As a human rights activist, one stands committed to the
right to freedom of expression and in turn to the freedom of the press.
However, the shrinking space in the media for movements for people’s
rights remains a growing concern for citizens of the country committed to
democracy. On the one hand there is a segregation of news into the
regional pages of newspapers, limiting important coverage to locales and
regions. On the other hand there appears to be a dominance or monopoly of
so-called national and world news.
In Chhattisgarh we find newspapers bringing out city
editions. As a result, the news from a particular region in the state is
reported in the respective city editions and barely carried in other
editions. So a citizen sitting in Raipur does not get the opportunity to
read significant news emerging out of the Bilaspur region or for that
matter any other region in Chhattisgarh.
Take for example the Shaheed Niyogi Diwas observed at
Bhilai, the steel city of Chhattisgarh, on September 28, 2006. Eight
thousand workers, peasants, women and youth from various parts of the
state gathered to pay homage to the martyr, reflecting also that a dynamic
movement like the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha was alive. This significant
mobilisation was restricted to a news item – although a prominent one –
only in the Bhilai edition of almost all newspapers published from Raipur,
Chhattisgarh’s capital city. In contrast, the visit of a national
political leader like Sonia Gandhi to Chhattisgarh a few days later was
prominently placed in all editions of all newspapers published from Raipur.
Only a decade and a half ago, the media’s response to
democratic movements was enthusiastic and palpable. While the era of
globalisation and neo-liberal policies has prised open consumerist lust
and competition, it appears to have dampened media interest in democratic
movements. Last month a mass-based organisation held a press conference to
speak about its proposed campaign against the use of machines in farming
like the harvester, which renders jobless thousands of agricultural
workers who are then forced to migrate to other parts of the country. It
also provided case studies of bonded labourers in Mahasamund district who
were released by the Supreme Court of India way back in April 1988. Many
of them were present to narrate their stories about how the state
government had failed to comply with even the minimum requirements for
providing them with reasonable work and land for livelihood.
The press conference was held at the Press Club in Raipur.
But the next day only one of the morning newspapers published from Raipur
carried a report of the press conference. The argument offered was that
the press conference was ill timed as it was held on the eve of Diwali.
The timing did not prevent newspapers from carrying news of certain
religious and social functions in full detail. Media preference was clear.
A democratic movement’s protest against a policy that would render
hundreds of thousands of labourers jobless went unreported. But a large
portion of the state’s dailies did have space for and were full of Diwali
advertisements – displaying greetings by political leaders or commercial
enterprises!
The capacity of the media to put forth the facts and place
these in the correct perspective is also on the decline. This may be
attributed largely to the commercialisation of the media. In common
parlance one often hears of the "newspaper industry". It is not without
reason that the heads of newspaper houses also occupy top editorial posts.
This is a pattern visible in the past 15 years or so. There is a definite
connection between patterns of responsibility and ownership and the
shrinking space for democratic movements in the media.
In small towns there is yet another trend that has become
a permanent yet disturbing characteristic of newspapers. The person who
owns the agency for distribution of a newspaper is also the "local
correspondent" of the publication. In most cases the newspaper agency is
in the hands of a local trader or contractor who is sometimes also a local
politician. So it is no surprise that local rights-based movements and
agitations hardly find any space in the newspapers. If and when they do
get some space it is with a particular bias against the organisations or
individuals thus creating a climate of hostility and anger against such
people’s movements.
During the struggles for the identification, release and
rehabilitation of thousands of bonded labourers in Chhattisgarh’s
Mahasamund district, the focus of the news was more on the fact that it
happened to be Christian social activists who were leading the campaign. A
people’s movement was thus sought to be communalised with motives such as
"converting these labourers to Christianity" being attributed to the
activists. The media reported these baseless allegations uncritically,
thus failing in its role. For three years, from 1986-1988, we witnessed a
struggle for the release of these bonded labourers as a result of which
the Supreme Court of India delivered landmark judgements leading to the
release of 4,000 bonded labourers from a single district in the country.
Yet the media did not even relate or report these historic judicial
pronouncements on the rights of citizens kept in bondage for generations.
Thus, shamefully, a democratic movement whereby slaves
became aware of their rights and in turn gained a new identity and
selfhood as citizens of a free country went unreported in the regional
press. That none of the released bonded labourers from Mahasamund has gone
back into bondage is due largely to their unionisation. This solidarity
and mobilisation led to the next stage of their struggle, the unique
zameen satyagraha that enabled them to occupy thousands of acres of fallow
land and till it for their livelihood. The media continues to remain
silent, refusing to reflect this vibrant democratic movement that remains
only as a subject matter of study for academic institutions to be
published in the coursebook for Indian Administrative Service, IAS
trainees at Mussourie.
Why has the media decided that this story of
self-empowerment is unfit for space and public consumption? Could it be
because the story would so inspire that it would actually unfold a new
democratic consciousness among the deprived and the marginalised sections
of society? Twenty years into this unique people’s movement for freedom
from slavery has seen not one individual converted to Christianity but
this does not find any mention in the free Indian press. Yet while the
struggle against a centuries old bondage was under way, prominent stories
in four columns appeared on the so-called ‘grand international conspiracy
to convert them to Christianity’.
Media bias is revealed when the response to a mass rally
or protest is contained in box items that decry the manner in which entire
roads were blocked and the public suffered because of the adamance of
agitators resulting in traffic jams. No such comments are passed when
religious rallies cause similar inconveniences. The evidence of shrinking
democratic space is visible in the limitation of public rallies and
meetings to a cordoned off area by the law and order machinery and in the
fact that the media finds such mass protests an eyesore.
This is not to eschew or undermine many committed
journalists who remain on the staff of several newspapers and even
television channels. The relentless forces and trends of globalisation
restrict their spaces and rights as can be observed from the media
response to small but significant acts of democratic mobilisation such as
celebrations of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh or Shankar Guha Niyogi.
There appears to be a distinct fear lest public opinion be mobilised on
issues of justice and rights. It is not without reason that democracy is
found to be dangerous both to the forces of globalisation and communalism.
Both these trends are two sides of the same coin, complementary to each
other’s draconian design to derail democratic development for justice and
peace.