Posts filed under 'crisis/media (2003)'
Yogendra Yadav, chairing the session, joked about mistaking the topic of the session for ‘Truth’ and ‘Causality’, the two things disapperaing in the social sciences. Though the jokes were followed by Ifthikar Gilani talking about his own, near farcical experiences with the Intelligence Bureau and the Courts, it wasn’t funny.
In the plenary, Arundhati Roy spoke of how we live in a judicial dictatorship and are unaware of it. Ifthikar Gilani was made painfully aware of this, when the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi refused to grant him bail for having in his posession a pamphlet of an independence movement in PoK, ” for believing(?) in the liberation of Kashmir.”
Ifthikar Gilani went on to say that he was scared by the lack of judicial accountability, becuase he could get justice after only seven months having access to the media and the government in the capital of the country, but what would happen to the arbitrarily accused in the small towns of India without access to the portals of power?
Gilani went on to point out that the new Freedom of Information Act, which was passed while he was in jail, does not override the draconian Sec. 5 of the Official Secrets Act, by which the mere posession of any document deemed to be dangeropus to National Security, could lead to the arrest of people, and their incarceration for upto fourteen years. He mentioned a sketch of Meerut Cantontment, which was planted on 4 different people… which had far less information which could be considered detrimental to national security, than issues of India Today which give maps and figures of troop deployments in border areas.
Gilani also mentioned how his trail and incarceration were misprepresented by the media, particularly the Hindustan Times and the Pioneer, whose reporters gave entirely fictive accounts of the court proceedings and his ‘confessions’ of being an ISI agent and a terrorist plant.
(Judges can be bought, why not journalists?)
Anjali Mody’s presentation on the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ by the media, noted how the media now ignores the ‘other side’ of the story, which is a very basic tenet of the profession. This laziness, and the willing suspension of disbelief, has created the sense of a nation under siege, becuase the only source the media follows, particularly in the coverage of ‘terrorism’ is the government sources, which are shadowy, and ‘non-verifiable’. The media cannot even think of the governemnt as a perpetrator of terror, something which is exclusively reserved for non-state actors, except for Pakistan.
Anjali locates this failure of the media in the Information Culture present; in which Information is not free, but a state owned commodity, dispensed as a favour, so that even routine information dispesned by the government is valued. She also locates the media’s ‘laziness’ in its class intersts, which make its goals the same as that of the state.
Anjali spoke of the terrain of the ‘encounter’, which led well into the presentation of Vijay Nagraj of Amnesty International, who dwelt upon the the discursive power of the ‘encounter’, the extra judicial executions that we are all aware of. Vijay spoke of how the media reportage of these ‘encounters’ has done away with the words ’suspected’ and ‘alleged’. Now they are plain, unadorned terrrorists. Police lies become facts. The laziness of media language in reporting ‘encounters’, has lethal implications; delegitimizing an entire struggle. the truth as casualty.
The media has completely ignored the 1997 directives of the NHRC, which call for an investigation of all police officers involved in an encounter. The police versions are now the truth. The ‘lazy ‘assumptions which led to the arrest of Ifthikar Gilani are part of the media’s commonsense about all Kashmiri Muslims.
Vijay warns us of worse things to come, like the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, to come out in the US, which by maintaining a blanket security policy for detainees, will in effect legitimize disapperance.
And since repression has become globalised…
Arun Mehta, in the same panel, spoke of the need for electronic forensics, especially when the major evidence presented in almost all the spectacular crises of the past two years or so, which have allowed governemts to kick up levels of repression and aggression; has been largely electronic in nature… the bin Laden tapes, the december 13 mobile intercepts, the West end tapes, etc.
Arun Mehta noted, especially in the Tehelka case, how there were no standards for the presentation of electronic evidence, especially in the Tehelka tapes, and went on to highlight guildelines for accepting/using electronic evidence.
The guildelines are simple – Good audio quality of recording is an essential, for it makes it much harder to distort content. Backup coipes of all evidence should be taken immediately, and distributed, to prevent police tampering. The public should have access to all these materials, unedited. The recording hardware should aslo remain untampered with; and accessible.
