiable source.”

Gul and Shah were doing textbook journalism, reporting all sides of a story. For giving voice to people who questioned the official narrative, they have been charged with “glorifying” terrorism.

It is therefore not surprising that at least nine journalists, who write for media houses in India and abroad, have quietly left the state last month. One of them, senior journalist and author Gowhar Geelani, was summoned to a Shopian court on the charge of having tweeted a story that appeared in Kashmir Observer about an encounter between militants and the police in Shopian district. It's a short story, a few paragraphs long, that states that a policeman was injured in the clash. For not appearing in court in this case, Geelani has been declared an absconder and there is a warrant out for his arrest.

None of these journalists can risk returning to their state even though being there is essential to their existence as journalists. Given what has happened to two of their colleagues, they have little confidence that they will be spared.

Routine journalism is being criminalised in Kashmir, as this story in Article 14 documents. Note that the story has no byline. That too is a fallout of the oppressive reality in Kashmir where journalists reporting on human rights issues are being compelled to write anonymously for fear of retribution by the authorities.

What is happening currently in Kashmir is a direct attack on press freedom, on the right of journalists to do their jobs, to earn their livelihood, and to report without fear or favour. If you remove that right from them, you are killing journalism. You are strangling the free press. And if you can do that in Kashmir, and get away with it because the rest of the country is too absorbed in other issues, then the experiment will be repeated elsewhere in this country. Make no mistake about that.

One of the journalists who has been compelled to leave his home state asks these questions:

“What is our crime? That we report facts on the ground? That we refuse to become mouthpieces of the administration? That we do not act as their extension arm and stenographers? What is the fault of our family members? Why are they being harassed for our professional work? Most journalists have been silenced in Kashmir. This enforced silence is aimed at killing and distorting the Kashmir story and to manufacture a false ‘all is well’ narrative.”

So, even as we wring our hands over Ukraine, as we discuss what India should and should not do, and watch videos of helpless Indian students stuck there, spare a thought for the death of journalism in Kashmir.

There is another kind of journalism in India that needs an urgent injection of investment if it is to survive, and that is environmental journalism.

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report. What it says about India is particularly alarming.

Sea-level rise and cyclones, a direct consequence of climate change, threaten not just major coastal cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Visakhapatnam but also smaller coastal towns in Goa and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Furthermore, unplanned urbanisation in the Himalayas is a cause for concern. People living in these towns will face more frequent landslides and flooding, given increasing rainfall and melting glaciers that are already leading to flash floods.

All these concerns need to be explored by the media with stories from these regions so that the challenges posed by global warming translate into what is already happening on the ground.

There is also an urgent need for stories that look at infrastructure projects, already in the pipeline in many of the cities identified in the report, that make little environmental sense in the light of the inevitability of climate change impacts.

The multi-crore coastal road being built in Mumbai, for instance, that will benefit a tiny percentage of car users in a city where the majority use public transport, is a case in point.

Another is the Char Dham project in Uttarakhand. Despite the recommendations of the expert panel set up by the Supreme Court, and the recent resignation of its chair, Ravi Chopra, the government is hell-bent on going ahead with it.

However, except for sporadic reporting, usually triggered by protests by people adversely affected by such projects, such as the fishing community in the case of the coastal road, there is hardly any effective environmental reporting in mainstream media. One has to turn to specialist digital platforms like Mongabay, the Third Pole or the Centre for Science and Environment for such reports.

Environmental reporting cannot be done sitting in an office. Journalists need the time to investigate, to travel, to understand all aspects of the story so that they can report in a way that will have an impact on policy-making while at the same time informing the public. This is an investment the mainstream media in India, barring some exceptions, appears unwilling to make.

POSTSCRIPT:  Since I wrote this, Fahad Shah, editor-in-chief of Kashmir Walla, was on the verge of being granted bail for the third time when the police charged him under the Public Safety Act (PSA). This draconian law allows the police to keep an individual in jail for upto two years without trial.