Big Media’s coverage of Northeast India has never been adequate, but now it’s worse

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 9 2021

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/12/09/big-medias-coverage-of-northeast-india-has-never-been-adequate-but-now-its-worse

Oting, Mon district. Before December 4, few would have known of the existence of this tiny village in Nagaland's eastern province of Mon, home to the Konyak tribe. But since late afternoon of that day, in a region where the sun sets earlier than the rest of the country in these winter months, six men were shot down and two seriously injured as they made their way to their village after a day of back-breaking work in the coal mines.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to reach Oting. A day later, at least one major media house invested in sending its reporter to the village. The reports by Tora Agarwala of Indian Express, placed as the first lead on the front page, are an example of how this story should be told. Not as the “botched army operation” that most mainstream media reported in the immediate aftermath. But a story with names, faces, context and history that will inform and touch readers.

The very fact that I am pointing this out is in itself a story – one that people in Nagaland and across the northeast constantly reiterate. That the media on the “mainland”, as they refer to the rest of India, reports sporadically and superficially about their region, as I have mentioned in an earlier column.

Distance and inaccessibility cannot be an excuse anymore. The northeast region is now well connected by air and rail. Mobile connectivity has shrunk further the distance. But the real distance is not a physical one; it is a mental one. It is an inability to take the time to understand the multi-layered and complex history of a region that is lumped into one only because of its geographical location. In fact, each state, and even within states, there are distinct and overlapping histories that form the context of current developments.

Tora Agarwala's stories give us the names of some of the 14 civilians who died on December 4 and 5. She reached Oting within a day of the incident. Her first report appeared on the front page of Indian Express on December 6. She told us about Langwang and Thapwang, identical twins who were shot and killed that day. They were 25 years old.

There is also the story of Hokup, who was married to Monglong just 10 days before he was killed, as reported in Morung Express, a daily newspaper published from Dimapur. His widow told the reporter, “I want the world to know that my husband was neither a terrorist nor a militant.”

Perhaps the most important story by Agarwala appeared on the front page of Indian Express on December 8. She spoke to 23-year-old Sheiwang, one of two who survived the attack. He is quoted as saying "Direct marise...they shot right at us, no signal to stop, we did not flee.” This was said a day after home minister Amit Shah made a statement in Parliament calling it an “unfortunate incident” and claimed that the vehicle was “signaled to stop” but that it “tried to flee”. Sheiwang's statement, and others that have followed, have painted a starkly different picture of the incident.

Sheiwang survived the attack but the way he and Yeihwang, the other survivor, were left at the Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh, as reported by Agarwala, is shocking. They were brought there by security forces with no explanation about who they were. Their identities were unearthed because the hospital staff, on their own initiative, uploaded their photographs on social media after they heard about Oting. That's how their relatives came to know and were able to attend to them.

These stories remind us that so-called “botched” army operations, and admission of “mistaken identity” after the fact, involve real people who are not statistics.

These stories are just the beginning of the unraveling of what really happened. There are still many questions that remain unanswered. There is also an important context connected to Nagaland’s political history that needs to be understood to fully comprehend why and how these killings happened. This piece by Dolly Kikon, a Naga academic whose research has included Mon district, provides that.

Nagaland might be a “disturbed area” in official parlance but in fact, people in the state have been living peacefully for several decades. There have been agreements and ceasefires. There are incidents of intermittent clashes between factions of militant groups with the security forces. But this has not been the dominant feature of life in the state.

So, the question that still needs to be asked, and answered, is why a special group of commandos from the army set out to ambush a suspected group of militants without taking into confidence either the local police or the Assam Rifles based in Mon. There will be speculation but whether we will ever get the real story is doubtful, given past experience. Meantime, the focus has now shifted to demands for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

As far as media coverage of the Oting killings is concerned, barring Indian Express, there was practically no other major newspaper that invested in basic newsgathering or sending a reporter to the area. Even the Telegraph, published from Kolkata, did not carry ground reports. Independent digital platforms like Scroll, Print and Wire did have reports.

