Media in the Modi era: How did India’s watchdog press become so docile?

Published on Scroll.in on June 16, 2017

India is talking about the 1975 Emergency again even as its 42nd anniversary, on June 25, hovers around the corner. Some people believe that freedom of the press is endangered once again. Yet how many people are really bothered about the freedom of the press? 

This is a question that was often asked during the Emergency. The answer then was: not many. It is possible that even today, if a survey were to be taken, that would be the answer. In the order of priorities in India, press freedom does not rank very high.

But the principal lesson from the Emergency was that while the absence of an inquiring and free press made no difference to the moneyed classes who were pleased that trains ran on time, for the poor, who are voiceless at the best of times, there was a void that swallowed up their tale of increased oppression. There were whispers about forced sterilisation, about ruthless slum demolitions, about increasing hunger and deprivation, but there were no reports on this in the media.

In the end, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi chose to believe the censored press that reported only the good news and what she wanted to hear. She called for elections in 1977 confident that the people, especially the poor, loved her. Yet ultimately it was the poor, in whose name she suspended fundamental rights, who turned against her. The full truth about their oppression during the Emergency only surfaced after press censorship was lifted.

Emergency vs undeclared Emergency

If there is any comparison between 1975-’77 and now, it is surely only in the fact that even without censorship, many stories of the way the poor are suffering do not find space in the mainstream media. The plight of the poor only becomes front-page news when they protest and are shot or beaten up. 

It is also clear now, three years into Narendra Modi’s term as prime minister, that his government does not need to impose any kind of direct censorship on the media. The media, by and large, has already fallen in line. Even documentary films on subjects the government does not like are stopped from being screened at film festivals. However small the critical component of mainstream and other media, this government is not prepared to tolerate any of it. Shut it down, is the clear message.

Many of us in the media are hesitant to navel-gaze at this particular juncture when the government is targeting media that is critical. Yet, the Indian media must ask, how is it that within three years of the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power, it has turned from being adversarial, even hostile at times to the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, to being pliant, even docile, under this government?

‘Clear shift from UPA rule’

After talking to several senior Delhi-based journalists who have covered both the BJP and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance for many years, an interesting picture has emerged.

Those who covered the two terms of the UPA recalled how critical even those who were generally supportive of the government were during that time. Every new scheme introduced by the government was looked at closely – the media discussed whether these schemes could work, reporters checked on rural employment guarantee programmes, on government efforts to end open defecation, on urban renewal programmes, and often exposed shortcomings.

In the three years since the Modi government came to power, such investigations are few and far between. Take for instance the Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana, where families below the poverty line are given an LPG connection with the upfront payment waived. Hoardings around India, depicting Modi’s face, announce that his government has saved women from being slowly poisoned by smoke from wood-based stoves by this woman-friendly gesture. 

Yet, where are the stories checking whether such a scheme is practical, or even working on the ground? Some business papers have uncritically carried reports based on a survey by a company called MicroSave Asia, which gave glowing accounts of how the scheme was benefitting women. 

So far, I have only come across one story that tells it like it is – a report on this website by Dhirendra K Jha. After talking to the supposed beneficiaries of the scheme, Jha shows how impractical it is to expect families below the poverty line to have the money to pay Rs 650 or more for a gas cylinder even if the first one – as well as the stove – are given to them free of cost through a loan. 

Far from the “healthier, happier women” depicted in the MicroSave survey, many women who signed up for the Ujjwala scheme are returning to using wood for fuel.

Access denied

While decisions about investigating the reality behind government schemes often rests with editors, what is happening to journalists whose job it is to report on the government and major political parties? 

Like most capital cities around the world, Delhi is a city of patronage. Journalists work hard to build contacts. Newspaper editors and owners value journalists with important contacts. They prove useful not just in terms of getting stories, but also in helping owners gain access to the government at crucial junctures (remember the Niira Radia tapes?). Therefore cultivating these contacts is part of the game of journalism for journalists based in Delhi, or for that matter in any state capital. None of that has changed with the present government. What is different, however, say journalists, is that in the past, even if they belonged to a news organisation that was critical of the ruling party, ministers, bureaucrats and members of the ruling party would talk to them. Today these insiders are much more cautious. 

One journalist pointed out that before the Uttar Pradesh elections earlier this year, it was still possible to find people within the ruling party who would express some critical views about the way the BJP functioned, even if it was off the record. But since the saffron party’s stunning electoral victory in India’s most populous state, such talk has virtually dried up.

One senior journalist pointed out that today to get any information, they have to work much harder. For instance, they have to haunt the BJP office even if important functionaries are not present in the hope that over time someone would talk. These journalists say that there was greater access in the past.

While press conferences conducted by the official BJP spokespersons are usually quite cordial, and even those asking difficult questions are given time, this is not so during media interactions with BJP president Amit Shah. Since the big Uttar Pradesh win earlier this year, he has become even ruder with those he considers to be critics, usually asking them to shut up instead of answering their questions. The rest of the media fraternity present shows little solidarity with the journalist so treated.

The bureaucracy is also much more guarded while meeting journalists. They can cover routine matters, but attempts to try and dig into what is actually going on, what gets discussed at cabinet meetings, how decisions are taken, who is in favour and who is not, possible cabinet reshuffles – basically the grist of much political reporting from Delhi – throws up precious little.

Those who have access are the ones clearly on the side of the government. They report the good news – all the schemes are working spectacularly, the economy is doing well, demonetisation has had no negative impact, and achhe din (good days) are just around the corner. The negatives are reserved for bashing the Opposition, or whatever little there is of it.

All is (not) well

So the ordinary media viewer or reader is led to believe that all is well barring a few stray incidents – a lynching here or there, a few protests, a passing communal incident. 

This clever strategy has worked because the media too has played along. Individual journalists have bought into the government’s propaganda and owners of media houses have sent a message down the line that too much criticism of the government is unwarranted. So censorship? Who needs it?

Incidentally, most of my observations relate to print media. I am not even touching on the insanity that has taken over television news where the line between reality and hysteria has been erased.

To end, let me quote India’s wise and prescient Vice President Hamid Ansari. At the release of a special edition of the National Herald in Bengaluru on June 12, he said: 

“In this age of ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ where ‘advertorials’ and ‘response features’ edge out editorials, we would do well to recall Nehru’s vision of the press playing its role as a watchdog in a democracy.”

