hether it is
the debate and controversy caused by British Labour party veteran and
former foreign secretary, Jack Straw’s ill-disposed statement on women
wearing the veil or any other issue, alternate international
news and views websites offer the sensitive reader varied and rich
perspectives. Unfortunately, as often happens during controversies such as
these, the focus of the debate shifts from the issue of the hijab or
niqab and its continued control of or over Muslim women to the context
in which a politician like Straw makes such a statement. Fundamental and
individual matters of choice get interlinked with wider, visible levels of
political influence and dominance. A collection of articles from diverse
sources in the current issue of Communalism Combat offers readers a
glimpse of these varied and valid perspectives.
The debate on the media and its role at times of major
international and national conflicts reached a peak with the US
declaration of war on Iraq even as the mainstream US media (especially
television) failed to distance itself from the foreign policy chosen by
the government of the day. This reality coexisted with hundreds of
thousands of people, Americans, Britons and even Australians, protesting
the unjust war. Closer home, the Indian media (especially after the advent
and influence of television) has come in for some uncomfortable
questioning with particular regard to its coverage of issues related to
tribal struggles, caste and communal conflicts as also its portrayal of
mass democratic protests and movements. This month’s cover story devotes
itself to an examination of this theme with reports from various movements
and sectors critiquing the media along with responses from senior Indian
media practitioners. Ever since its launch in August 1993, a step that had
much to do with our disillusionment with the mainstream media of which we
were, until then, a part, CC’s involvement with the media has been
rich and complex, constantly attempting a dialogue on the ethics of media
coverage. It has been our experience that sincere and regular engagement
of movements and individuals with the media is called for in this day and
age – dominated as it is by the world view put forward by the media – and
that such an engagement is not fruitless. It is both necessary and
educative and hence we urge our readers to attempt this engagement,
sustainedly.
One of the major challenges before the national media has
been posed by the Dalits and the minorities; the former on the issue of
the ghastly incident of mass mutilation and killing at Kherlanji in
Bhandara district near Nagpur in Maharashtra and the latter with regard to
the Mumbai and Malegaon blast investigations. Reports of the findings of
the Rajinder Sachar Committee, appointed to study the socio-economic
conditions of Muslims and offer its recommendations, have revealed that a
large number of detainees in Indian jails are Muslims and Maharashtra is a
state where they constitute one of the highest if not the highest
number. What does this say about our criminal justice system and about the
police administration? Unless some of these uncomfortable questions are
raised, we are unlikely to find the answers.
The media picks and chooses not only the story that it
relays but also the campaigns that it launches. As we go to press, a
question that stares the media in the face is whether the Kherlanji
massacre can come to symbolise the fight for justice just as the Jessica
Lal case and the Priyadarshini Mattoo case have. Similarly, media balance
will be tested in its assessment of the police administration’s handling
of blast investigations in Mumbai and Malegaon.
In last month’s issue, the violence in Mangalore broke
just as we were closing the issue. A fact-finding report on Mangalore will
be featured in the next issue of CC but in this issue we carry a
report on the media, local and national, turning a blind eye to the
questionable conduct of the police in the Mangalore violence of October
2006.
– Editors
