From Gaza to Kashmir: Why is Indian media suffering from selective coverage syndrome?

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on December 15, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/12/15/from-gaza-to-kashmir-why-is-indian-media-suffering-from-selective-coverage-syndrome

For more than two months, the world has watched the virtual obliteration of occupied Gaza and its residents by Israel. The visuals, the videos, and the testimonies of residents, doctors, UN officials, and journalists are flooding social media portals. Those who want to know what is happening on the ground seek out these sources, watch, and read.

But if you depend only on mainstream television channels or newspapers, the horror of what is unfolding will pass you by. This is because even if there is reporting, it is selective and one-sided, playing up one side and playing down another.

In India, the reporting, what little there is, consists of reprints from the New York Times or a precis of reports from different western-based news agencies. You rarely find anything from Al Jazeera, which has focused on Gaza since Israel’s bombardment began, or other sources in the region. 

To illustrate, look back at what Indian newspapers reported during the brief ceasefire when Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were exchanged for Israelis held hostage by Hamas after the October 7 attack. Most reports that appeared in our newspapers, which were reprinted from western sources, focussed on the Israelis who had been released. We read who they were and some of what they experienced while held captive. But there was next to nothing about the young Palestinians who were released in the exchange. These Palestinians had been held in Israeli prisons without trial. Their lives had been upended. They saw no hope of ever being released. Their stories also needed to be heard. But in India, we heard only one side. 

Occasionally, you come across reports like this one, taken from Reuters. It tells us that even those who survived the relentless bombing by Israel that has already killed around 18,000 Palestinians, many of them children, now face the prospect of the spread of diseases that will result in more deaths. It quotes data from the World Health Organisation that between November 29 and December 10, incidents of diarrhoea in children under 5 years have increased by 66 percent. In the absence of clean water or healthcare, these children might not survive the inevitable dehydration. Also, according to the WHO, 21 out of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are now closed.  

A notable exception in Indian media was Frontline magazine. It made the Israel war on Gaza its cover story in its November 17 issue, and for this, it was trolled by supporters of the government. It has continued to carry informative reports on the war.

Why are we seeing this partial and one-sided coverage in our media? One explanation is the dependence on western news agencies and newspapers for foreign news. If you look at the world news page in any newspaper, most reports are attributed to these sources. Practically no newspaper in India can now afford to send correspondents to provide direct coverage of such a conflict. Inevitably, this means that Indian readers get international news through the filter of a western perspective.

In the 1970s, there was talk of a New International Information Order, and some attempts were made to set up news agencies staffed by journalists from the Global South who could bring a different perspective to world news. Most of these efforts failed due to a lack of funding. As a result, we are back to our dependence on western news sources for news of developments outside our borders.

Even if this reality cannot be changed, is mainstream Indian media compelled to follow the line taken by the government on foreign policy issues? You would think not, given that we are constantly reminded that there is freedom of the press in this country. Yet, a survey of Indian media would show that, by and large, it toes the line of the government. 

This has been especially obvious recently in the coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Modi government has chosen to back Israel, going against India’s historical support for Palestine (although in the last days, it has modified its stance and voted for a ceasefire in the UN General Assembly). 

The one-sided reporting on the Israel-Palestine war, which has galvanised protests around the world demanding a ceasefire, and continues to be the lead story in media in many countries, also illustrates a deeper fault line in our media, linked to the business model of mainstream media. For several decades, we have watched “news” that sells the “product” gaining dominance, while other events and developments deemed too far or not of interest to readers or viewers are either ignored, or barely noted.  

Thus, for instance, Manipur was in the news for a short while when the extent of violence in a state caught in a civil war just could not be ignored. But today, it has virtually disappeared from our news pages. Nothing is normal in that state. Yet, we read next to nothing about it. 

Similarly, look at the coverage of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the abrogation of Article 370. The region affected by it is Jammu and Kashmir. Most newspapers carried details about the judgement, learned interpretations of it, some opinions – both critical and supportive, and statements made by a few politicians from the region. And all major newspapers printed the identical article by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the judgement. 