But when the executive has figured out a way not to be watched, can the media be a watchdog?

NDTV raids: The BJP’s saffron-tinted view of India has no room for a watchdog media

Published in Scroll.in on June 5, 2017


reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

The message to critics is clear: We are watching you and will find ways to silence you.

There has always been an uneasy relationship between the state and the media. This was reiterated by Monday’s raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation on various establishments owned by NDTV co-founder and executive chairperson Prannoy Roy – reportedly for defaulting on a loan that the television company claimed had actually been repaid seven years ago.

That this government will seek ways to intimidate its critics within the media is not unexpected. Nor is it unique.

In the past too, many governments, at the Centre and in the states, have investigated the financial dealings of media companies in an effort to silence them. They did not need to declare an emergency or impose press censorship to find ways to control or punish the media.

 

Intimidation an old trick

It is easy in these days of instant news to forget the times when media meant essentially the print media and radio, the government-controlled All India Radio. In those days, the government controlled newsprint quotas. The easiest way to punish a recalcitrant media house was to put a squeeze on newsprint supply.

It was also a time when government advertising was important for a newspaper’s finances. There again, the government could decide where to release government tenders and advertisements.

Apart from this, media owners had other businesses on which pressure could be exerted.
These methods were used selectively but the very fact that they were used suggests that the executive has never been comfortable with a critical media.

Today, private corporations control much of the media. But despite liberalisation, the government continues to have the power to put pressure on the media through its owners. There is ample evidence to show how this kind of indirect censorship has worked to suppress news, or to ensure nothing too critical or damaging about the executive is printed.

When and if powerful corporate houses choose to be critical of the government of the day, they can use their media to go all out to attack it. Note for instance the vociferous criticism by many media houses of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his silence in the face of corruption scandals and compare that to the fairly mild comment on the current prime minister’s silence in the face of a growing culture of public lynchings and cow vigilantism by people affiliated to his party.

None of this is to justify the actions of this government. It is only to put it in some perspective that all governments find a questioning media inconvenient, one they must tolerate in a democracy, but one they would ideally like to put in its place.

That NDTV is neck deep in financial trouble is well known. But when raids take place, the dominant narrative is not that NDTV is one of the few channels that has been consistently critical of this government, but that its owners are involved in allegedly crooked financial deals.

 

Uncomfortable ties

This government has made no bones about the fact that it has little time for the media unless it is willing to sing its praises. Its unwillingness to face critical questioning is exemplified by the fact that after three years in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed a single press conference.

Party president Amit Shah has addressed the media, but his impatience has been more than evident. At a press conference in Chandigarh last month, he rudely told journalists to “shut up” and made no bones about his intolerance of critical media questioning.

This government has also shown its willingness to use the Central Bureau of Investigation, its denials notwithstanding, to teach any or all of its opponents a lesson. Whether these opponents are human rights activists like Teesta Setalvad or others, the first step is to call in the agency to investigate alleged financial misdemeanours.

Predictably, the focus shifts to whether the individuals being investigated are really involved in some illegality and not why some individuals are being investigated and not others. Or to the real message to critics behind such actions: we are watching you and will find ways to silence you.

In the case of NDTV, it is clear that neither Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah have forgotten the channel’s coverage of the 2002 Gujarat carnage and the fact that it openly reported on the alleged complicity of the state machinery in allowing the killings to continue. Modi was then the state’s chief minister and Shah a minister in his government. Also, Ravish Kumar, in his popular daily programme Prime Time on NDTV India, has remained a relentless critic of the government and the BJP, although he always manages to lace this with humour and sarcasm. Thus, one would not put it past this government to find ways to cripple NDTV, intimidate it, or shut it down altogether.

Given the cutthroat rivalry between media houses, it is unlikely that any of them will raise this issue as one concerning freedom of the press or circulate petitions supporting NDTV. All media houses are vulnerable if their financial dealings are investigated. They cannot take the chance of falling foul of this government.

What we are witnessing today is the typical arrogance of a party that believes it will rule all of India in the near future. Having won the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in March, the BJP is riding high. In its grand vision of a saffron-tinted India, there is no room for a critical, adversarial media.

A Book of Memory and Forgetting

Published in Economic and Political Weekly

Splintered Justice: Living the Horror of Mass Communal Violence in Bhagalpur and Gujarat by Warisha Farasat and Prita Jha; New Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2016, pp 221, Rs 500 (paperback).

Does anyone even remember the communal violence that tore apart Bhagalpur in Bihar in 1989?  According to official estimates, around 250 villages and 50,000 people were affected.  The official death toll was estimated to be over 900 although the unofficial toll was higher.  It was familiar story because it had happened before.  And since then it has happened again.  And will do so in the future.

The partition of India after the British left is now history.  But every day there are partitions taking place in independent India, where people who have coexisted, tolerated difference, even celebrated it, are now being forced into separate territories, their differences highlighted and exacerbated by a dominant politics that has given a new twist to the old divide and rule policy of the British.

Why is it important to record these divisions, these conflicts that recur with such worrying frequency?  Would it not be better to erase these memories and look ahead? 

The writers of this book demonstrate convincingly why incidents of mass violence must be recorded and followed up.  If they are not, then history will only remember the version of the victors while the victims will continue to remain voiceless, unheard, without justice.

In this regard, the book under review serves an important purpose.  It is a record of the communal killings in Bhagalpur in 1989, and in Gujarat 2002. But instead of going over familiar ground, the authors help us understand the legacy of such mass violence.  These recorded memories show us the costs of a broken criminal justice system and the price that victims of mass violence continue to pay for decades.

Although a great deal has been written about the mass violence in Gujarat in 2002, not that much is known about Bhagalpur. Yet, this is a good time to remember it as the issues that triggered the violence are alive today, and are likely to be ratcheted up in the next two years leading up to the next general election in 2019.  In fact, with the Supreme Court having ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to speed up hearings in the two cases on the destruction of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992, the central controversy over the building of the Ram temple on the site of the demolished mosque will remain alive.