Anand Vivek Taneja
March 5th, 2004
The Sarai Programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, (CSDS) Delhi together with the Waag Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam, recently organized a workshop titled “Crisis/Media : The Uncertain States of Reportage“. The workshop was hosted at Sarai-CSDS, Delhi. “Crisis/Media” brought together media practitioners, journalists, critics, activists, writers and students for an intense three days of reflection, dialogue and debate on the act of bearing witness, in and through the media on a world at crisis. The workshop opened with a provocation that stated “The crises in the media are the crises of the media.”
This event, which took place on the 3rd. 4th and 5th of March, 2003, brought together critical voices from Kashmir, Gujarat, Manipur, Delhi, Mumbai, Argentina, the ex-Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa and the United States. It had human rights activists, anti war campaigners, and legal practitioners dialogue with reporters who have covered intensive crisis and conflict situations, It featured talks by writers, critics and academics, a round table in which independent media activists discussed strategies for the future,an impromptu exhibition of photographs depicting the situation in Argentina today and screenings of films and videos relevant to the themes of the workshop.
The workshop was very well attended, with people staying on after long days for the screenings, and conversations continuing well into the night, on each of the three days. A group of M.A. Final year students from the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia University. Delhi also attended the workshop along with the many who had pre registered to be able to attend.The seminar room at CSDS was packed to capacity, for much of the three days, and arrangements were made for live video transmissions of the panel in order to accommodate an additional thirty or forty people in the ‘Sarai Interface Zone’ in the basement of the new building at CSDS on Rajpur Road.
What follows is a few vignettes and memories of some of what I found to be the most engaging encounters and presentations that occurred during the event. As one of the people who organized and co ordinated the event (together with Geert Lovink from the Waag, and Rachel Magnusson, intern at Sarai)I found that my expectations of what we had hoped to achieve with this conference exceeded to a great extent by the depth and intensity of the discussions, and by the excellent presentations made by the invited speakers that prompted these wide ranging discussions. In a south asian context, where a variety of economic, cultural and political factors enforce what is often a crippling silence about many key issues, even as the impression of a free media is sought to be sustained by the clamour of a sophisticated media and news industry, this workshop had an added significance. It was able to generate a climate that welcomed candour and free speech, and at the same time set and maintained a high standard of discourse about crisis reportage. It was able to be an event that could focus on very concrete issues of media practice, without losing sight of what it means, in a philosophical and ethical sense to bear witness to difficult times.
In our intorductiory statements, Geert Lovink and I stated that The ‘Crisis/Media’ Workshop at Sarai opened framed by the memory of one crisis, and the anticipation of another. Exactly a year ago, at the end of February and the beginning of March 2002, we witnessed a pogrom in Gujarat, in western India. Today, the world stands a hair’s trigger away from a war in Iraq, the consequences of which, on a global scale seem too difficult to even imagine. These are times for sober reflection, and that, precisely, is what we often find missing, as we open the newspaper, listen to the radio, or continue to be lobotomised by television. Yet, a variety of different, dissident, passionate and sane voices are also making themselves heard, through combinations of new and old media, as never before. The ‘Paid For’ news of the mainstream media is often exposed for what it is, even before it appears, by an increasingly vigilant network of independent local-global media initiatives. The numbers that turn out on the streets of the world’s major capitals to protest against the plans for war against Iraq seem to suggest that despite huge propaganda efforts, ‘the spin’ isn’t working, at least not all of the time. We live, as the Chinese curse, has it, in ‘interesting times’.
The workshop opened with a keynote presentation by Danny Muller, from the Iraq Peace Team, who spoke eloquently of the way in which the rising tide of protest worldwide against the plans for war against Iraq, showed how the spin doctors in the media don’t always get it right. He spoke of the necessity of tactical intelligence, in order to ensure that alternative voices get heard. He also emphasized the fact that we need to see each of ourselves not just as passive recipients of media, but as active agents, using conversations, letters, and other means of personal communication as effective “viral” agents of making it possible different points of view get a hearing. He spoke fo his experiences of talking about his trips to Iraq, and civil disobedience through non payment of taxes, as well as his interventions on prime time live TV shows, such as Oprah Winfrey, where he could confront President Bush with the sheer absurdity of the drive for war. Danny Miller’s presentation was a testatment to the way in which ordinary people with limited resources can make a difference to the media representation of any issue.