But so far, there is practically nothing about how ordinary people in Kashmir feel about the ruling. Those who want to know have either reached out to people they know or read their guarded comments on social media. Guarded because of the fear that pervades the region since 2019.  

A rare and brave article that has appeared, predictably, on an independent digital news platform rather than in any of our national newspapers is this one written by Toufiq Rashid in The Wire. Titled “Why there is silence in Kashmir over the Supreme Court’s verdict,” this beautifully written, and evocative article is worth reading not just once but several times. Let me quote just one paragraph:

“The silence in Kashmir is loud and deafening and its people are isolated. Kashmir continues to be the paradise it was, people continue to remain the best hosts you will have but we are far from happy. With every passing day, as the voices in Kashmir are muffled, we are stepping closer and closer to complete political alienation.”

It is in these pockets of silence – Kashmir, Manipur, our tribal belts, the areas that seem entrenched forever “below poverty line” – that the real stories of what is happening in this country lie. These are the stories that we in the media need to report, and through them inform the comfortable that there are millions who are afflicted.

Even if we argue that the sorrows and tribulations of the people who are still alive in Gaza are some distance from us, what is our excuse for not keeping the focus on the areas engulfed in silence within our own boundaries?

The answer is so obvious that it does not need repeating. 

In the war zone

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 20, 2014

inShare

AFP Children flee from the war zone. Photo: AFP

 

 

There is a photograph that has appeared in most newspapers around the world. It is of a young Palestinian boy, no older than 10 or 11, weeping inconsolably. His father was one of the hundreds who was killed in the brutal bombing of Gaza by the Israeli armed forces during this month when the residents of that area are praying and fasting.

In this escalation of hostilities in one of the world’s most volatile of regions, this nameless boy, and thousands of children like him, force us to face the ugly truth — that wars kill children, not a few, but millions. They wound children. And they leave them bereft and scarred for life.

Earlier this month, the United Nations released its annual report on children and armed conflict. It makes depressing reading. It documents the ever-expanding arena of war and conflict, between and within countries. It states that armed conflict has ‘a disproportionate impact on children’ and that indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas as well as the use of terror tactics was taking a worrying toll on children.

The report also reminds us that despite campaigns to stop using children, national armies and armed groups continue to recruit young children. The UN report says that last year, children were used in 23 conflict situations around the world. It gives a long list of countries where this is happening and specifically names 51 armed groups that continue to use children.

Apart from Palestine, almost every day we are reminded about what war and conflict do to children. Remember the 223 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria abducted by the armed rebel group Boko Haram? It is now three months and they have still not been released. On July 13, the leader of the group released a video where he mocked the efforts of people like the brave Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai to negotiate their release. What is happening to these girls? Will they ever return? And if they do, will they be able to deal with what they have been through?

The UN report also gives us a glimpse of this aspect of war and children, that of sexual violence that boys and girls face. We do not know what is happening to those girls in Nigeria. What is already documented is the violence that children are facing in places like Syria, where there appears no end to the war. The UN report mentions that apart from repeated sexual harassment of women and girls at government checkpoints, there are reports of the abduction of young women and girls in groups at checkpoints. These girls are then released a few days later and sent back to their villages, thereby ‘intentionally exposing them as victims of rape and subjecting them to rejection by their families.’

Children are killed, kidnapped, forced to fight. But apart from that, in on-going conflicts, such as the situation between Palestine and Israel, they live under the daily cloud of violence, where the ordinary routine of daily life like going to school become impossible.

Here is a quote from the UN report about the situation in the West Bank last year. Change the year to 2014, and you will get a sense of what has become a frequent, almost permanent, state of affairs in Palestine: “Fifty-eight education-related incidents affecting 11,935 children were reported in the West Bank, resulting in damage to school facilities, interruption of classes and injury to children. Forty-one incidents involved Israeli security forces operations near or inside schools, forced entry without forewarning, the firing of tear gas canisters and sound bombs into school yards and, in some cases, structural damage to schools. In 15 of the incidents, Israeli security forces fired tear gas canisters into schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), some during class hours, without forewarning. In a majority of instances, schoolchildren and teachers were delayed or prevented from going to school owing to checkpoints, areas closed for military operations or exercises, military patrols in front of schools and preventive closures by the Israel Defense Forces. In 32 cases, teachers and children were arrested inside the school, at checkpoints or on their way to school.”