Fertiliser of Communalism

Bhagalpur happened before the Babri Masjid was destroyed.  It was one of the many incidents of rioting triggered by the frenzy that the Sangh Parivar built up by mobilising Hindus on the Ram temple issue.  While the embers of the communal killings in Bhagalpur were still glowing, L. K. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a rath yatra to build up support for the temple in September 1990. It culminated in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 when thousands of kar sevaks converged on the Babri Masjid and carried out their well laid plan to destroy it even as senior BJP leaders, including Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati stood by watching and even cheering.

The commission of inquiry set up by the Bihar government to look at the Bhagalpur riots in 1990 concluded that the Ram temple movement was the trigger that set off the killings and that it was "acting as a fertiliser to give nourishment to the soil of Indian communalism" (p28-29).  The commission also noted the failure of the district administration and the police to control the fraught situation in Bhagalpur.

One of the authors, Warisha Farasat, a trained lawyer, visited Bhagalpur in March 2011, 22 years later, to find that the "wounds are still raw, the hearts charred" (p 31).  Farasat sought out men and women who remembered what happened, who had witnessed the killings, who had attempted to seek justice through the legal system, and who were left only with bitter memories. As in other similar situations after a communal massacre, some of the victims decided to go back to their own villages while others moved on, fearful of returning to a place where even trusted neighbours had turned on them.

The exercise of looking at Bhagalpur and Gujarat together establishes several common threads. Irrespective of the party in power in the state or the centre, the system followed a similar pattern. At the time of the Bhagalpur killings, there was a Congress government at the centre headed by Rajiv Gandhi and a Congress government in Bihar headed by Satyendra Narayan Sinha.  In Gujarat in 2002, when the communal violence occurred, the BJP was in power in the state with Narendra Modi as Chief Minister and a National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee was at the centre.  In both instances, the party in the state and the centre were the same.

Yet, whether it was a Congress government or a BJP government, the state machinery was equally irresponsive. In both Bhagalpur and Gujarat, the cases filed after the riots by the victims mostly failed and were delayed for so long as to lose any meaning. In both places, victims had similar experiences in the course of seeking justice. For instance, they had a hard time getting FIRs recorded by an unsympathetic police.  Even if they succeeded, they would find later that the information in them was either wrong or incomplete. There were several instances of omnibus FIRs that clubbed the complaints of several victims together even if individually, these men and women had identified their killers by name, as they were people known to them.

Indifferent Prosecution

Many cases were closed because an indifferent prosecution did not put forward a convincing argument while the accused had private lawyers with the ability to browbeat and intimidate the witnesses.  Even where cases were reopened, through the intervention of civil society groups as in Gujarat, or by a different state government as in the Bihar under Nitish Kumar, many of the original witnesses had either turned hostile and were unwilling to testify, or had died, thereby weakening the cases. 

In both Bhagalpur and Gujarat, the story of inadequate compensation for loss of life and property is virtually identical.  In many cases, the information that should have been in the FIRs was simply not there because the police had not recorded it.  There were no surveys to assess damage apart from loss of life, and no one informed the victims of the processes they needed to undertake to access the compensation.  As a result, only a small percentage of the affected actually received the compensation to which they were legally entitled even if these amounts were far from sufficient and did not compensate for the real losses that they had incurred.

The book records the Gujarat government's shocking decision to differentiate between the victims of the Godhra train fire, all Hindus, and of the subsequent killings, all Muslims.  While the families of the former were given Rs 2 lakh, the families of the killings that followed Godhra were given only Rs 1 lakh.  Only after an uproar and civil society intervention did the government concede that both should receive equal amounts, fixed at Rs 1.5 lakh.

In Bhagalpur, where civil society presence was minimal and only one human rights group, the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) sent a team to study and record the incidents of sexual violence, the fate of the victims was even worse.  In moving testimonies recorded by Farasat, we hear the hopelessness of people who have lost everything -- members of their family, their homes, the tools of their trade -- and given practically nothing by way of compensation. 

In the chapter titled, "The Unhealed Wounds of Bhagalpur", Farasat relates the case of Ali Ahmad of Shahpur Tamouni.  Both his parents were killed by a Hindu mob.  Seven months later, he received a cheque of Rs 3,500 as compensation. "That was the value the state put on two human being killed", writes Farasat (p 89).  Nothing was given to him for the 20 cows and bulls, the agricultural machinery and other valuable and household items that they had lost.

When the Bihar government under Nitish Kumar reopened some of the Bhagalpur cases in 2006, people did receive higher compensation.  But many missed out on this as they did not have the requisite paper work, nor did they know what they should do to avail of the higher amount.  The state too did not help as much as it could have. For instance, even though the government's policy acknowledges that an FIR is not the only proof of murder, and that other evidence must also be taken into account, in compensation cases for loss of life, only the FIR is accepted.  This is despite knowing that in communal riots, police simply do not register FIRs.

The strength of this book is that it does not depend only on secondary information.  It is a follow up to an earlier study by the Centre for Equity Studies based on legal documents, several obtained through Right to Information (RTI) applications.  They looked at Nellie, 1983; Delhi, 1984; Bhagalpur, 1989 and Gujarat, 2002.  This information was assembled in the book "On Their Watch: Mass Violence and State Apathy in India" (Chopra, Jha, 2014). The book under review goes further by including the testimonies of the victims of Bhagalpur and Gujarat recorded by the authors. 

Role of Judiciary

An important point that Prita Jha makes in her section on Gujarat is the role of the judiciary.  Not all judges were hostile, as victims told the writers.  In fact, many felt that the only people sympathetic and willing to listen to their story during the court hearings were the judges as the police was usually hostile, the prosecutors unhelpful and the defence aggressive. 

Jha mentions the remarkable judgment delivered on 29 August 2012 by Jyotsna Patnaik in the Naroda Patiya case in which 97 Muslims were killed in one day.  Patnaik convicted 32 people, including Maya Kodnani, a minister in Modi's government, and Babu Bajrangi of the Bajrang Dal. In her historic judgment, Patnaik calls 28 February 2002, the beginning of the Gujarat violence, as "the day of a cyclone of violence, one of the black chapters in the history of democratic India when violation of human rights and Constitutional rights was publicly done by the assaulters on the victims" (p 167).