This indicates a marked change in the coverage of the northeast that has never been adequate, even in the best of times. A couple of decades back, major newspapers had correspondents in Assam and at least one other northeastern state, such as Manipur. They also encouraged these reporters to travel to the different states and report directly about developments there. As a result, for those of us on the “mainland” who were interested in the region, we could read granular coverage in major Indian newspapers.

Today, if you want detailed news, the only option is to turn to the online editions of newspapers from the region or digital platforms like East Mojo to get the news. The northeast appears only if there is a major natural calamity, or if there is an incident like the one in Oting, and then disappears.

Although the situation is very different in Kashmir, there are some parallels. In Kashmir, since the 1990s, most major Indian media houses have hired local journalists to write for them. Before that, Delhi-based correspondents would be sent if there was a major development, the typical “parachute” journalists.

Today, despite the difficulties Kashmiri journalists face every day, we get to read about developments directly from people based in the region. Not so in the northeast. Although newspapers have correspondents in Guwahati, they do not travel in the region as they did in the past. Nor do they have a network of reporters in other states who could send stories. The poor coverage of Oting is only one of several examples of such neglect.

To get a fuller picture not just of events, but also of what people think and of the background, there is no option but to read the local papers online. Nagaland Post, for instance, carried a strong editorial on December 5 headlined “Black December”. Another local paper, Nagaland Page, carried the full text of a report prepared by the citizens of Oting on the incident. It is full of anguish and anger, and states that no groups or parties, or members of the armed forces will be permitted to enter Oting indefinitely. “For we are warriors by blood and origin, and no force can intimidate us.”

Also, despite being heavily dependent on government advertising, these papers still report about such atrocities and other human rights violations involving the armed forces or the government.

Unfortunately in Kashmir, since August 5, 2019, the local press has been bludgeoned into submission through a combination of intimidation and cutting off the only dependable stream of revenue, government advertising. This is something I plan to visit in another column.

The reports on Oting so far are only the beginning of the real story. There is much more to unearth, not just about the incident, but about the history of the fragile peace in Nagaland and the real costs of trying to impose a resolution to the decades long conflict through the use of force and the AFSPA.

Mainland apathy

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, May 24, 2015

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PTI

Manipur...centre of unrest.

There are some stories that are never told. Inundated as our media is with the foreign travels of our Prime Minister, statements and actions of other politicians, Bollywood and cricket, murders and crime, large parts of this country are rendered virtually invisible. Newsworthiness is determined by proximity. So if something happens in our big cities, there will be pages devoted to the incident. In Mumbai, where I live, one newspaper devoted as many as six pages to the Salman Khan case. Excessive? Yes, but also all too predictable.

A few weeks ago, I sent an email to two women journalist friends of mine in Manipur, a northeastern state that I have not visited for over five years. During my last visit, many aspects of life there caught my attention. For instance, journalists had to carry two or three mobile phones, as they did not know when there would be electricity to charge them. Internet connections were patchy.

Apart from their professional lives, these women also had to contend with the daily challenges of living in a place where there is no reliable source of electricity, and water shortages are frequent. In a state where dozens of militant groups operate, curfew could be imposed on any day, making movement after 5 pm risky. Public transport was virtually non-existent even in the capital of the state. The transport that you did notice in abundance was that of Indian army jeeps and trucks, some with soldiers standing ready with guns cocked. Not a happy state of affairs by any stretch of the imagination.

We know that Manipuri women are incredibly strong. Irom Sharmila, still on an indefinite fast demanding the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), has more than proved that. This resilience is also evident in the faces of the women who run the main marketplace in Imphal, the Ima market, and in the demeanour of those doughty older women, the Meira Paibi, who have been at the forefront of the fight to highlight human rights offences by the security forces. Yet their courage and strength is severely challenged by these vicissitudes of daily life.

