What happens when a journalist’s press card becomes a tool to target them?

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on April 14, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/04/14/what-happens-when-a-journalists-press-card-becomes-a-tool-to-target-them

In the “new India” being manufactured, where men with swords dance menacingly in front of mosques during a religious festival, being a journalist has become increasingly hazardous.

Not for all journalists, of course. If you choose to stay in your offices or studios, or remain strictly within the boundaries of “acceptable journalism” set out by the owners of your media organisation or the current dispensation, there is no danger. You are safe. You might even prosper.

But if you, as a journalist, believe you are tasked to step out, record and report what is going on in this country, then you have to watch your back. Your press card – once considered adequate to give you access and keep you safe – does not add up to much in certain situations. In fact, it is that very press card that can make you a target. Your name, the marker of your identity, is on that card.

This is what seven journalists, who had set out to cover a Hindu Mahapanchayat in Delhi’s Burari on April 3, realised. The mob that attacked them selectively targeted the Muslims amongst them.

Given all else happening in the country right now – with daily reports of poor Muslim vendors being attacked in different states, and of the bulldozer replacing any notion of justice in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh – this particular incident might be relegated to a footnote in history. But it should not be forgotten. And it should be recognised for what it represents – a serious denting of the already beleaguered state of a free and independent media in India.

This particular incident might be relegated to a footnote in history. But it should not be forgotten. And it should be recognised for what it represents.

To recount briefly, Meer Faisal from Hindustan Gazette, freelancer Mohammad Meherbaan,Arbab Ali reporting for Article14, Meghnad Bose from Quint, Shivangi Saxena and Rounak Bhat from Newslaundry, and a journalist who did not want to be identified, went to report on the Mahapanchayat. Instead of being allowed to do their jobs, the crowd at the meeting turned on them and assaulted some of them. For more details, read this, this and this. In this last report, Arbab Ali from Article14 says that despite the police finally intervening, “the mob started hitting us in front of them. They were saying that ‘don’t give these two to the policemen, just kill them. These are jihadis, they are mullahs’.”

Shivangi Saxena, the only woman journalist present, had also reported on a hate speech incident at Jantar Mantar last August that led to some arrests. In a series of tweets, she writes about how one of the Mahapanchayat organisers mentioned her name from the stage, while the prime accused in the Jantar Mantar incident recognised her and came up to her.

More worryingly, she states in this tweet:

As Saxena emphasises, the police did nothing to stop the attack and intervened only much later. While some of these journalists filed FIRs, the police have ironically also filed complaints, including one against Meer Faisal who shared his experiences on social media and in a report for Article14.

So, why should this worry us, not just journalists, but anyone who believes that integral to press freedom is the ability of journalists to step out and report without fearing for their lives?

It should be noted that the attack on April 3 was unprovoked. It was aimed at sending a message. Given the events of the last two weeks in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and UP, it is evident that Muslim journalists are going to be as much of a target as the ordinary Muslims who have been attacked in these states by fanatical mobs. A press card will not be enough to spare them.

This is not the first time journalists have been attacked by right-wing mobs. Some might remember the way those covering the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, including some women journalists, were attacked by the frenzied mob of kar sevaks.

This article in Mint, which reminds us of that day, states: “Reporters and cameramen with experience of covering riots say it was the first time that the media was at the receiving end of the right-wing frenzy. Upendra Pandey who was covering Ayodhya for Dainik Jagran newspaper, remembers that the photographer for Hindi daily Rashtriya Sahara was so badly hurt that he had to undergo multiple surgeries and was bedridden for eight months.”

Even at that time, Muslim journalists were especially afraid. Sajeda Momin was the UP correspondent for the Telegraph. In this report in Newslaundry, she recounts how she had to hide her Muslim identity by asking her colleagues to refer to her as Sujata Menon. To quote from the article:

“Momin says reporting on the demolition was tremendously difficult. In a bid to avoid documentation, journalists’ cameras were taken away. ‘Our cameras and reels were taken away. We were not allowed to take out our pens and papers to even take notes. They didn’t want any documentation. In fact, they searched through our bags.’”