In the course of the trial, Patnaik was aware of the problems victims faced in registering their cases with the state machinery and intervened often to ensure that victims would be able to speak instead of being bullied by the defence.  In doing this she was implementing the spirit of the 2004 Supreme Court directive in the Best Bakery case relating to the killing of 14 Muslims. Both the trial court in Vadodara and the Gujarat High Court had absolved all those accused, as the main witness had turned hostile. After going through the proceedings of the courts in Gujarat, the apex court ordered a retrial in a fast track court in Maharashtra headed by Justice Abhay Mahadeo Thipsay, who recognised that the investigation into the case had been defective.  He convicted nine of the accused.   

In its 2004 judgment, the apex court criticised the Gujarat High Court judge who heard the case and also the investigation and prosecution of the case by the state machinery. Justice Arijit Prasayat's observations on the role of a judge in a criminal trial are as pertinent today as they were when the judgment was delivered.  He said,

"If a criminal court is to be an effective instrument in dispensing justice, the presiding judge must cease to be a spectator and a mere recording machine by becoming a participant in the trial evincing intelligence, active interest and elicit all relevant material necessary for reaching the correct conclusion, to find out the truth and administer justice with fairness and impartiality both to the parties and to the community it serves. Courts administering criminal justice cannot turn a blind eye to vexatious or oppressive conduct that has occurred in relation to proceedings" (p 165).

There is a great deal of thoughtful material in this slim book and given the times we live in, what it contains becomes all the more relevant.  Apart from the way in which complicit state authorities have permitted these incidents of mass violence to rage on, the criminal justice system and an unsympathetic state machinery revisits violence on the people who have already suffered it.  This has to be fixed.

Reference:

Chopra, Surabhi and Prita Jha, 2014; On Their Watch: Mass Violence and State Apathy in India, New Delhi: Three Essays Collective.

Sahayak sting: The Army has a few questions to answer – but so does the media

Published in Scroll.in

Should the media discuss the question of ethics and sting operations when a journalist has been slapped with a draconian law like the Official Secrets Act? Or will such a discussion undermine the position of a journalist who was trying to unearth a story?

In my view, these are not mutually exclusive choices. So even as the Army’s response in the case involving the expose of the sahayak system is unwarranted, I believe some introspection by the media on the means used to expose certain stories should also be discussed.

On March 28, the Nashik police filed a First Information Report against Poonam Agarwal, associate editor, investigations, of The Quint, a news website, based on a complaint it received from the Army. This was in response to Agarwal’s story of February 24, exposing the sahayak or orderly system that continues to operate in the Army despite the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence that it be scrapped.

Under this system, soldiers are assigned to senior Army officers and are expected to assist them. Such assistance, however, has been extended to getting these men to do all kinds of personal and even menial jobs.

 

The investigation

Agarwal says she got the idea for the story when Lance Nayak Yagya Pratap Singh posted a video on his Facebook page on January 13 complaining about the sahayak system. Agarwal established contacts that led her to the Deolali cantonment of the Indian Army in Maharashtra’s Nashik district.

Using a hidden camera, she recorded the testimonies of some of these sahayaks. Her report and video were published on February 24. Three days later, she sent the link to the Army with an email asking questions about the sahayak system and whether the Army intended to end it as recommended by the parliamentary committee.

The Army public relations officer, Aman Anand, responded to each of her questions and explained that the sahayak system was “an instrument of team building”. He also wrote that any “ill treatment” of a subordinate was an offence under the Army Act.

This exchange took place a few days before the body of Lance Naik Roy Mathew, one of the men Agarwal had interviewed, was found hanging in an abandoned shed in the cantonment. It was suspected he had committed suicide although his family has alleged foul play.

Since then, there have been several developments leading up to the FIR against Agarwal, but not against the senior editors of the website that employs her who would have cleared her story.

 

Inconsistencies by Army

One of the major inconsistencies in statements by the Army, and the complainant, on the basis of which the FIR was lodged, was whether the identities of the men interviewed were exposed in the video. Agarwal has stated that their identity had been adequately masked. The Ministry of Defence, in a press release dated March 3, reiterates this and states:

“The identities of the Army personnel involved in the clipping was hidden, and thereby not known to the Army. Hence, there is no question of any inquiry that could have been ordered against the deceased.”

Yet, Lance Naik Naresh Kumar Amitchand Jatav, who filed the police complaint about Agarwal on March 27, and acknowledges that he is a sahayak, says that he was summoned by senior officers on February 25, a day after the video was published on The Quint’s website.

He says he saw the video on February 24 and that his face was blurred in it. Therefore, if the Army did not know the identities of the men in the video, why was Jatav summoned? Was Roy Mathew also similarly summoned?

Jatav says the officers admonished him but let him go. But in the course of the questioning, they got him to reveal who facilitated Agarwal’s entry into the campus. According to the complaint, she came with a Kargil war veteran, Deep Chand, who introduced her to the soldiers as his relative.

The details of this entire episode appear here and here.

The video that ostensibly led to all this was taken off The Quint’s website following Roy’s suicide, and this writer has not seen it.

 

A few questions

While this case will continue to unravel, it is already evident that there are many unanswered questions. But given the iron wall built around the armed forces, and the ultra-nationalist hype that dominates the public discourse in India today, any questions about the Army and its conduct will be predictably be dubbed as “anti-national”. We might never know the full truth.

Still, there are a couple of questions that the Army needs to answer.
First, why has the Army reacted in this way by using the Official Secrets Act, one of the most draconian laws, against a journalist? After all, the sahayak system is not a state secret. It is already under scrutiny.

Second, how did the officers in Deolali know which men had spoken to Agarwal if, on its own admission, the Army accepts that their identities were blurred in the video? Did it question other sahayaks, apart from Jatav who filed the complaint? How would we know whether these men were threatened with a court martial or some other punishment?

 

Media ethics

At the same time, there are some other questions that need to be addressed by the media in general and The Quint in particular.

Some in the media have justified the use of hidden cameras and recorders saying that this was the only way to expose the powerful. Some of the instances cited to support the claim are Operation West End, the sting operation carried out by Tehelka magazine in 2001, exposing defence deals and the nexus with politicians, as well as journalist-turned-politician Ashish Khetan’s sting on former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi that established their role in the 2002 Gujarat massacre.

