Eye of the media

IF the Gujarat riots were the first televised riots, they were also the first when newspapers flouted with impunity the Press Council guideline that communities should not be named while reporting communal incidents.

When the television camera focuses on a riotous mob or its victims, it leaves little to the imagination of the viewers. If, under such circumstances, newspapers have disregarded the old guideline, they can hardly be blamed. Now the question is, whether the freedom the Press has exercised in this regard has set a healthy precedent or not.

What motivated the Council to impose such restrictions on the Press was the imperative to ensure that newspaper reports did not incite the people. Reasonable restrictions on the coverage of any sensitive issue are welcome but if they serve the purpose of the guilty, rather than the greater common good, they need to be reassessed. The ban on naming the communities was a fit case for review, although with the advent of television it has become redundant. Questions also remain whether the guidelines are applicable to the electronic media.

Nonetheless, a debate on the role of the Press in communal riots is in the fitness of things, particularly when even responsible leaders like Law Minister Arun Jaitley have criticised the media for the kind of reporting it did on Gujarat. Of course, the argument that the violence in Gujarat would have been worse if the media, particularly electronic, had not aroused public opinion against the killing spree through focused and sustained reporting cannot be dismissed out of hand.

There are, indeed, many people who blame the media for its coverage of the assassination of Indira Gandhi that ‘resulted’ in the killing of Sikhs in the Capital. The government-controlled electronic media with its mass reach not only identified the killers as Sikhs but even telecast scenes outside the prime minister’s residence of crowds shouting slogans like ‘khoon ka badla khoon’.

Similarly, the alacrity with which Doordarshan brought visuals of the ‘first-ever’ puja in the disputed structure at Ayodhya into millions of homes was not within the bounds of responsible journalism. In sharp contrast, while reporting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the second sentence in All India Radio’s news bulletin was that the killer was not a Muslim.

Obviously, the editor wanted to nip all chances of rumour in the bud. It’s a different matter that, as per a study, within seven minutes of the gunning down of the Mahatma and even before Akashvani had confirmed the news, the report had by word of mouth reached almost every nook and cranny in the country. It’s said, until then, no news had spread faster than Gandhiji’s assassination in this manner.

The ban on naming of communities never worked and, if at all it worked, it worked negatively.

This can be illustrated by a report a national daily (not ours) carried a few years ago. That was the time when rumours were spread that Hindu patients in the Aligarh medical college were administered poison. The report said there was violence at a wayside station in Aligarh and a passenger was dragged out of the train and lynched to death. It did not name any of the communities involved.

I heard two senior journalists discussing the report and coming to the conclusion that since it occurred at Aligarh, which is Muslim-dominated, it must have been the handiwork of Muslims. We had to wait for the next day’s report to know what had actually happened. The hapless passenger was one Shrivastava and he lost his life because he sported a beard. This is a specific example of strict adherence to the Press Council norm causing confusion and facilitating rumours.

Truth becomes a casualty of such restrictions as I learnt when I went to cover the riots in Hazaribagh in April 1989. When asked which community suffered the most, a local reporter who took me round the riot-hit areas instantly said, ‘fifty-fifty’. He meant both the communities suffered in equal measure.

The reports from the area had also given such an impression but when I visited the riot-hit areas, the relief camps and the police station where many of the ‘rioters’ were detained, I realised that an overwhelming majority of the victims belonged to a ‘particular community’. What’s worse, a majority of the people arrested by the police also belonged to the same community.

The question was, how could someone be both the tormentor and the victim at the same time? Small wonder then that the common refrain among the victims was the highhandedness of the police.

It was obvious the Press Council guideline did not serve any purpose. It only helped the police to cover up its nefarious role. I sent a memorandum to the Council suggesting that it review its guidelines.

After a few weeks, I got a reply saying the matter was discussed at the Council’s meeting and it was decided that a review was not warranted.

But as the Council rulings themselves show, some newspapers have in the past played a sinister role in communal incidents by passing off rumours as genuine news, publishing tendentious reports and exaggerated one-sided versions of incidents. Selectively identifying communities in incidents of violence, which has become routine even in the mainstream media, is equally dangerous.

While the inquiry into Godhra will reveal whether it was a premeditated attack at the instance of Pakistan’s ISI or a spontaneous reaction, however heinous it may be, to extreme provocations, the reason why some people have blamed the media, particularly the electronic, is not far to seek.

Journalists cannot easily forget the treatment kar sevaks meted out to them when they trained their cameras on the actual demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. The purpose in Ayodhya then and Gujarat now was to destroy evidence. With the media documenting evidence, nobody in his senses can say that it was a ‘fifty-fifty’ affair in Gujarat.

Even Newton’s third law that Chief Minister Narendra Modi quoted has been proved inappropriate. While Newton spoke only of ‘equal and opposite reaction’ what Gujarat witnessed was an unequal and grossly disproportionate reaction. It was not even an eye for an eye; it was ten eyes for one eye.

That it was not a riot in the conventional sense but a pogrom against Muslims cannot be denied. However, it is not my contention that inverting the matrix of victims and perpetrators will serve the purpose.

While the innocent Muslims suffered because they were Muslims, it will be highly improper to call the rioters Hindus. They are killers who deserve deterrent punishment. They may have done it in the name of religion but how does that explain the attack on General Motors?

There were several instances when the ‘Hindu’ rioters looted ‘Hindu’ shops and establishments. They do not deserve any mercy and anybody speaking on their behalf is doing a great disservice to the country and the religion they claim to profess.

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