Remember that this was a time when there were no 24x7 news channels or mobile phones. The principal coverage was by photographers and reporters working with the print media and journalists from two video magazines, Newstrack and Eyewitness. Mritunjay Kumar Jha, who was a reporter with Newstrack, told Mint: “In Ayodhya, I am confident that they wanted to be sure that no one had any photographic evidence.”

In 1992, although Muslim journalists like Momin were afraid, any journalist with a camera, or even a notebook was targeted. This time, it is evident that Muslim journalists are being specifically targeted.

Fortunately, the video footage by Newstrack was successfully hidden and saved from the mob. As a result, today it remains an important and vivid testimony of the frenzy and destruction that took place in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 and those responsible for it.

In 1992, although Muslim journalists like Momin were afraid, any journalist with a camera, or even a notebook was targeted. This time, it is evident that Muslim journalists are being specifically targeted.

Despite April 3, it is commendable that journalists like Meer Faisal and others continue to document and report the atrocities taking place. Although some sections of mainstream media are also reporting these developments, it is not enough. One has to note that the Mahapanchayat of April 3, where these journalists were attacked, was not covered by any prominent news organisation.

If we need a record in future about the slippery slope of sectarian violence down which this country is rapidly sliding, it will be because of the determined reporting by these young reporters, despite the risks they face.

The greater worry is the state's silence and the abdication of its duty to protect journalists and allow them to function. There has been absolutely no word from anyone senior in government condemning what happened on April 3. Would journalists be wrong then to conclude that the message from the mob, to silence independent media, has the implicit support of the governing dispensation?

Why Indian media’s coverage of Sri Lanka crisis is partial

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry.com on March 31, 2022

It has taken a while but the Indian media, or at least some of it, has finally woken up to the immense financial and human crisis facing our southern neighbour Sri Lanka.

We have read more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in our newspapers. Indian Express even managed to send a correspondent there whose stories have been front page.

As for our television news channels, their coverage of Ukraine, sitting in their studios, has been so remarkable that it has caught the attention of some international media. This story in Washington Post points out that while there have been some questions in print media on India’s stand on the war, “on mainstream talk shows and in the pages of magazines popular with Modi’s right-wing base – a far larger audience – it has mostly been fire and fury directed toward the United States, portrayed as the culprit and instigator of yet another international conflagration".

Unfortunately, the Sri Lanka story does not lend itself to such “fire and fury”. Hence it is virtually forgotten.

Our southern neighbour has been in a state of economic emergency since last September. Today, there are extended power cuts, there is no fuel, people cannot buy food even if they have money, newspapers have had to stop printing because there is no paper, and school examinations have been cancelled because the question papers cannot be printed. All this in a country that had the best social development indicators in the region.

If you search for stories on Sri Lanka in the Indian media, you will notice a sudden spurt in the last week or so. Coincidentally, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has been on a visit to Sri Lanka, and geopolitics always trumps all other media coverage in our region.

A few days before Jaishankar's visit, distressing stories popped up in a couple of newspapers, principally The Hindu which has continued to have a correspondent stationed there, and also in Indian Express, of Sri Lankans crossing the narrow strip of water dividing the two countries and landing up in Tamil Nadu. Even if they had money, they could not find food for their children, as reported in this story. Many took the risk of being caught by the Indian coast guard. These stories give you a sense of the desperation that is growing amongst ordinary people in Sri Lanka.

Senior Sri Lankan journalist Nalaka Gunawardene, who lives in Colombo, describes to me what is happening in his country.

“Sri Lanka is in the midst of probably the worst economic crisis after independence, which is now creating a humanitarian crisis as hunger and poverty rise due to lost livelihoods and collapsing small enterprises. People are literally collapsing and dying in long fuel lines, and many public hospitals have run out of medicine and are accepting only emergency cases.

“Looking at Sri Lanka’s deteriorating economy from afar, it can look like a debt problem leading to a balance of payment problem. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the situation, but the real roots of this crisis lie in malgovernance and economic mismanagement over the years by successive governments.”