However, this type of journalism, if it can even be called that, remains highly debatable, as there have been many major media exposes where such methods have not been used.
What is relevant in this instance is that given the powerlessness of the sahayaks within the Indian Army, is it right to use the sting tactic on them, even if their faces are blurred? In a tightly-monitored space like an Army cantonment, it is unlikely that men who have identified themselves as sahayaks could have escaped being identified.

Also, while Lance Nayak Yagya Pratap Singh, who complained about the sahayak system on his Facebook page, did so knowing the risks, Roy Mathew and the other soldiers who appeared in The Quint’s video, had no idea that they were being filmed. Was getting the story more important than ensuring that they were not penalised?

Even though the Army is powerful, and virtually impossible to penetrate, should the most vulnerable in its ranks be the subjects of a sting operation in order to expose the system? Surely the media must be ultra cautious about using such techniques, whatever the justification, if it means exposing the weak to risks they cannot handle, and that too without their consent.

So even as journalists, especially the Network of Women in Media with which this writer is associated, have rallied behind Agarwal and protested the use of the Official Secrets Act against her, the media needs to question the use of hidden cameras against the powerless.

40 years since the end of the Emergency

It is now 40 years since the end of the Emergency promulgated by Indira Gandhi on June 26, 1975.  It ended when in the general elections on March 21, 1977, she and the Congress Party were thrown out and the Janata Party won by an overwhelming majority.

It is a time many of us will never forget, especially the night of March 21 when the counting on ballots was taking place.  There were no electronic machines then. Ballots had to be counted physically.  And there were no 24-hour news channels to breathlessly follow the results.  So we could only stand outside counting centres and wait as someone came out and announced who was in the lead.

I remember standing with friends outside my old college, Elphinstone College in Kala Ghoda.  It was the counting centre for south Bombay.  We were all rooting for a man we had never heard of earlier, and most of us had never seen him.  His name was Ratansih Rajda of the Janata Party.  All I remember about him is that he always wore a white safari suit!

The excitment grew as the counting built up to a crescendo late into the evening and Rajda was declared elected!

By then, those of us in newspapers had gathered that there was a Janata wave of sorts through the ticker copy on PTI and UNI.  But the full extent of the victory was only known the next morning, when almost all the votes had been counted.

It is hard to describe the euphoria.  Most of us had not slept at all that night.  People were standing outside all the counting centres.  In south Bombay, people hung around Marine Drive and soon celebrations began.

For many of us, this election was our first where we actually felt involved in the political process.

I was reminded of all this today as Naresh Fernandes, editor of Scroll.in posted an article I wrote about Himmat and the Emergency.  Here's the link for those who did not read it earlier:

https://scroll.in/article/735844/himmat-during-the-emergency-when-the-press-crawled-some-refused-to-even-bend

When a "womel" replaced a "manel"

 

If all-male panels are called "manels", what should we call an all-woman panel?  Womels? 

People, meaning even well-intentioned men, get irritated when women remind them that it is possible to attempt some kind of gender balance when organising panel discussions on a range of subjects.  But the norm remains virtually unchanged.  If the discussion is about women's issues, children, health, the elderly or other so-called societal issues, there is a preponderance of women on the panel.  But if the topic is politics, business, foreign affairs, defence and even law, women are rare or non-existent.

During the extended election process to five state assemblies that concluded earlier this month on March 11, the majority of commentators on television channels were men.  There were women, some of the regulars.  The anchors were sometimes women.  But the majority on any panel discussing the elections were never women.

No wonder the exception stood out.  And not surprisingly, the person to break the norm was Ravish Kumar of NDTV India, the indefatigable journalist who continues to dare the establishment, break the norms of the dominant forms we see in mainstream television journalism, and yet survives!

On March 9, when all the other television channels were going ballistic over the exit polls, Ravish Kumar hosted a "womel", an all woman panel of journalists who had covered the elections and were experienced political reporters.  The women journalists on the panel were Neha Dixit, independent journalist, Sunita Aron from Hindustan Times, Vandita Mishra from Indian Express, Supriya Sharma from Scroll.in and Poornima Joshi from BusinessLine.

Ravish Kumar deliberately decided to ignore the exit polls and instead drew out these journalists on the issues that faced the electorate in the different states that went to the polls.  The programme was informative, there was no shouting and screaming, no butting in or cutting off the participants.  The anchor gave each person adequate time to make their point.  In the end, the viewer came away with an enhanced understanding of the issues that underline the electoral process and that go beyond just the counting of the votes and the results.

In the last decade and more, scores of women journalists have been covering politics.  Unlike the 1970s and even to some extent the 1980s, no one is surprised today to see women interviewing politicians, covering election rallies, and writing incisive and analytical articles on politics in the print media. 

Yet, on television, although women anchor programmes on politics, and are also reporters, they are still rarely seen as "experts" on the subject.  We have to question this. 

Is it gender blindness on the part of mainstream television channels?  Or are experienced women journalists hesitant about pushing themselves forward even as their male counterparts boast about their contacts and experience, however limited? 

Perhaps it is a combination of the two.  And even if one Ravish Kumar cannot topple dominant norms, his initiative has the potential to do so.

Also posted on NWMI's Gender and Elections Blog.

Erasing history

Here's a small news item that many people would have missed as they browsed their Sunday newspapers looking for more exciting fare.  But it tells you have steadily, and deliberately, the Sangh Parivar is erasing India's history.

The story appeared in the Times of India on March 5, 2017.  In sum it says that a fort, that has been historically established as having been built by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1570, and was always known as "Akbar ka Qila" has been renamed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan as "Ajmer ka Qila and Sangralaya". 

How many more such creeping changes are taking place away from the eyes of the media and a public that fails to notice what's happening?

Elections from a gender perspective

There is a gender angle to elections -- all elections.  A collective of women journalist, the Network of Women in Media, India has set up a blog where we curate and comment on election news from this angle.  It gives fascinating insight not always apparent when you read the news or watch television-- with sole exception of Ravish Kumar's Prime Time on NDTV India.