So I asked my friends if anything had changed since my last visit, if daily existence had become a little better and also whether the mainstream media had tapped them for reports about their region that went beyond militancy and politics.  Here is what one of them wrote:

“My answer to that would be that most often there is NO work for folks like us. How many times do we see stories about the people, their issues, lifestyle, politics etc?” She pointed out that only when “the body count goes up in some deadly bomb blast or an economic blockade on the highway that goes into a record breaking three months” is when the Indian media takes note. “They send parachute journalists who even get their vehicle drivers to give them bytes as ‘locals’,” she complains. “National media outlets (whose idea of the Indian nation stops at West Bengal!) prefer to pay for a flight, hotel and vehicle charges for their journalists who get in and get out before they can even spell MANIPUR! Many prefer to buy video clips from local video journalists (cable folks etc.) and use them sitting in Delhi or Guwahati.”

And what about the power situation: “It is like five steps forward and three back.  We have now got a pre-paid facility in most parts of Imphal but despite that, we do not get a 24-hour facility. Since pre-paid installation is going on, we have long spells of darkness. No one can say when the lights will be off or on. Suffice to say that it’s somewhat better but definitely not reliable. We had a 36-hour blackout just the other day, no explanations given!”

You will not know this from following the mainstream Indian media. We are informed that Manipur now has a new governor, Dr.Syed Ahmed. But, days before he was sworn in, the main link of Manipur to the rest of the country, NH 37, was blocked following protests against the killing of two labourers by the Kuki Revolutionary Front (KRF), one of dozens of militant groups operating in the state. That was followed by a 24-hour general strike. The blocked highway meant that fuel prices shot through the roof; a litre of petrol was Rs.120, an LPG cylinder sold for Rs.1,600 in the black. For people in Manipur, such blockades are now a fact of life but for the media in the rest of India, this was not a story worth reporting in any detail.

Is it not ironic that “mainland India”, the term used in many northeastern states, continues to emphasise how even the distant reaches of this country like Kashmir and Manipur are an ‘integral’ part of the country? And yet we, who inhabit this mainland, care little about the daily lives of those who live in these regions.

On wearing 'obscene' clothes

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, January 8, 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2783022.ece

What an amazing New Year gift for Indian women! A police chief and a Minister telling them that if they get harassed, molested or raped, it is actually their fault. We have heard this before on many occasions. But coming as it does just as the New Year dawns, it is a bit of a downer for all those who thought that perhaps our society would finally accept that women are equal citizens and that if they continue to be sexually assaulted, there is a sickness in our society that must be tackled. Not quite yet, it would seem.

According to media reports, the Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh was quoted as saying words to the effect that if women wore flimsy clothes, they provoked rape. These remarks were recorded on camera and telecast. And have been played out on the Internet on multiple sites. Hence, it is strange that police officers defending the DGP should suggest that the remarks have been taken out of context. They were made in response to a question about the incidence of rape in Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, a Karnataka Minister responsible for women's welfare, when asked what he thought of the Andhra DGP's views, was reported saying that while women were free to dress as they pleased, he was personally against them wearing ‘provocative' clothing and that they needed to be ‘dignified'. And to add further grist to the mill, the head of a panel dealing with sexual harassment in Bangalore University believes that only sarees with long sleeved blouses ensure that women are respected and that she is against women wearing ‘obscene' clothes.

The more things change

So, ‘provocative', ‘obscene' clothes equal an invitation to rape. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Despite decades of campaigns for women's rights, against sexual violence, for stronger laws, the deeply ingrained view that women had it coming to them has not changed. In fact, in my own experience of writing this column, whenever I write about violence against women, rape, or sexual harassment in the public space, as I did in my last column, there are more than a few letters suggesting to me that I have got it all wrong and that it is because women dress the way they do that all this is happening. The majority of these letters are written by men.

