Pay the Price for Telling Truth: Challenges Faced by the Development Journalists
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
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"There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil,"- Mahatma Gandhi It requires a lot of courage to practice the saying. The situation is turning complex especially for development journalists to carry out the prescription of Father of the Nation. For decades, journalism as a profession has been throwing challenges to its practitioners. Challenges have come in different shapes and magnitudes. But journalists have shown the courage of going against odd and paid price for that. Journalists in the pre-independence era had exhibited more guts to tell the truth under constant threat of British Raj. All most all of them were happens to be the freedom fighters of the Indian independent movement.
Starting from Bhagat Singh to Mahatma Gandhi, all were either writing, editing or publishing newspapers. They had taken journalism to such a height that everybody looked at the profession with awe and love. But after independence and particularly after setting-in of globalisation and economic reform, the scenario of Indian journalism has drastically changed. The display of courageous journalism during the time of emergency seemed to be only exception. Marketisation of media with advertisements from the multinational companies running into hundred crores of rupees has emerged as the biggest challenge for journalists to preserve true character of the media.
People like P. Sainath and Late Prabhash Joshi made attempts to hit the conscience by pumping up issue of "paid journalism". For a moment, media halted to take note of this, but there seems to be no change in the affair. It simply indicates that those have the capacity to pay have the space and those don't have no space. This phenomenon was not at all prevalent in the pre-independent era. In fact journalism was a mission at that time ! When it comes to reporting rural affairs the space has further been squeezed. Media, print or electronic, take pride of their coverage of sectors such as politics, entertainment and crime. But when it comes to development sector, everybody seems to be shying away. Rural reporters first face challenge from within. Struggle of finding space and editors' unappreciative response just kill the sprouting interests of reporters who are agitated seeing people's agony and their toil to lead the life. If the report is about the displacement or people's movement against environmentally-damaging project, it is likely to be spiked without editors going through the contents. Arundhati Roy, Booker prize winner, says journalists who write from small places face most of the problems. Often reporters are threatened and sometimes attacked for revealing the truth, but the root problem is that they don't have enough space to bring the truth to open, she says. "Serious journalists wishing to practice developmental journalism have to face challenges in every front. They would not bother the problems they confront with while reporting on an event or incident or process or on a specific developmental issue so much if it comes from the place of reporting.
What bothers them very much is the response they receive from their own news establishments. The risk they take and the hardships they go through while reporting on difficult subjects and areas many a times are not taken seriously by the news establishments," says Sudhir Patnaik, editor of monthly news magazine Samadrusti. He says this is happening primarily because the corporate dependent news establishments don't have a clear perception on development. But so far the media have been borrowing perceptions on development from corporate houses or corporate sponsored intellectuals and writers. " If the media don't reflect on this and resolve if fast not only journalists practicing journalism will suffer, the ordinary readers and viewers will also lose faith in media," Mr. Patnaik says. "I felt that if the Indian press was covering the top 5 per cent, I should cover the bottom 5 per cent," says P. Sainath. And he has done that and inspired many young journalists and specially in the rural India who followed him. But again question arises if there is any taker of coverage of bottom 5 per cent ? Development journalism seems to be a forgotten chapter for mainstream media today. The issues become non issue in this market driven print media and the TRP driven (Television Rating Point) electronic media.
The fascinating depiction of media character in the recently Amir Khan produced film Pipli Live is a glaring example. People who make the difference in real sense with their writing, voice or visual presentations of poorest of the poor and neglected one are the development journalists or rural journalists who are often looked down upon in media hierarchy. Their service becomes obsolete. Television channels displayed this declining moral-fibre when they sought heads of reporters based in poverty-stricken regions of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa at the first instances of global slowdown. These media representatives of the States were invariably reporting rural issues and poverty associated with it. Their reporting did not suit to these news mediums which had changed to infotainment or entertainment channel. Journalists who have opted development journalism or rural journalism came to this field not by any compulsion or by attraction of alluring salary. They carry certain amount of commitment and operate with an object do something for the society in general and poorest of the poor in particular. At a time when media houses ditches them treating them worthless, present day circumstances have stacked heavy odds in their way to practices development journalism. In a region where huge differences have cropped up among intellectuals, bureaucracy and politicians over the kind of development � industrial or agriculture � is needed to be pursued, journalists covering various issues have come under immense pressure than never before.
There are hardly any pockets left in the mineral heartland comprising Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh where setting up of thermal power plant or steel project or alumina projects had not been proposed. Investment to the tune of a few lakh crore of rupees has been proposed within a decade. Most of the projects seek to acquire land of farmers and dig land of tribals. The State governments on their part promised to handover farmers' land and are prepared to allow heavy mining machines to run over forests in the tribal heartland. Under these circumstances, stakes are very high. Everybody (State governments, bureaucrats, local politicians and mining lobby) seems to be on their toes to facilitate heavily debated industrialisation. While industrial houses have already claimed their stakes over natural resources in many districts, left wing extremists have made their presence in rest of the districts sending the police administration into tizzy. Between these, central programmes worth hundreds of crore are also being also landed in the States. What it seems it is no more a sleepy region.
