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NEWS YOU CAN USE Editor: N. P. Chekkutty Media Focus |
V.
R. Krishna Iyer Freedom of information is fundamental to fundamental rights and sans this basic postulate, democracy is mere verbiage. Dissemination of information to the people is carried out by the media, without fear or favour, purchase or abuse to oblige vested interests. The press can be inflammatory, sensational and irresponsible or sternly veracious, daringly investigative and ready to court martyrdom rather than surrender to bully tactics, blackmail or authoritarianism. And so, as Justice Douglas has observed, acceptance of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation. The media can be malignant or committed to truth. "An able, disinterested, public spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalism of future generations." Justice Jeewan Reddy and Justice B.N.Hansaria in The Printers (Mysore) Limited v State of Karnataka, reiterated: "Freedom of press has always been a cherished right in all democratic countries. The democratic credentials of a state is judged today by the extent of freedom the press enjoys in that state." The press should strive to inform people of the current events and trends of opinion to create and sustain an ever-widening range of interest, and to encourage discussion of current problems with due regard to all points of news and views and dispassionate evaluation of conflicting ideals. "My concept of a free press," said Kuldip Nayar, "is that of a vehicle which is used to inform public about true happenings without fear or favour. Facts are narrated as they are and not as they should be and it is left to readers to come to their own conclusion.... Press is to ferret out the truth and let the public know." The press is a means, the end being truthful information being dug out and placed before the people to enable them to direct the country’s governance wisely. But there are watchdog press, lapdog press and canines which neither bark nor bite but live lucratively on advertisement. We want an invigilative media whose integrity is non-negotiable and commitment to the masses unshakeable. And in a country like India whose economic and market space is being colonised and whose unity is beng broken by fissiparous, communal bigotry, press freedom must be at the service of those values which make government by the people a vital reality, the ammunition of report being intrepid, secular and geared to social justice. Our Republic and our Constitution can promote people’s social interests only if the media challenges corruption in high places, faces the menace of communal violence and feeds the citizen’s right to unbiased information. ‘Know ye the truth and the truth shall make you free’. When matters of grave concern for the public like communal riots or macro-corrupt abuse of power occur, the law provides for public enquiries, often through judicial commissions, so that facts may be gathered, marshalled, presented with useful reports of conclusions and recommendations for the edification of the people and salutary action by the rulers. The fourth estate, by distorted presentation, can aggravate bitter conflicts and by value-based veracity can tranquilise explosive friction, foster amity and end violence. American super-power and MNCs use the media to conceal and reveal, as their interests dictate. John Pilger writes in his book Hidden Agenda, "I have become convinced that it is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers, without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it. High on the list is the myth that we now live in an ‘information age’ -- when, in fact we live in a media age in which the available information is repetitive, ‘safe’ and limited by invisible boundaries." In the day-to-day media, much of this is the propaganda of Western power, whose narcissism, dissembling language and omissions often prevent us from understanding the meaning of contemporary events. ‘Globalisation’ is a prime example. This smoke-screen extends to journalists themselves who, wrote Michael Parenti in Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media, "rarely doubt their own objectivity even as they faithfully echo the established political vocabularies and the prevailing politico-economic orthodoxy. Since they do not cross any forbidden lines, they are not reined in. So they are likely to have no awareness they are on an ideological leash. Thus, the true nature of power is not revealed, its changing contours are seldom explored, its goals and targets seldom identified. This is counterfeit journalism because the surface of events is not disturbed. It is ironic that while corruption among the system’s managers and subalterns is at times brilliantly exposed by a small group of exceptional journalists, the wider corruption is unseen and unreported." Let us reflect for a while on the Indian situation. Coming to the pathology of communal clashes, we have the classic example of the Sri Krishna Commission whose remarkable report has not moved the Maharashtra Government into action and the media has not played an effective, humanist, dynamic and aggressively secular role sufficient to pressure the state into punitive locomotion or mood of compensation. News technology is a wondrous tool. But for whose cause or concern do you use it? ‘There’s the rub.’ Our Constitutional order sustains itself on the peaceful co-existence of different communities and active fellowship of faiths. Religious pluralism is a pervasive feature of our demography and secular perspective is a basic doctrine of our democracy. Our founding fathers have wisely made it a categorical imperative of our polity that every citizen, be he/she of any religion or denomination or none, shall have full title to all the fundamental rights in abundant equality and easy accessibility. But it is terrible to think that communal tension, confrontation and conflagration have more than once marred the orderly process of national life. And when communal clashes start somewhere, they spread like wildfire everywhere, because the state and those in the administration entrusted with the responsibility of social welfare and law and order, fail in their official duty and betray political bankruptcy. The right to know is a citizen’s sacred right. A judicial commission or people’s tribunal gathering information, collecting relevant materials on an event of public importance, sorting them out judicially, marshalling the evidence and conveying the whole testimony so gathered, in the shape of a report, discharges a public duty of the highest order. No one can, under the laws of India, "stop the right to give or receive information, except where it is mischievously intended to interfere with or skew the course of judicial justice." In an earlier People’s Commission Report, I wrote a foreword which was wound up with these words: "Communalism, with fascist facets and engineered by criminalised and politicised groups will destroy our democracy and overthrow our Republic. Therefore, every constructive suggestion made must be taken seriously by the state. The minority community, which in an overall view, suffered terribly, deserves better protection. That is the measure of our culture." ‘To wipe every tear from every eye’ is the tryst we made at the birth of our nation as a sovereign Bharat. Irresistibly, there is a moral and even legal obligation to make compensation and reha bilitation a reality for the victims of the macabre riots. Humanist compensation must be liberal and must not wait for legal proceedings and procedural formalities. The remedial jurisprudence in cases of mass casualties must be evolved and put into action through the involvement of voluntary social action groups or other popular methodologies. Journalists too should not jettison this public function. Justice is what justice does. In these grave moments when events occur which shake the nation, the press must go into action, not to divide and destroy nor to falsify or foment discord but to strengthen the Secular Socialist Democratic Republic. Do remember the media of India has a humanist manifesto with a patriotic dimension and veracious commitment. [GO TOP] K. G. Kannabiran Politics
of Repression Freedom of speech and expression in the hands of the media is primarily a business; it trades in freedom of speech at the proprietorial and entrepreneurial level and it is right to life of the employees, right from the editor down to the stringer in the rural areas. It provides business for the one and an avocation for the dependants working in the media. Therefore profits for the owners of the media and security of tenure for the employees decides the quality and content of our right to free speech and expression. In 1958 Express Papers contended before the Supreme Court that Working Journalists Act constituted an impediment to a free press and therefore violates free speech and expression guaranteed by Article19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Bennet Coleman brought into debate the right to free speech by impugning the news print policy passed by the government under the Import Control Act,1947. Mathew J., in his dissenting judgement, pointed out the dangers to free speech a monopoly press may pose and was of the view that tyranny of monopoly in opinion is worse than tyranny in commerce. Again the question whether taxing newspapers would be a restraint on free speech was raised by the Indian Express Newspapers, Bombay, in 1986 before the Supreme Court. In all these cases business raised the slogan of free speech for commercial advantage. These are attempts to secure immunity to the media as business enterprise. It is these business enterprises which claim a title to champion free speech and the cause of democracy, and no doubt some of these enterprises stood up against the imposition of Emergency in 1975 and the politically oppressive system it sought to legitimise. If Mrs. Gandhi had been pronouncedly anti-Soviet and pro-American at that time, would the press have taken a similar stand is a question which is interesting to speculate. Media primarily being a business enterprise, expediency and exigencies of its business dictate its politics. This is a major limitation on freedom of speech and therefore a self-imposed limitation on the freedom of press. The business factor sets the agenda and draws up the priority of the media. Like every institution in the state, the media also claims neutrality as its virtue between the rich and the powerful and the poor and the deprived. The other major limiting factor is the security of tenure of employees in the media. It is true that there have been quite a number of people who have served for long periods and retired, but that has always been at a price. The threat to the right to livelihood acts