I asked him about media coverage of the crisis, including by the Indian media. Gunawardene points out that “global wire services have been generating impressionistic coverage from Sri Lanka in recent weeks”. An example is the often used short-cut, blaming the “Chinese debt-trap” for the country’s current problems. He points out that this is “simply not supported by data: international sovereign bonds issued since 2007 make up over a third of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, and borrowings from multilateral agencies are larger than from any bilateral source”. Reducing the explanation to either blaming one country, or the pandemic, paints a very partial picture.

Additionally, Gunawardene says, “I so wish the Indian journalists and broadcasters who visit Sri Lanka for short periods of time on crisis coverage would expand their circle of sources beyond the usual suspects in official and cocktail circuits. We are tired of seeing the same few (well-connected) academics and activists giving the same or similar soundbites for years. Sri Lanka now has a new breed of smart and articulate younger economists, political scientists, international relations analysts and others, who offer refreshing new analyses of entrenched problems. Why not seek out and capture their views, too?”

Indeed, why not? Because when journalists are sent for a short period, without fully understanding the context, they stick to the known sources, rather than dig deeper. The excuse is always time, and the space allotted to such stories.

For those interested in deeper analysis of the Sri Lankan crisis, there are several good articles and interviews available. I found this long interview with the Jaffna-based political economist Ahilan Khadirgmar in Himal South Asia particularly perceptive. He emphasises that the current crisis can be traced back to 2009 and the end of the civil war.

The noticeable neglect in Indian media coverage of the crisis is part of a larger story of how we cover South Asia.

In the 1990s and until about a decade back, several news organisations had correspondents based in different countries of South Asia. The Hindu had reporters in Sri Lanka and Pakistan and a senior Bangladeshi journalist reporting exclusively from that country. Indian Express still has a correspondent in Nepal but none in the other countries.

The reciprocal arrangement between India and Pakistan, whereby both could appoint two correspondents, one from a newspaper and one from a wire service, ended in 2014 when the Pakistani government asked the correspondents of The Hindu and PTI to leave.

Since then, most newspapers use western wire services for news from the region, including Pakistan, as is evident from the coverage of the current political crisis unfolding in that country.

Admittedly, the withdrawal of foreign correspondents, including those reporting from countries in South Asia, has coincided with the decline in the profitability of print media. One of the first cutbacks was, inevitably, the number of journalists posted abroad.

Yet, while western news organisations and syndicated services do provide well-written reports on these countries, often written by local journalists, there is a difference. And that is the filter used when reporting. When your principal audience for stories is in the west, you are bound to pick stories that will interest that part of the world. Hence, natural disasters, wars, terror, and political turmoil get reported.

Also, it is not just the choice of stories, but how they are reported. Hence, the crisis in Sri Lanka is reduced to the “Chinese debt-trap” rather than explaining that it is a consequence of decades of misgovernance and poor economic choices.

Apart from crises that cannot be ignored, there is so much more to report from this region, which shares not just geography, history and culture but common challenges, such as climate change, or tackling disease and poverty. You can run Indian media coverage through a sieve and you will not find any reporting of this kind from any of the countries in South Asia.

Given the current state of the media in India, perhaps there is no immediate option as few media organisations would be able to post permanent correspondents. This is a pity as not only are we deprived of perspective that comes from journalists who have spent time in a region to understand nuances and context, but also we learn only about a few select subjects, and little to nothing about concerns of the citizens of this region.

To conclude, here is a suggestion from Gunawardene that we, in the Indian media, ought to consider:

“To be sure, there is a strong geopolitical dimension to Sri Lanka’s current crisis and, indeed, in its trajectory of post-war development. Different governments in Colombo have tried different approaches to balancing relations with India and China. These factors no doubt form the backdrop of Indian media’s coverage of Sri Lanka in crisis. But this island is much more than an arena for geopolitical posturing. There are crises within crises that manifest in various ways. The former conflict areas of Sri Lanka’s north and east still bear a disproportionately high share of poverty and other socio-economic issues. How much more authentic would the Indian media’s coverage of Sri Lanka be if it considered not just the Colombo-Delhi politico-diplomatic nexus, but also the distinctive perspectives from Jaffna, Batticaloa or Nuwara Eliya?”

 

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. 

 

Inadequate reportage, no shortage of opinion: Where does Big Media stand on the hijab row?