No better opportunity would come in future for the ruling class to accumulate wealth. Anybody who is responsible for hampering the interest will have to face the consequence. And this is what that is happening to journalists covering developmental issues. Who can better explain this than Amulya Kumar Pati who paid price for raising voices against police excess at Kalinganagar industrial hub where police along with goons were assisting setting up of mega steel plant of one of India's "respected" business entities? Mr. Pati was brutally attacked by goons in full police view. Life risk and intimidation from administration and corporate class have become order of the day after India declared war against the CPI (Maoist) which is in control of considerable landmass. It has become has become difficult not only for the people living in those areas but also for the journalists who works without having any biasness towards issues. Many of them invite trouble if the starts to write or cover issues of corruption or human rights violations. They become a soft target of the State or security establishment who lose no time to brand them as Maoist or their sympathiser. It is well said that one can easily criticise Prime Minister of India, but he cannot afford to point out fault with local police inspector. A journalist working in the Maoist-infested area says "a clear message has been communicated. Either you support government and police administration ignoring corruption and misdeeds or you declare yourself a Maoist."
Journalist Laxman Chaudhury of Mohana in Orissa's Gajpati district is one of them who has been branded as Maoist and had to spend 73 days in the jail. The only evidence that the local police managed to gather was an envelope addressed to him that contained eight Maoist leaflets issued on the occasion of the foundation day celebrations of the outfit. But further investigation said the local police wanted to teach Laxman Choudhury a lesson for exposing their links with the 'Ganja' Mafia and flesh trade. He was released on bail after 73 days of ordeal in jail. "Attacks on media men, (who are exposing anti-people activities of politicians, bureaucrats, mafias, and vested interests) seem to have become a pastime for the vested interests both in the urban and rural sector in the State. The media persons who are writing or exposing the shady deeds in print and electronic media are often hunted," said Prasant Patnaik, a veteran journalist. This is not happening in Orissa only, such examples are there in other parts of the country as well.
The 26-year-old photojournalist Javed Iqbal who has been striving hard to bring out ground realities in conflict zones of Chattisgarh said, "I have been branded as Maoist agent." But story of Kamlesh Painkra of Chhattishgarh is no less fascinating than a Bollywood flick. Mr. Painkra was the first journalist to write about human rights violations by the Salwa Judum. The report did not go down well with police establishments and promoters of Salwa Judum. His brother, who was a teacher by profession, was arrested on charges of sheltering naxals, government took back the license to distribute PDS materials from Mr. Painkra, he was forced to flee from Bijapur and his native house in Cherpalgaon was demolished by the CRPF. After witnessing so much of turbulent in life, Mr. Painkra has lost the courage to practice development journalism as a grassroot reporter. Besides odds of working in conflict zones, challenge of exposing corruption is no less challenging. Recently, Santosh Kumar Sabat, a correspondent of Bajranad a local weekly, published from Berhampur has been arrested on charges of atrocity case. He had exposed a PDS scam.
Similarly, Dayamani Barla, a tribal young woman, works as a freelance development journalist based at Ranchi in Jharkhand. For her livelihood, she along with her husband runs a roadside tea stall cum hotel. She has been awarded with the prestigious Counter Media award, instituted by P Sainath. Dayamani says "journalists who works for the poor, lower class and oppressed have to face difficulties. Because the system is with the rich and affluent people and supports them." Concurs Prafulla Das, senior journalist with The Hindu. "Journalism for those who are in the field to report truth is fast becoming a thing of the past. With companies issuing advertisements at frequent intervals to cover up their misdeeds was making the owners of newspapers and television channels protect the interests of their advertisers. In such a situation the concept of development journalism has already taken a back seat," Mr. Das says. He says time has come for the media houses to make their accounts public, otherwise development journalism will be fully overshadowed by news sponsored by corporates and politicians. To get the space for development journalism or rural reporting is like the struggle of the person in India who is earning Rs.20 per day in average for his livelihood but he never give up, and journalists who are working in rural areas are there to fight back and continue to the tell the truth ! (EOM) My experience of being a journalist in Nuapada district, country's one of the poorest regions, describes as to how whole establishment turns hostile if attempt to is made to write the truth.
The Janmadhyam was one of the best example of rural journalism I have experimented. On the one hand it was whole heartedly accepted by the common man in one hand and was antagonized by the corrupt and interest groups. Jan Madhyam, a periodical, was used to be edited and published by me around 1995. When a story based on an interview was run in Jan Madyam. It said how corrupt the district magistrate was. A vindictive district collector served notice to close down the publication and ordered two superintendents of police not to allow printing of Jan Madhyam. I fought nearly 1.5 years in Press Council of India to prove myself that I was not wrong. A timber smuggler was too incensed over my articles exposing his links with officialdom and his blatant felling down of trees. The criminal came to me and threaten. When I did not budge, he went to court. I was entangled in court case for years.
Defamation and threaten became order of the day, but I did not bow down before pressure. Questioning credibility of NGO bosses about their sincerity on developmental issues also cost me dearly. To fight a defamation suits against me, I used to travel from one end of Orissa to another. Odds were heavily stacked against me, but the uprightness with which I performed the duty remained golden years of my journalism career.
[This piece also figured in VIDURA. The writer Purusottam Singh Thakur is a freelance journalist based in Odisha and readers can contact him in his email id puru321@gmail.com and Mobile no: +91- 9437010546, Readers can read his articles by visiting his blog: http://ruralreporter.blogspot.com/ ]