Like that boy in the photograph, generations of young children in Palestine and elsewhere do not know what it is like to simply go to school, to study, to dream of a better future.

(To read the original, click here.)

Voice of sanity

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, December 8, 2013

The Hindu Palestinian author Suad Amiry. Photo: Meeta Ahlawat

 

This has been quite a fortnight for Indian women, and for some Indian men. Two young women have focussed national attention on the misuse of power, on sexual harassment at the workplace and on the challenges of pursuing cases of sexual assault.

We have also watched the game of competitive politics muddying an issue that should have remained firmly focused on issues of gender. Instead, helped largely by some sections of the media, it has deteriorated into a slanging match, of a kind that is all too familiar in this election season.

Amid all the heat and noise generated, what did we forget? Plenty. For one, we forgot that the issue was violence against women. We forgot, that it is not just these two women but thousands like them who can never speak up because the predators are in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, men they know and even trust. And we in the media forgot that going for the overkill on one case will do nothing to educate our readers and viewers about the reality of sexual violence that women confront.

In the midst of all this madness, it was a relief and inspiring to listen to a voice of sanity. To a woman who can tell you something about the insanity of living daily under the cloud of violence. About the ability of women to work around this state of madness. And about how, despite life’s grimness, you can have a sense of humour.

The woman I refer to is the remarkable Palestinian writer and architect, Suad Amiry. She was in India at the end of last month to release her new book, Golda slept here (published by Women Unlimited).

Amiry is an architect. Her organisation, Riwaq, has done amazing work in restoring and conserving heritage buildings in Palestine. These structures have been restored to create spaces for the local community who live in a perpetual state of siege. Riwaq has created over one hundred such “spaces for change”, as she calls them.

When you listen to Amiry, you get a new perspective on survival, on how to deal with adversity, on how to make people laugh even though what you narrate is heart-wrenchingly tragic.

Born in Damascus to a Syrian mother and Palestinian father, Amiry chose to make her home in Ramallah, on the West Bank. And in addition to her work as a restoration architect, she began to write about living in Palestine where, as she says, you have to forget about logic because “nothing makes sense”. Amiry says she also realised that Palestinians speak about their collective loss but hardly ever about personal loss. Her latest book records the stories of Palestinians who had owned and lived in beautiful homes in Jerusalem but who, like other Palestinians, were turned into refugees overnight in 1948 when Jerusalem was divided. Some of them moved to East Jerusalem, others further, to other cities, other countries.

In 1967, when the Israelis occupied East Jerusalem and made it, once again, one city, many of these Palestinians thought they would be entitled to recover their properties. Instead, they found their homes occupied by Israeli families. What hurt the most was that these families had no idea of the past, of the people who had designed and built these beautiful homes, who had lived in them for generations, and who had to abandon them not out of choice but because of the force of circumstances. As if that was not enough, under Israeli law, these Palestinian home owners were considered “absentee” landlords and therefore had no rights over their own property.

Of course, these stories are familiar from the Partition between India and Pakistan and in other parts of the world where forceful displacements of people have taken place. But the poignancy of the stories that Amiry recounts in her book are special because these are people who now live in the same city, they are not “absent” and yet the law will not acknowledge their presence. As architect Andoni Baramki, who built many beautiful buildings in Jerusalem tells the judge hearing his case for repossession of his home, “Sir, the Palestinians are ‘absentees’ only because you do not allow them to be present. And those of us who are present are considered absent. We can never win.”

Indeed, nothing makes sense in Palestine. Except the lives of those who survive, who “lost the pillars for a sane life, a profound foundation called HOME,” as Amiry puts it. Yet who continue to fight and to hope. They have much to teach us. 

(To read the original, click here.)