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 17, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/02/17/inadequate-reportage-no-shortage-of-opinion-where-does-big-media-stand-on-the-hijab-row

 

The controversy over women students being permitted to wear a hijab in their classroom will not die down anytime soon. What began in one college in Karnataka's Udupi district is now spreading not just to other districts in the state but also to some other parts of the country.

This is still a developing story. It began on December 28, when six students of the Women's Government Pre-University College in Udupi were not allowed to enter their classroom wearing a hijab. Now, with the arguments being heard currently in the Karnataka High Court, the controversy poses several challenges to the media.

Will the media help tamp down emotions or add fuel to the fire that has already been lit? Will it, as seems inevitable in the highly polarised communal situation prevailing in Karnataka and elsewhere, ratchet up the blame game, creating false binaries such as Muslims vs Hindus, hijab vs saffron, etc? Or will it report with responsibility and context?

As with many such events, the initial news was barely reported, except in the area where it occurred – in this case Udupi. It gradually escalated and drew the attention of the national media once photographs of the girls sitting outside the classroom circulated on social media.

Soon, politics took over. The Campus Front of India, which is affiliated to the Social Democratic Party of India, spoke up on behalf of the Muslim students in Udupi. It was only a matter of time before other actors entered the fray, principally the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, which is a part of the Sangh Parivar and has been active on a number of incendiary communal issues in Udupi and nearby districts of Karnataka. This region has been in the news for years with such right-wing groups hounding Hindu-Muslim couples and raising the bogey of “love jihad”.

When such an issue flares up, independent digital news platforms are often the most reliable for more detailed background and information. The News Minute, which focuses on the south, has done some excellent reporting providing the necessary background and context. It has also investigated what led to the almost staged confrontation between the women students wearing hijabs, and groups of men, not all students, sporting flashy saffron turbans and scarves outside the gates of the MGM College in Udupi.

This report in the News Minute is particularly revelatory as it establishes that what was attempted to be portrayed as a spontaneous reaction by Hindu students to the demand of Muslim students for their rights was, in fact, stage-managed. The scarves and turbans were made available, and then collected once the media had given the demonstration coverage.

Newspapers based in Karnataka like the Deccan Herald also carried the kind of detailed and contextualised reports that helped explain why and how this issue escalated the way it has. This report, for instance, gives a useful graphic with a timeline of how the standoff developed and also how politics took over what was an issue that could have been settled at the college level.

Another report that brings out the many layers that need to be understood is this one in Newslaundry, based on what students told the reporters. The issues are certainly not black and white.

Also notable is how most media highlighted only one part of the Karnataka High Court's interim order of February 9, in response to several petitions filed by students on their right to wear the hijab, which stated:

“Pending consideration of all‬ these petitions, we restrain all the students regardless of‬ their religion or faith from wearing saffron shawls (Bhagwa),‬ and connected matters‬ scarfs, hijab, religious flags or the like within the classroom,‬ until further orders.‬”

But the next paragraph said this:

"We make it clear that this order is confined to such of the‬ institutions wherein the College Development Committees have‬ prescribed the student dress code/uniform.‬"

Between February 9, when the order was issued, and February 16, when the Karnataka chief minister clarified in the assembly that the high court's interim order only applied to pre-university colleges where a uniform was mandated and not to degree colleges, many colleges decided on the basis of the first part of the order to bar all students wearing the hijab from entering the premises.

Barring a couple of times when reporters questioned college principals of degree colleges on why they were stopping women wearing hijabs from entering college premises, no one in the media intervened. Instead, we saw videos in the media, and especially on social media, of college-going students being compelled to remove their hijab before entering college premises.

Worse still, some institutions even insisted that Muslim teachers remove their abayas in full view of the media and the police at the gate of the institution. Any media house that had taken the trouble to read the original order would have read this last paragraph that makes it clear to whom the order applies.

We, in the media, must also think of the price these minor girls have paid for the intrusive media attention. There is one particularly upsetting video of a purported reporter chasing a young schoolgirl while the school authorities do nothing to stop him.

Some of the girls chose to speak to the media, such as Muskan Khan, a second-year BCom student from a college in Mandya, who was seen walking boldly towards her college after parking her scooter despite the gang of men wearing saffron scarves taunting her. But they too have had to pay a price. For instance, soon after Muskan spoke to the media, according to Alt News, several fake accounts were created in her name. This is the kind of harassment so many young Muslim women have faced on social media in recent times.