Here's something I wrote on the civic elections in Nagaland that could not be held on the scheduled date of February 1 because Naga tribal bodies, consisting almost entirely of men, objected to 33 per cent reservation of seats for women, saying it was against their tradition.

https://nwmigenderwatch.wordpress.com/

Why the media fails to "explain" Nagaland

For many people in the rest of India, or the "mainland" as people in the Northeast call it, the current standoff in Nagaland over 33% reservation for women in urban local bodies is puzzling.  There is precious little news about Nagaland on most days.  And when you suddenly read about police firing, deaths, curfew, arson and bandhsytaking place not over the continuing demand for a greater Nagaland, or Nagalim, but over reservation of seats for women in municipal bodies, you have every reason to be puzzled.

This reminds us of our abysmal lack of knowledge about a vast area of India that we dismiss as "the Northeast".  The only news we get from the region is either about insurgency, or about natural disasters. We know next to nothing about the lives of people  -- how ordinary people live, what they eat, their sources of livelihood, whetherthey have adequate water, electricity, or health care.  Furthermore, there is an assumption that women in the entire region are better off than their counterparts elsewhere because people have heard, vaguely, that one tribe in one state in northeast India, the Khasis in Meghalaya, has a matrilineal society. 

It has to be said, though, that at least this time, some mainstream newspapers have taken the trouble to explain what is happening in Nagaland such as in this piece in Indian Express.  However, the article misses out the mainpoint made in the article mentioned below about the centrality of women's fight for justice and equal rights.

Few clearer pieces have been written about the issues underlying the current crisis in Nagaland than this one by Monalisa Changkija, editor of Nagaland Page, in the Indian Express.  

Monalisa is a writer, poet, journalist and the only woman editor of a daily newspaper in Nagaland.  She lives in Dimapur.  A beautifully laid out garden leads to her tasteful home that is full of paintings and books.  She has always been outspoken and her newspaper is known for its independent stand on a number of tricky issues in a state where journalists have to tread carefully betweengovernments, state and central, on one side, and the different militant groups on the other.  

The key point she makes in her article is that Nagaland's patriarchal traditional society fears the forces of change that more women in institutions of governance would inevitably unleash.  She writes:

"...the fear is that women would finally have a say in how resources are used and shared in towns, which could then spill over to villages. So far, only men are privy to the utilisation and sharing of resources allotted by the Central and state governments, as also available resources of clan and tribe land ownership. With political powers come economic powers, and with economic powers, political power is reinforced and consolidated, all of which has the potential to disrupt the status quo in Naga society that has marginalised women politically and economically."

In fact, so much of the reporting on Nagaland inmainstream media is about politics and conflict, that practically nothing is known about the long-standing battle of the women of the state for equal rights.  In a piece I wrote in Scroll.in last year after spending a couple of weeks in Nagaland, I had observed:

"At first glance, Naga women do not appear oppressed. You meet strong, articulate women, well-known writers, poets, academics and activists. 

You also see women doing backbreaking work in the fields, carrying heavy loads of firewood, cooking, cleaning, weaving or selling vegetables and fruits in markets and by the roadside. 

Yet, a Naga woman cannot call the field in which she works her own, or lay claim to house she manages or even her kitchen garden. If it is ancestral property, she is not entitled to inherit it. 

The only exception is acquired property – parents can gift their daughters land. But after her death, that land will not go to her heirs; it will be returned to her clan. 

For the women in Nagaland, then, the battle is two-pronged – for representation in institutions of governance and for the right to inheritance."

When I met and spoke to Monalisa and other women in Nagaland, the municipal elections were still some time away.  Yet, the issue of 33% reservation for women was already a subject of intense debate. 

On the surface, the debate is about the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the Nagas to preserve theirtraditional structures of governance.  But essentially, as Monalisa explains, it is about property and economic and political rights of women.  Once women have a say in politics -- it has been repeatedly pointed out that not a single woman has been elected to the Nagaland assembly since it became a state in 1963 -- they will also demand greater economic rights, including the right to inherit ancestral property.  That will upset the "tradition" that men have guarded so assiduously all these years. As an editorial in the Economic and Political Weekly pointed out: 

Their struggle also highlights the reluctance of all men, tribal or otherwise, to share with women the power, and one might add the profits, of holding office. 

Should women in the rest of India reach out and express solidarity with Naga women?  This is something Ruben Banerjee raises in his column in Hindustan Times.  He says that "the lack of outrage is by itself outrageous" and suggests that part of the reason is Nagaland's geography and demography and its physical distance from Delhi.  He argues that this "collective indifference has left Naga women hostage to the will of their men."

I would argue that the best form of solidarity in this instance is to ensure that the voices of Naga women like Monalisa are heard in the Indian media, that the perspective they provide is read and understood.  Additionally, we must make a more vigorous effort to ensure that there is greater and substantially diverse coverage of events and developments in Nagaland and the other states in the region at all times, and not only when there is a crisis.

Trying to make sense...

 

I cannot pretend to be an economist.  I know a few basic rules about how economies function, having learned this on the job as a journalist. But when you are faced with Narendra Modi's "nuclear" strike, as someone termed the announcement of November 8 withdrawing Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes, all of us are left with no option but to try and understand something about economics and how these things work.

Over the last month, dozens of "experts" have held forth in the media about "demonetisation", although government babus do not use that term.  Some insist it's a good thing; others say it's a disaster.  Modi promised that this will end the era of black money; economist argue that will barely make a dent.  Modi also said it will be a blow to terror financing; others point out that this might be a temporary hurdle. Modi and some bankers say that this will end counterfeiting of currency notes; others point out that nothing will stop the new notes from being counterfeited. Modi tells us that the rich are spending sleepless nights; others will tell you that the richest are sleeping well knowing that their wealth has already been invested or sent outside India.

The messaging about why the Modi government chose to do this has changed every few days -- from black money to terror financing to counterfeiting and finally to the idea that this will push India into a "cashless" economy. No such economy exists anywhere in the world.  How will India, where most people still deal in cash, suddenly make this transition?

And what about the troubles that people have faced over the last months to access their own money?  Well, there can be no gain without pain, we are told, even if the people suffering are not those involved either in the black economy, or in terror financing. 

I am putting together some of the articles that have helped me to make some sense of all the nonsense that is welling around.  This is a very useful compendium of the views of several economists.