Here, for instance, is a quote from one such letter (unedited) in response to my last column (The Other Half, December 25, 2011): “You have written well but one vital point no want mentions whenever there is a case of sexual harassment: the point is the female, are they not seducing males by wearing sleeve-less tops and tight jeans. Sexual desire is hidden in all of us, and it needs a basis for arousal. The girls can bear to wear some decent clothes. When you need protection you have to pay some costs, why not pay by wearing decent clothes. You people should launch a campaign to aware the girls. I think if there is no such movements the situation will get worse in later years.”

Public memory is notoriously short on most issues and people like the young man who has written, presuming he is young, are probably unaware of the long struggle waged by the women's movement in India against rape. He and others like him have probably never heard of Mathura, a 16-year-old tribal girl who was raped by two policemen in the Desai Ganj police station in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district in 1974. Mathura had gone to the police to register a complaint about her missing husband. Even as her relatives waited outside for her, she was assaulted and raped by the two men. Did this attack have anything to do with what she wore? Did she invite the rape? It was a question of power. The police had the power; Mathura did not.

Unfortunately, the courts let off the two policemen on the grounds that there were no injuries on Mathura to establish that she had resisted. Hence the court gave the benefit of the doubt to the policemen. It was this judgment that triggered a campaign to change the rape laws so that the victim was not victimised further. It also established rules about police conduct; women cannot be summoned to a police station after dark and when they are, women constables have to be present. In 1983, the provision in the criminal law dealing with rape was amended so that the victim did not have to prove that she was raped; her statement was sufficient. The onus of proving innocence was on the rapist. These changes were made in recognition of the fact that the criminal justice system was skewed against women who turned to the law when they were sexually assaulted.

Or take a more recent case, that of the rape and murder of 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama in Manipur in 2004, allegedly by the security forces. Did it matter what Manorama wore? Her rape and death triggered the iconic naked protest by a dozen elderly Manipuri women in Imphal, who stood before the headquarters of the Assam Rifles on July 15, 2004, with a banner stating “Indian Army Rape Us”. The “Imas” or mothers as they are called, have continued to protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and are the main support group behind that determined and brave woman, Irom Sharmila, whose indefinite fast against AFSPA will soon enter its 12 th year.

It's not the dress

So, how is women's attire relevant when the subject is rape and sexual assault? When little girls are raped, can they be charged with being provocative? When old women are raped, can they be accused of wearing ‘obscene' clothes? When a woman is simply going about her daily routine, and she is sexually assaulted, can we turn around and tell her that she should be ‘dignified'? There is no dignity in being the target of violence for no other reason than that you are a woman — old, young, thin, fat, dark, fair, any caste, creed or class. To reduce the heinousness of this crime to such triviality, by bringing up women's attire, is a crime in itself. And for law enforcers and lawmakers to do so, is even worse.

(To read the original, click on the link above)

Another India, another protest

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, August 21, 2011 

Lone battle: Irom Sharmila, force-fed and kept alive by the State. Photo: The Hindu Photo Library

While the farcical drama around Anna Hazare's protest and arrest has hogged the limelight, Irom Sharmila's indefinite fast since 2000 to get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) repealed continues to be ignored by the nation and the media…

A day after Indians ‘celebrated' Independence Day by following the annual ritual of hoisting the flag, singing the national anthem and patriotic songs and listening to politicians, including the Prime Minister, talk about the strengths of Indian democracy, the police cracked down on a much-celebrated campaigner against corruption, Anna Hazare and his team.

The drama that followed his arrest and that of others in his team, the growing protests, the late night release and then Anna's refusal to be released was not just farcical; it was a pitiful display of a government with no respect for people's right to protest and no strategy to deal with those who demand that right. In one day, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government managed to unite the opposition. Even those who do not subscribe to every aspect of Hazare's campaign, such as his demand that only his team's formulation of the Lok Pal Bill be accepted, strongly condemned the government's actions. On August 16, Anna Hazare successfully “arrested” the UPA government.