as a major constraint on the journalistic profession. Instances are not wanting where experienced editors were shown the door for not conforming to the management’s stated or unstated policies. This is the second major limitation on the people’s right to information. The third major constraint on a free press is the largesse which government bestows on the managers of the media, namely, the class of journalists employed in it. This is neither a charitable act nor is it in furtherence of their right to life. This is to regulate free flow of information to the public without any visible control or compulsion. Despite these and other constraints, as most of the the media is privately owned and as formal censorship is absent, we find media attacking and exposing governmental malfeasance as also the exposure of malfeasance in the corporate sector. Such exposures have led to the initiation of public interest litigation. The alternative to the press as presently constituted is the structuring of a democratic media addressing itself to issues faced by large sections of working class and other deprived sections. The working class in the organised and unorganised sectors, the dalits and the marginalised, women and other deprived sections who collectively have the potential and the strength to bring about social, economic and cultural transformation need an alternative media, a radical press. The problems they face and the issues they raise very often go unrepresented in the media. But on account of the fragmented situation it remains a dream impossible of realisation, perhaps for a long time to come. Many of these fragments have their own news bulletins and sheets for the members of the fragment. There was until the split of the Communist movement an alternative media for the working class. But after the split and the further fragmentation, the circulation is limited to the respective church-goers. Setting up of a left or a broad-based democratic press appears to be impossible at this juncture. The national print media and its language counterpart are like the curate’s egg, good in patches. We should strive to increase the good patches and negate the idiom if we are interested in preserving democracy. Press as a private business venture, by the very nature of its business, is very often compelled to take a stand on issues of free speech. Thus we found Indian Express and Statesman defying Emergency. There have been quite a few language papers who left the editorial column blank on 26 June, 1975. The tradition of independence is one basic character which the press has always claimed. Similarly there have been fine editors who were uncompromising on the question of freedom of press and so we find Kuldip Nayar courting arrest in defiance of Emergency. It has always been a few who lent credibility to institutions. The history and the tradition of a few uncompromising judges have been largely responsible for the credibility of the judiciary. It was not the progressive judges but a few conservative judges who set aside the detention orders in Andhra Pradesh during the Emergency, and it is Justice Khanna alone in the Supreme Court who had the courage and conviction to pronounce MISA invalid. When he was superseded, there was not even a murmur of protest from among other judges. I do not know how many journalists protested against the arrest of Kuldip. The split in the Communist party leading to the emergence of Naxalite movement was the first major revolt against the state after Independence. The JP movement, liberal in character, was aimed against Mrs. Gandhi’s politics and the authoritarian trends she was introducing in governance. This also synchronised with the emergence of the Naxalite movement. The latter spread like prairie fire and in Andhra it manifested itself as the Srikakulam Girijan Revolt. Such brutality, whether in Bengal or Andhra, has never been seen in post-Independence India and therefore it received vast coverage in national and the regional press. With the presence of JP’s movement, the atrocities and the violence against this movement was perceived as part of the trend towards an authoritarian regime which JP was fighting. Liquidation of Naxalites was brought on the agenda and revolutionary writers in Andhra were imprisoned, their works proscribed, their periodicals seized and confiscated. But these did not receive the notice they warranted in the regional and national press. It was during this period that investigative journalism came into being as a form of campaign against these brutalities. It was active in the pre-Emergency days and flourished for sometime thereafter and ebbed out of our political lives though the violence, the repression and the corruption which led to the emergence of investigative journalism continue unabated. But during this period the press, by and large, played a democratic role. The next stage when media played a major role was during the anti- reservation stir, Advani’s rath yatra, the assault on Babri Masjid and the communal riots that followed. These events span V.P.Singh’s and P.V.Narasimha Rao’s ministries. The press was demonstrably against reservation and the reporting was loaded against reservations. The press never perceived reservations as a facet of equality. There were no screaming headlines against destruction of public transport or public property. The agitation was portrayed as a fight for the retention of