In the early days after the November 8 announcement, several columnists and economists said that all the black money would not return to the banks, hence the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would have a surplus.  This could then be used to finance welfare schemes and even to divide the amount amongst the millions who have opened zero balance accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana. We are now told that nothing of the kind is going to happen, that most of the notes in circulation have already come back to the banks.

As for a cashless economy, which country is Modi talking about?  To be cashless you need not just a bank account but banks within reach, or at least ATMs, you need Internet connectivity, you need electricity to make the ATMs and the Internet work and so on.  In 2009, while I was researching governance in small towns, I went to Madhubani in Bihar.  I noticed a long line near the railway station and presumed people were waiting to buy tickets.  It turned out that they were waiting at one of two ATMs in the town.  By 4 pm each day, the money would run out.  Sometimes there was no electricity for hours, rendering this modern machine useless. 

According to the Indian Express, even places where there is Internet connectivity, there are times when it is switched off.  Since 2014, Internet access has been denied for a total of 250 days to different parts of the country. In Kashmir, between April 14 and September 12 this year, the Internet was blocked six times. The article carries this telling sub-headline: "3 yrs, 12 States, 39 Internet Blackouts: How Hurdle to Govt's Cashless Push is Govt Itself."

In any case, with 1.25 billion people, India has only 343 million Internet users. Compared to China's 50.3% Internet penetration, in India it is only 27%.  And even though there are over 900 million mobile phone connections, there are only 240 million smartphones.  You need one to access Internet, and also online banking and payment systems.  So talk of a "cashless" economy and digital payment platforms addresses the needs of only a small section of our vast population.

Meanwhile, a month after the great pronouncement, there are places in India, like Lakhpat in Kutch, where the old money is doing just fine, but those who live on the margins, like the scrap merchants and the rag pickers in Mumbai, will not recover for a while.  And even those with jobs in factories are getting their salaries in old notes or not at all, according to this report in Indian Express.  Or in Bastar, where the absence of money makes little difference.

No one in government has explained clearly that even after the deadline of December 30, which the RBI hinted at its meeting yesterday could be shifted forwards or backwards, the old notes can still be exchanged.  Most people assume that after December 30, these notes will be nothing more than pieces of paper.

But, as a reader wrote to me in an email: "I am holding British Pounds which are out of circulation. I do not have to worry about it. Even if I go to England after 10 years, and go to Bank of England, they will exchange it anytime. A promise is a promise. You can check the same on Bank of England website which is still open to accepting notes which were printed in 1725!"

And he asks: "Today, I was holding a Rs 1000 note in my hand in USA and it reads: 'I promise to pay to the bearer the sum of Rs. 1000'. RBI governor has signed it. If a person issues a check to anyone and it bounces back, the person issuing the check can be in jail. In the RBI governor's promise, there is no date mentioned in the note. What value is of that promise?"

The confusion, according to Usha Thorat, a former deputy governor of the RBI, arises "because the GOI (government of India) have not notified the last date beyond which it (old currency) cannot be exchanged at RBI counter - neither in the notification issued under Section 26(2) nor in any of RBI circulars
The date found a mention only in PM's speech of Nov 8.  Hence technically notes continue to be a liability - unless an ordinance is brought in or a legislation withdrawing the promise to pay - which according to me is different from the withdrawal of legal tender - in 1978 there was an ordinance followed by an Act of Parliament. There is a legal view that last date for exchange at RBI can be notified under Sec 26(2) itself without new legislation." For more detail on these issues, read this.

Given the rate at which this government is moving the goalposts, no one will be surprised if some excuse is found to change the last date for depositing old notes in scheduled banks.  As Usha Thorat clarified, the RBI has to continue accepting them unless there is a specific law. 

Meanwhile, while the fisherfolk of Lakhpat in Kutch couldn't care less about old or new money, millions of people wait patiently in line to withdraw their own money.  Most of them have still not understood what exactly has happened.  Many think it will finally lead to something good if the rich and the corrupt are taught a lesson.  Sadly, they fail to see that it is the poor who are paying the price while the rich are laughing all the way to the bank, literally. 

Creeping Hindutva

One of the regular readers, and commentators, on this blog, complained to me recently that I have not posted anything for several months.  My apologies.  The writing drought has now ended.  Here is something that has not been published, except here.

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The last month of 2016 began with this headline in Indian Express: "Individual rights don't matter in this case: Two-judge bench.  All cinema halls SHALL play national anthem before film...doors SHOULD remain shut: Supreme Court".  What is happening?  Where is this country heading?

You don't have to be paranoid or unnecessarily alarmist to conclude that we are hurtling towards a future where National and Hindu are merging and Freedom and Secular are disappearing.

The Supreme Court has ordered the playing of the national anthem in all cinema halls across India in order to instil "committed patriotism and nationalism" and doing so would be part of their "sacred obligation".  Why would patriotism or nationalism need to be "committed" and where does "sacred" come into all this?

The judgment also spoke of "constitutional patriotism and inherent national quality", once again something that only the judges can explain.

To me, this kind of judgment comes as no surprise as one has watched with concern the creeping but determined Hinduisation of Indian society, especially since May 2014 when the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi were voted in to power.

Earlier this week, I was at an occasion that should have been, in all respects, a "secular" space as it was celebrating the reading and writing of books.  All kinds of books.  Fiction, non-fiction, children's books, translations from Indian languages, biographies, management, even fitness and health.  The function was held to mark a set of awards judged by a jury and another set of "popular" awards that were decided on the basis of votes from readers.

Alarm bells rang in my head even before the function began as we were informed that one of the important guests present was a functionary of the BJP and a minister in the state government.  Why was someone from the government invited to an occasion about books?

The first few minutes made it clear why.  The evening began with an audio-visual devotional tribute -- representing exclusively Hindu gods.  Lamp lighting, also essentially a Hindu custom, is virtually a norm at many functions in India.  But never before have I seen an outright Hindu devotional opening, almost like going to a temple, at a function that has nothing at all to do with any religion. 