Apart from the inadequate reporting on this issue in mainstream media, there has been no shortage of opinion, either on television, on digital platforms or in print media.

In print media, many opinion pieces have appeared giving various views. From one columnist making the rather predictable connection between “jihadi” and the hijab, to more nuanced comment that suggested that this was also an issue of choice, what comes through clearly is that there is no clear “for” and “against”, no binary that the media loves to project.

Of the many articles, these two are worth a second look. Written by Muslim women, they present different points of view and illustrate the many layers that need to be understood.

Ghazala Wahab, journalist and author of Born a Muslim: Some truths about Islam in India, argues in this piece in Mint Lounge that “the issue is not about hijab any longer. What started as a small disciplinary issue in one college has grown into a political battle in which the colleges are mere fronts and young girls, pawns. Someone with foresight in the right-wing universe laid a trap to further push Muslims to the margins, and the Muslim organisations have walked right into it, not realising that they would end up harming the weakest among their own.”

On the other side, Shayma S, a researcher at Jawaharlal Nehru University, has a different take when she writes in Indian Express:

“The urge to rescue Muslim women, often from Muslim men, who are portrayed as oppressive and violently orthodox, is dominant in Hindutva discourse. But Muslim women who enter higher education and speak for themselves are a double threat; impossible to 'rescue' and difficult to silence. So, perhaps, it is not about the hijab, or about public order. Perhaps, it is the rising anxiety over Muslims and other minorities in the public sphere, who are fighting their way into educational institutions and jobs.”

Unfortunately, in an age of shortened attention spans, where for most people news and opinion have been reduced to a few words on social media, such articulation is read only by a very few, those actually searching for answers, for some kind of middle ground between the extremes.

---

 

Why Rahul’s speech should remind Big Media of the other India

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 3, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/02/03/why-rahuls-speech-should-remind-big-media-of-the-other-india

Rahul Gandhi's speech in Parliament on February 2, in response to the union budget, made it to some front pages﹘Indian Express, Telegraph and Hindustan Times, but not the Hindu or the Mumbai edition of Times of India.

While the Hindu ran it across two columns on page 8, TOI did not report it at all in the edition I checked. It was an important intervention, whether you agreed with what he said or not. Then why bury it, or ignore it altogether?

The newspapers that did report Gandhi's speech picked his key point about there being two Indias, one of the rich and the other of the poor.

This is not even a debatable issue any more given the statistics in the Oxfam report on inequality in India. The top 10 percent of the country control 77 percent of its wealth. And between 2018 and 2022, India has apparently produced 70 new millionaires a day, states the report.

That other India, of the poor, was barely represented in the media as a whole on the days following the economic survey and the budget. Many pages, with colourful graphics and illustrations, were devoted exclusively to reporting and comment on the budget. Typically, the most space was given to the responses from industry and the markets.

How many newspapers sent out reporters to speak to poor people to find out whether the budget means anything to them or not?

In the 1980s, when neither private television channels nor social media existed, print media made it a ritual to get the views of the aam janta on the budget. Of course, quite often this vox populi consisted of a quote from the cigarette and paan vendor outside the respective newspaper office. But at least an effort was made to find out what ordinary people thought.

Today, it is evident that media houses calculate that these voices will not sell their product. So why devote space to them?

On the day the budget was presented, I spoke to two men who can be found on a pavement in one of Mumbai's upmarket localities. Shankar is a cobbler, originally from Satna district in Madhya Pradesh. Srinath sells bananas and is from Allahabad (now Prayagraj) district in Uttar Pradesh. Both men have been around for over two decades. Shankar has a room elsewhere; Srinath sleeps on the pavement next to his stall.

Neither had any idea what I was talking about when I asked them about the budget. Did they know that this happened every year, I asked. No, said both.

I explained briefly what it was about. Srinath, who is always ready with a philosophical comment to any question I ask, said, “What difference does it make to our lives what these politicians say? We are barely surviving.” Shankar echoed these sentiments, adding that in his village, people had no work. He had no option but to continue to sit on that patch of pavement and work as a cobbler.