merit as the criteria for education and employment. Photography also played its role in the anti-reservation stir. The publication of photographs of self-immolation by young, misinformed students was the most powerful statement made by the press against reservation. Perhaps this is one instance where the views of the management and the reporters were on the same frequency and that made the press more undemocratic. It is needless to labour on the rank communal nature of either the rath yatra or the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Some national papers and the language media had lent their support, overt and covert, to these ventures without realising the responsibility cast on them, which is to protect the minorities and assure them equality of treatment in law and also assure them that they are socially equal. This is all the more necessary now as other minorities are also being targeted. The way politics of violence finds its representation in the media is interesting. During the Emergency and shortly thereafter, the coverage of atrocities against radical left and the reporting of it was fairly democratic, as the coverage of Justice Bhargava Commission of Inquiry into encounter killings reveal. Though there is no separate space for human rights issues in newspapers, they have received fairly good coverage. However, there has been no editorial support for a sustained human rights campaign. To quote an instance, the AP Government killed 275 people in encounters in 1998 and this year they have already killed nearly 130 persons. Every one of these deaths is reported. The press has not reacted and there has not been editorial support particularly when extra-judicial killings are taking place on such a large scale. There has been a gradual shift in emphasis from state violence to political violence with the rise of Khalistan militants in the Punjab, increase in violence in the North East and the continuing Naxalite violence in Andhra Pradesh. The violence in Jammu and Kashmir is highlighted according to the political exigencies of the ruling party. In all these areas of political turbulence, violation of human rights abound and have become endemic, though the same does not find itself reflected in the news media, electronic or print. The reporters in the rural areas are terrorised and are afraid of being implicated as terrorists and so the news does not get reported. For instance, in the Adilabad region of AP, rural stringers of Telugu newspapers were charged under TADA for reporting on harassment and encounters. We have lodged a complaint with the Press Council. The editorial policy seems to have undergone a change after the appearance of ‘the terrorist’; redefining and subsuming political dissent outside the parliamentary system as terrorism. Violence against Naxalites and other militant and dissident groups do not receive the focus they ought to. I am not unmindful of the character of violence unleashed by some of these political movements ,against not only the innocent people but also against the press, their offices, editors and journalists. Instances have never been wanting like the attacks on Tribune in the Punjab, the Punjab Kesri and the Srinagar Times. This the press has to face when they operate in politically turbulent areas. We, as civil liberties activists, were mauled and the police gunned down three of my colleagues. These have become occupational hazards in turbulent times. But that would be no excuse for refraining from reporting or exposing state violence. These are actions beyond the limits of law and should be seen and written about as such. There is a UN General Assembly resolution that extra-judicial killings will have to be investigated and the culprits punished. There is a similar resolution with regard to disappearances. The press more than any other institution has the responsibility to expose human rights violations and not look upon them as merely newsworthy. To treat these violations as merely newsworthy would in fact be condoning the human rights violation if there were no follow-up reports. The official violence during the tenure of Rebeiro and Gill in Punjab went largely unnoticed. The chorus of protest by the editors of almost all the major newspapers when Gill was punished for misbehaviour with a woman IAS officer demonstrated their attitude to human rights. Projecting terrorist violence in the media consistently only legitimises police violence against the villagers who have always been the immediate suspects and therefore become victims of illegal custody, torture and custodial rape. Killing of political dissenters and even of criminals should not be permitted to become part of the administrative practice, as it has become today in several states in the country. This practice is there in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and the North East. It was there in the Punjab, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. With the Kargil mini war, and the blow-by-blow account in the electronic media of the happenings there, the people at large are likely to be afflicted with war hysteria and all this will go in the name of patriotism and nationalism. When these sentiments make their appearance in anticipation of war, fascism is not far behind. Only an informed press has the reach and capacity to campaign for democracy and against such febrile and delirious trends in the body politic. [GO TOP] |