The next item was equally unexpected, and shocking to quite a few of us.  A woman instrumentalist and singer belted out Vande Mataram even as a well-known Kathak dancer pranced around draped in the tri-colours of the Indian flag.  What was this about?  Why Vande Mataram?  If the organisers wanted to establish their "nationalist" credentials, then they could have had "Jana Gana Mana".  The Supreme Court would have approved, given its judgment. But the combination of Vande Mataram and the national flag mean only one thing, celebrating the notion of "nationalism" as propagated by those at the helm of affairs today.

After this dramatic and "patriotic" beginning, it was indeed ironical that the jury choice for the best non-fiction book went to Akshaya Mukul's excellent work, Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India.  In the citation, the jury members did not just commend the research that went into the making of the book but also noted:

"We are made aware of the remarkable energy and tenacity with which Hindu ideologues have pushed the social project of making an India of their imagination. It is also a sobering reminder to many ‘secular’ activists who, probably mistakenly, believe that having a secular constitution is in itself a guarantee of our future as a secular Republic.

In an era of growing majoritarian intolerance, Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India is an important book, a reminder to all of us that making a new society and people is a continuing work in progress."

However, once this award was presented, the rest of the evening veered back towards the direction where it began.  The recipient of one of the popular fiction awards ended his speech with "Jai Sri Ram", the recipient of the popular choice for the best work for children, which was on the Gita, waxed eloquent about the holy book, and a special section at the end was the release of a book of Shivaji.  To lustful cheers from the back of the hall, the first time writer held forth on how wonderful was "Shivaji Maharaj" and how she wanted the whole world to know about him.

The question that comes to my mind is: what is making people bend over backwards to show their commitment to religion and nation?  It is not yet a diktat, although the Supreme Court judgment is precisely that.  Yet clearly there has been enough said, and done, in the last two years to make it evident to people, especially those in business, that it is better to bend over backwards to show your loyalty and patriotism than to be suspected even remotely of being "anti-national".  When writers, who by virtue of their chosen profession ought to disrupt, to instigate debate and disturb the status quo, are instead asked to stand up for one anthem, and sit down and listen to another, we can guess fairly accurately where we are heading.  Or should I say, "Bharat Mata ki Jai!".

Broken News: Bulandshahr rape coverage shows how badly the media needs lessons in sensitivity

A note to readers of this blog:

I've been missing in action for more than a month now. But I'm back and I hope to keep posting regularly henceforth.

In Scroll.in    August 5, 2016

More than three-and-a-half years since the ghastly gang rape in Delhi, the media has learned nothing about how to cover sexual assault.

They sit on charpais, perch of treetops, speak to anyone they can get hold of and in between eat chips and drink cups of chai. This is not a picnic. These are members of the Indian media waiting breathlessly to pounce on anyone who can give them a sound byte for the latest breaking story, the terrifying gang rape of a woman and her 14-year-old daughter on Highway 91 in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh on July 29.

The father of the young girl is instructed to cover his face because the TV-wallahs have not time to blur his face. He pleads, as reported by Hindustan Times on August 3: “How many times should I repeat what happened with my daughter and my wife? They have been raped. What else do you want to know? My daughter was better till last night. With all the people visiting, she is now being asked to recall everything again. She has fallen sick again. She cannot stop crying. Please leave us alone.”

Yet, they persist, the media and politicians. While this is what politicians do, rush to places where they can milk a tragedy for political gain, is this what the media ought to be doing? Has the Indian media lost all sense of perspective? Do words like “sensitivity” even pass through the minds of the editors who assign reporters to such stories? Are there higher standards of insensitivity in the way we handle stories where poor people are involved?

Clearly, more than three-and-a-half years since the ghastly gang rape in Delhi on December 16, 2012, the media has learned nothing about how to cover sexual assault.

Intrusive reporting

Back then, many in the media believed that their focus on the Delhi rape played an important role in bringing about changes in the law even though it was the Justice Verma Committee report that actually pushed the government to make these changes. The media went to great lengths to hide the identity of the woman raped, a requirement under the law, by even giving her a fictitious name. But even then, there were news channels that found out where the woman lived, sent out cameras that exposed the family and would have ultimately revealed the woman’s identity had she survived the horrendous assault.

A little over seven months later, there was another gang rape, this time in Mumbai. In what came to be known as the “Shakti Mills gang rape”, a woman on a work assignment was raped in central Mumbai, a stone’s throw away from a busy railway station. As in the Delhi case, the media went after the story. But had there been any introspection about media coverage since December 16?

There were some superficial changes. For example, some newspapers decided to use the term “survivor” instead of “victim”. Yet, nothing substantial had changed.
Even if no one mentioned the name of the woman, and thankfully did not give her a fictitious name, they thought nothing of pursuing every other angle to the story.
For instance, even when the name is not revealed, by identifying the parents, or husband and children, or the neighbourhood where she lives, or the place where she works, the media is revealing the identity of the woman.

In the Shakti Mills case, Mumbai’s leading newspaper saw nothing wrong in sending a reporter to the building where she lived, and virtually informing the watchmen and the neighbours about what had happened by asking them if they knew that a woman in their building had been gang-raped (read here). It went further by sending a reporter to the hospital to dig out other details about the rape despite the family begging the media not to write about it, and also helpfully gave away the religion of the survivor by speaking to the head of her religious community.

Breaking news

In an age of television, this problem has become worse. In the rush to be the first to get “breaking news”, TV channels have been tripping over their own wires to interview anyone and everyone who can speak of a rape.

What is happening in Khoda, Noida, where the two survivors of the Bulandshahr rape live, is perhaps the most shameful. By hounding them, the media is compounding the horror that these women have to live with for the rest of their lives. They thought they would be safe if they moved back to their own neighbourhood. Now everyone there knows, the young girl cannot go back to school and the family does not know where to go.
Surely this ought to shake us in the media and make us introspect. How many times must we be reminded that our job as journalists is to report but not to exploit the suffering of those who cannot fight back, who are already beaten down, who have no voice in the normal course of affairs?

Predictably though, the media usually refuses to look inwards even as we expose the faults of the world around us. As if to illustrate this, even as Hindustan Times reported on the excesses of the media in the Bulandshahr rape case on August 3, its editorial on August 4 found no mention of this. It castigated politicians and wrote: “The aim should be to help victims get past their ordeal and get on with their lives. For this we need better law enforcement, speedier justice delivery and emotional assistance.” And a more sensitive media?

(To read the original, click here )