I know two is not a representative sample. But any conversation, even if it is not for a story, with that other India reminds us that for a vast majority of this country, the hectic and loud discussions on television, or the learned op-eds in print on the annual union budget, mean very little.

What Gandhi said will be debated, and ironically the responses to his speech by ministers and spokespersons of the BJP will be reported at length even if what he said was barely covered. But apart from the slanging matches that have predictably followed Gandhi's speech, surely the media can occasionally turn its eyes towards that other India? Speaking to people like Shankar and Srinath might not make for scintillating copy. But talking to them acknowledges that they exist, that they are as much a part of this country as the experts we quote.

K Sujatha Rao, former union health secretary, in her op-ed in Indian Express on February 2, makes a telling comment that ought to be a cue for a media follow up. She writes, “Inequalities have widened. An estimated Rs 70,000 crores have been spent by the people in this short time for medical treatment that the government ought to have provided.” The period she is referring to is the Covid pandemic. The Oxfam report quoted above reiterates this by pointing out that health care in India is virtually a luxury good, only available if you can pay for it.

Yet, given that health reporting has now become one of the most important beats in the last two years, you have to work hard to find the stories that tell us about the state of public health care. Most often such stories can only be found on independent digital platforms.

Take, for instance, this story by Parth M N on the Pari website. He reports from UP about a community of Musahars, the lowest even amongst scheduled caste communities. His story tells us not just about the lack of adequate health infrastructure, but also about deep prejudice, where a Musahar woman is forced to deliver her child on the pavement outside a hospital because the staff will not admit her.

Another woman tells him how many of them preferred to stay at home when they took ill during the second wave of the pandemic last year rather than go to a hospital. “Who wants to be humiliated when you are already scared of the virus?” she said.

Parth also spoke to Muslims in nearby villages who tell their own stories of discrimination and being compelled to go from one hospital to another to get emergency treatment. As a result, most of them have built up debts due to medical expenditures.

Illustrating Sujatha Rao’s point about the money people have been forced to spend during these pandemic years, Parth writes, “In many of UP’s villages across nine districts, people’s debt grew by 83 percent in the first three months of the pandemic (April to June 2020). The data was gathered through a survey by COLLECT, a collective of grassroots organisations. It recorded that in July-September and October-December 2020, the increase in indebtedness was 87 and 80 percent respectively."

This is the type of granular reporting that is sadly missing from the English print media today, barring an exceptional story. As a result, that other India is vanishing from our consciousness, even though it represents the majority of the citizens of this country.

In the past, election coverage gave journalists an opportunity to understand the real problems that people faced in rural India.

Today, you read endless reports about caste and community calculations and the strengths and weaknesses of various political parties and politicians in the fray. While this has to be reported, do people reading these stories know anything about the region being covered? Do these places have their own histories? What are the sources of livelihood? Is there availability of water? What about public health care facilities? Are they within reach or do most people pay private doctors and fall into debt? And what about environmental issues?

These issues can be integrated into the reporting on elections. They give the reader a picture of parts of India that are otherwise routinely ignored. They come into our line of vision only if there is a major calamity. And, of course, during an election.

Such stories make for much more interesting reading than the routine and predictable. Yet, once again, it is hard to find such reporting in mainstream media. On the other hand, independent digital platforms like Newslaundry, Wire and Scroll are doing this with fewer resources.

While at least some people have appreciated Rahul Gandhi’s reminder of the other India in his speech, it is likely to be forgotten soon. As election day approaches, Big Media is in full form speculating about winners and losers. In the meantime, the Shankars and the Srinaths of this country will still be there, just barely.

Ever wondered why the best pandemic reporting has been by women journalists?

 Published in the Kochi edition of Times of India on February 1, 2022

When I became a journalist 50 years ago, there were but a ha ..

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When I became a journalist 50 ..

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 When I became a journalist 50 years ago, there were but a handful of women in the print media.  At that time there was only print.  All India Radio was controlled by the government. And there was no television.

 

By the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, more women joined print. But the majority worked as sub-editors on the desk. Or in the magazine and features sections.  There were very few women who were reporters.