Ignored

Yet even as Hazare's anti-corruption crusade gained momentum with hundreds courting voluntary arrest, in another part of India, a protestor who has used a similar tactic, of going on an indefinite fast, continues to be ignored by the rest of the country and by the political leadership.

Given the issue — rooting out corruption — and the mobilisation of groups in big cities across India, as well as the concerted media attention, some might consider it irrelevant to talk about a corner of the country where a lone woman continues her fight against the truly undemocratic Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) imposed on Manipur that has made life a living hell for the ordinary people of that State.

Indeed, when the rest of India — barring, of course, the Kashmir Valley — celebrated Independence Day, the scene in Manipur was strikingly different. Pradip Phanjoubam, Editor of the Imphal Free Press, wrote this moving opening paragraph in his editorial on August 15 titled, “State of Independence”:

“On the eve of the India's Independence Day, Imphal is acquiring the look of a war front. The scenario is not too different in other townships in Manipur as indeed in much of the Northeast. It has almost become a ritual every year. Various militant organisations would call for a boycott of the celebration of what is arguably the biggest and most important day in the country's history and in response the provincial governments would virtually stage flag marches to demonstrate the power of the establishment and push its way without being deterred by any threat whatsoever. Uniformed gun totting security personnel are on every corner of the streets frisking people, stopping motorists, checking their vehicles, questioning them etc. As expected, even a week before the big day approached, Imphal already began wearing a deserted look, especially after sunset. People return home early so as not to be accosted by security men and go through the humiliation of being made to stand on the side of the roads to be frisked and questioned like potential trouble makers. The ordinary people are supposed to be mere bystanders in this war game, but every time tensions escalate in moments like this, they have no choice than to be prepared to be the undeserved casualties, and sometimes become statistics of ‘ collateral damage', the well known sugar-coating aimed at making civilian killing and harassment seem like necessary and pardonable fallout of a conflict.”

Yes, Imphal is a long way from our relatively comfortable lives in cities in the rest of India, even if our lives are disrupted by the occasional power outage, by water shortage, by pot-holes on our roads, by inflation, and by the government deciding to deny those so inclined the right to protest. But Manipur is also India. Yet, here people live without electricity for most of the day, even in the capital city. Here, the areas with a sufficient water supply would probably be only those where the government and the army reside. Here, people are afraid to go out after dark and markets close as soon as the sun sets. Here, men with arms, the security forces and the various groups of militants, run the show. Here, ‘democracy' seems a theoretical construct, certainly not a lived reality.

Beacon of hope

And here, since November 2000, a 38-year-old woman, Irom Sharmila, has been on an indefinite fast demanding withdrawal of AFSPA. She is under arrest and is being force-fed by the government in a public hospital in Imphal. Every year she is released, and then re-arrested. Yet, this woman of unimaginable courage will simply not give up. And by holding on to her resolve, she holds up a small candle of hope for the people of her state. A hope that people will notice, that her determination will be recognised, that the current government, which in its earlier term had promised to look again at AFSPA, will not break one more promise.

We have forgotten that a year after the UPA government first took office in 2004, it set up a five-member committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge B. P. Jeevan Reddy. The committee recommended, amongst other things, a withdrawal of AFSPA. So Sharmila's demand is not unreasonable; a government-appointed committee has endorsed it. But the recommendation was given more than six years ago. Yet today, the security forces continue to enjoy the right to act with impunity, while the citizens of Manipur, who are also citizens of India, live without many fundamental rights guaranteed to them under our Constitution.

Anna Hazare's campaign, in the national capital and in full media glare, is premised on scepticism about the government's intent on the matter of dealing with corruption. But Sharmila has even a greater reason for scepticism given the absence of any movement on a recommendation that has been before the government for so many years.

If we are concerned about freedom, about democratic rights, about the right to protest, let us also remember other protests, other parts of India where democratic rights are being denied. Let us remember Sharmila.

(To read the original, click on the link above)