10th Anniversary Issue
August - September 2003 

Year 10    No.90-91
MEDIA


 


‘A small magazine with a great heart’

Myron J Pereira

In the media explosion of the last decades, journalism has moved from ‘mission’ to merchandising. No longer do you ‘stand for’ something; today, it is – ‘what do you sell?’ Magazines and newspapers are marketed aggressively, and cater to a whole spectrum of consumer needs and services. In fact, there are very few papers today which promote not a commodity, but a quality. Communalism Combat is one of these.

And what is the quality that Combat promotes? The publication’s banner says it all in four words: Hate hurts, harmony works. Combat is dedicated to the proposition that this nation will hold together through understanding, reconciliation and co-operation.

I clearly remember Combat from those early days when it was formatted as a tabloid, and sometimes came to us irregularly because of constraints of time, work pressures and finances. Combat has survived those years, and still appears every month, as feisty as ever, a slim magazine, replete with reports, opinion pieces, letters, sketches and photographs – all of them bearing on the central issue of this nation today – our government’s shameful abandonment of our democratic Constitution and its vision of a just, egalitarian and secular polity, and our sliding back into the dark ages of feudalism, caste and superstition.

This is what communalism is and that is why it must be fought to its death. While the mainstream press fiddles around with fashion weeks, Bollywood gossip and e-commerce, Combat has taken on the dragons. And if it has not yet routed them, it has at least put them on hold.

That this is so is due in no small measure to the courage and tenacity of two remarkable individuals, Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand. Theirs is a single-mindedness that has been unwavering through all these years. Their commitment to the life of peace, equality and dignity for all is unwavering, if anything, in these past years, their commitment to human rights has only grown and developed. Slowly and patiently, they have woven around themselves a team of like-minded supporters, from the media and the other professions.

At the same time, as they zealously bring out Combat every month, they have also started other initiatives. Under the title of Sabrang, their publishing house, they have now set up the India Rights Online.com website, to keep the general public informed about human rights abuse; after starting Khoj, to promote harmony among schoolchildren, years ago; and Aman, a peace initiative through correspondence between school children in India and Pakistan.

They have actively participated with other NGOs, citizens’ groups and civil libertarians in investigating the dark deeds of the recent past. Among these, are the infamous Bombay riots of 1992-93 and one decade later, the horrendous Gujarat genocide of 2002. Sabrang brought out Damning Verdict, the complete text of the Srikrishna Commission Report, and more recently, Crime against Humanity, a 3-volume report on the Gujarat genocide.

All this has meant hours and hours of investigative reporting, visits to refugee camps, counselling the traumatised victims, protecting the innocent and organising relief for those impoverished by the riots.

In the ’70s and ’80s we used to speak of "alternative journalism, alternative media" – a new name for an old and well-established practice. At various times in history, a domineering State deprives several of its citizens of their legitimate rights. It is up to citizens then to find viable alternatives.

Gandhi used prayer meetings and marches to attract enormous crowds, and he also started Navjivan, Harijan and Young India. When the Soviet State censored all their publications, Russian dissidents made cyclostyled copies of their writings and circulated them surreptitiously by hand. In other words, there are alternatives: other kinds of media, other kinds of content and form, and other supportive structures, other readerships and audiences.

As the present Indian State encroaches on the ‘democratic space’ of its citizens, stifles their opinions, beguiles them with bogus issues (like Ayodhya), and crushes the civil rights of its minorities and its poor, we are grateful to voices like Combat, which refuse to be silenced. There are alternatives, always!

Ten years is a not a long time in the life of an institution. But as someone said, what counts is not so much "the years in your life, as the life in your years". By that reckoning, Combat has come a long way. I do not doubt that there are difficult years ahead, but we can say in solidarity: Hum aapke saath hain! By way of small tribute to this little magazine with a great heart: Communalism Combat.

(Myron J Pereira is director, Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai).


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