 

The few who managed to get into reporting had to fight to get the beats they wanted. They were usually assigned the so-called "soft" beats, such as health, education, culture, entertainment etc.  Politics, business, strategic affairs, and sport were almost exclusively male domains.

 

It took at least another decade before major daily newspapers began assigning women to cover these so-called "hard" beats.  By the latter part of the 1980s, women were covering conflict and war, politics, business and even sports, the last male bastion to crumble.

 

Some of these women are now senior editors in their news organisations. It has to be said, however, that the glass ceiling at the very top has not been shattered, only partially dented.  And that too by women who are also owners of media houses.

 

Given the lack of reliable data, it is difficult to quantify the percentage of women in print media.  Several surveys suggest that women covering news represent only 12-13 per cent of all journalists. So even if the actual numbers of women in print media is larger, it is evident that the majority would still be on the desk or features, and not in reporting.

 

Yet even on the desk, women were not permitted to be on the most important shift in a newspaper, the "graveyard shift" when the paper is put to bed. Unless you are around when the latest edition of a newspaper is assembled, you cannot move upwards in the hierarchy of a newspaper and aspire to be, say the news editor.

 

If women were to stay in office till after midnight, the newspaper would have had to provide either transport, or a place to rest in the office until daybreak.  Although eventually this did happen, it was only after a considerable struggle.

 

Many of these external hurdles have disappeared today. But appearances can be deceptive. Even if news organisations do not discriminate against the women they employ, there are subtle ways in which women continue to be pushed into certain beats. 

 

If you look at areas of coverage like health or education, you will still find them mostly covered by women journalists. Some women choose these beats.  Others are left feeling that they were never given a choice.

 

The irony in these Covid times is that the health beat has become the most important one.  It is no coincidence that the best reporting in the last two years on the pandemic has been by women journalists. They already had background knowledge on public health, disease, the pharmaceutical industry and government policies, all essential for effective and informed coverage in these dire times.

 

The main difference from the 1970s to now is the way the media has changed.  Print is no more king.  Television dominates but digital is not too far behind.  In any case, increasingly media content is being consumed on a mobile phone.  That in itself has altered the style and focus of much of the media, including print.

 

Within that changed context, does the fact of more women practitioners in the media really make any difference in terms of quality or the work culture in the media?

 

Ammu Joseph, in her seminal book, "Making News: Women in Journalism" (2005) interviewed 200 women in the print media, many of whom are still prominent.  Her conclusions are relevant and apply to the media scene even today.

 

Joseph pointed out that the presence of a few high-profile women in journalism does not represent the full picture. The more visible bylines by women are evident in the main media centres, such as Delhi and Mumbai, and not if you look beyond, and certainly not in the regional print media.

 

The women interviewed by Joseph before the year 2000, and those who have spoken to Paromita Pain for her essay in South Asia Chronicle (Volume 11, 2021) recently, suggest that the experiences of women who are in journalism are varied and cannot be generalised.  A number of factors play a part in their personal journeys including class and caste.

 

Yet, gender underlines much of that experience not just by way of what they can or are not permitted to do, but also the way the external world treats them.  The headline of Paromita Pain's essay, based on interviews with women covering politics in print and online, speaks for itself: "It's hard. It's even harder when you are a woman".

 

Despite this, it is evident that women journalists have not just broken through the traditional barriers of beats, but are also excelling in the quality of journalism they are producing.  You can see this in the list of journalism award winners every year.

 

The most notable are the young Kashmiri women journalists. Most of them are independent journalist because of the lack of permanent job opportunities. Yet, despite the challenges of working in a conflict-ridden state, they have published stories on conditions in Kashmir that have brought them awards and recognition.

 

Finally, has the entry of more women in print media changed the work culture? Not necessarily. Since 2018, when women journalists began speaking up about sexual harassment at work, the ugly side of working in a male-dominated environment was exposed.  Some steps have been taken to put effective redressal systems in place. But this is just the beginning.

 

A change in attitude cannot be legislated.  Whether women are denied a beat for no reason apart from their gender, or have to suffer harassment, the end result is the same.  Journalism does not give women a free ride. That much has not changed in the last five decades.

 

When I became a journalist 50 years ago, there were but a ha ..

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