I am sick to death of
TV panel discussions which ask whether human rights activists are soft on the
Maoists, romanticise the Maoists and so on. Why doesn’t someone ask if our
honourable politicians and security experts are soft on police torture and
extra judicial killings?
Television is not
interested in a serious discussion – all they want are whipping boys. The sight of [Times NOW] Arnab Goswami mocking Prof. Haragopal [Centre for Human Rights, School
of Social Sciences , University of Hyderabad ] for giving an “academic analysis” was especially nauseating,
compounded by his showing off about “Emily Durkheim” (sic!). Why bother to have
a panel at all, if only hysterical calls for the army to be sent in to
wipe out the Maoists count as ‘analysis’, and every other viewpoint is seen as
biased?
The media’s vocabulary is also very limited. I remember a
particular excruciating interview with Binayak Sen where he said he “decried”
violence and the anchor repeatedly asked him if he “condemned” it. As far as I
know, the two words mean roughly the same thing. Nowadays, even before the
media asks me, I start shouting “I condemn, I condemn.” I wake up in my sleep
shouting “I condemn.” I am scared to use other words to describe complex
emotions, because the media is unable to understand anything else.
The only reason why I agree to participate in any television
discussions at all or give interviews to the media, is because I have such
limited space to express my views. Most of the time the media is completely
unconcerned about what happens in places like Bastar, and when there are large
scale deaths of civilians, no one runs non-stop news or panel discussions.
Perforce “human rights activists” have to speak in unfavourable circumstances,
because that’s the only time when the media is interested in our views; and
that too, not because they want to hear us, but because they need a “big fight”
to raise their ratings. That’s what is called “balance”. One can almost see
visible disappointment on the anchor’s part when panellists who should disagree
actually agree on many issues.
Since May 25th, I have been inundated with calls from journalists
asking for my views. But when I want to write, there is little space. A leading
national newspaper refused to publish me on the killing of Mahendra Karma, till
they had enough pieces which promoted a paramilitary approach. Even when I do
get published it is under strict word constraints. I wrote the first opinion
piece ever written in the national media on the Salwa Judum in 2006, but was
given 800 words, under the fold. In the first year of Salwa Judum, I can count
on the fingers of one hand the number of articles on Salwa Judum. I personally
met several editors and showed them photographic evidence and begged TV editors
for panel discussions, but no one was interested. If they had been interested
then, perhaps things would not have come to such a pass.
I am unable to write my own book on Salwa Judum because of the
court case and all that it takes. I
have been wanting to write on it since 2005 because I am, above all, an
anthropologist. In any
case, my mental space is so clogged by the media noise and the strain of being
confined to “opinion pieces” that keep saying the same things because no one is
listening, that I can’t write. I am almost glad the IPL had taken over again,
and we can all forget about Bastar and the Maoists till the next major attack.
I reproduce below an extract from my article, “Emotional Wars”, on the public reactions to the death of the 76
CRPF men in April 2010. This was published in Third World Quarterly, Vol.
33, No. 4, 2012, pp 1-17:
“Government anger was directed not just at the Maoists but at
their alleged ‘sympathizers in civil society’, whose verbal and written
criticism of government for violations of the Constitution and fundamental
rights, was morally equated with the Maoist act of killing in retaliation for
those policies. Within minutes
then, given the government’s role as the primary definer of news, whether the alleged sympathizers had
adequately condemned and expiated for the attack, became as critical to the
framing of the news as the attack itself.
The largely one-sided
government and media outrage – the targeted killings or rapes of ordinary
adivasis rarely, if ever, invite direct calls upon the Home Minister to condemn
each such incident – easily summon to mind
Herman and Chomsky’s distinction between “worthy and unworthy victims” as part
of what they call the media ‘propaganda model’. While news coverage of the “worthy victim” is replete
with detail, evokes indignation and shock, and invites a follow-up; “unworthy
victims” get limited news space, are referred to in generic terms, and there is
little attempt to fix responsibility or trace culpability to the top echelons
of the establishment.
For example, after
a Maoist attack in which 4 men of the Central Industrial Security Force were
killed, the Home Ministry put out a statement asking “What is the message that
the CPI (Maoist) intends to convey? These are questions that we would like to
put not only to the CPI (Maoist) but also to those who speak on their behalf
and chastise the government…We think that it is time for all right-thinking
citizens who believe in democracy and development to condemn the acts of
violence perpetrated by the CPI (Maoist).” Chidambaram slams Maoist
sympathizers, Times Now, October 26, 2009.
An enquiry was immediately ordered into the Tadmetla attack headed
by a former Director General of the Border Security Force, EN Rammohan.
He found several lapses in the leadership and functioning of the CRPF,
including their failure to adhere to standard operating procedures. However,
the commander responsible for this debacle, DIG Nalin Prabhat, while initially
transferred, was given a gallantry medal a year later in 2011. Further, the
government itself takes no responsibility for orchestrating this mindless war
on its own people.
Nandini Sundar, professor of sociology at Delhi University, was a
co-petitioner in a case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s 2011 ban on the
Salwa Judum. She has studied and published books and articles on Bastar.
(Published in Forward Press, July, 2013 Issue)
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