The tension between mainstream media and other ways of bearing witness to our times remained a consistent theme through the days of the workshop. It surfaced for instance in the plenary that bracketed the end of the workshop, which featured an address by Arundhati Roy, the well known dissident writer based in delhi. Arundhati Roy, compared the mainstream media to a buffalo, surrounded by a swarm of bees that were all the alternative and independent voices emerging from within a politicized new media culture – she spoke of how the “paid for” news of the networks and newspapers needs to be vigilantly combatted. Her exposition of news as ‘collateral damage’ looked at how the indigenous forest dwelling people of north kerala could be dubbed easily as ‘terrorists’, at the way in which the movement against the damming of the river Narmada has fared at the hands of the mainstream media, and the easy acceptance of official press releases as ‘objective’ truth as an unfortunate part of the so called “war against terror”. At the same time, she sounded an important note of caution when she stated that peoples movements need to work had to create an alternative political culture that cannot be easily packaged into the familiar patterns of the “leaders and the led”, and the images of martyrs/victims and extremists that the mainstream media is so adept at using to represent them with. Arundhati Roy , through her presentation, made an eloquent case for the “peace correspondent” as opposed to “war correspondent” as someone who reports not only the wars that are manufactured and unleashed on to people by powerful interests, but as someone who listens to and is sensitive to all the struggles for dignity, peace and liberty that do not necessarily make the news in the din of war. In concluding the discussion after her presentation Arundhati underlined the need to be wary of a “Lazyness in Language” and of the need to remain alive to the task of making the connections that needed to be made, and to the imperative of a fidelity to what people experienced in the world today.
Ranjit Hoskote, (Deputy Editor, The Hindu) in another plenary spoke of the responsibilities that come with the act of speaking in a resistant voice, the imperative not to take on the mantle of victimhood as a catcha all and not to mirror the “repeatage” that substitutes for reportage. He emphasized the need not to simplify, to reproduce existing inadequate categories, and the urge to jump to conclusions, pointing out that in a conflict, very often it is unncessary to allow oneself to be pushed into the corner of choosing one or the other side, because, as he said, the “Truth may have more than two sides to it”
Subarno Chatterjee (Delhi University) dissected the role of the media in the build up of war frenzy during the Kargil conflict, and discussed in detail the questionable way in which reportage of “atrocities” by Pakistani forces would occupy the headlines, while different standards where applied while talking of the behavious of the Indian military.
A panel in Hindi featured a exploration by the eminent Hindi essayist, writer and critic, Rajendra Yadav of the crisis of free speech in the Hindi language. His presentation, which took the form of an autobiographical exegesis of the many attacks he has faced from the right, left and the centre as a result of his willingness to say things that made people uncomfortable was marked by with and candour, but also revealed a deep discomfort with the prevailing culture of “playing safe” that has the Hindi reading public within its grip. His presentation was followed by an anecdote laced intervention by Abhay Dube (fellow, CSDS and former journalist) of the “crisis’ that gripped the newsroom of a major Hindi daily (about what to say and what not to say) on the day that the Babri Masjid was demolished by the forces of the Hindu Right in 1992.
In two other significant panels, one on the media reports of the Gujarat violence, and the other on reporting situations of conflict in South Asia, (which discussed ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka, insurgency and state terror in Kashmir and the north east of India) working journalists based in Kashmir and Gujarat, spoke with depth and passion of the travails of trying to stay close to the truth. Darshan Desai, (Outlook, Ahmedabad) ) spoke of the way in which the political forces who orchestrated the violence in Gujarat (the ruling BJP party) was able to successfully manipulate the English language media’s reporting of the truth about what was going on – into a discorse of ‘the demonization of Gujaratis by a section of the media’. This in turn helped turn the image of the aggressor into that of the aggreived, and was pumped for mileage, quite successfully in the elections that followed some months after the violence. Siddharth Varadarajan (Times of India, Delhi) spoke of how the English language media did perform a responsible role by not shying away from naming the victims of the violence that engulfed Gujarat, but he also spoke of the “Anarchy” of the newspaper office, and the pressures of daily production, by way of explanation for the many slippages that occur in the media’s presentation of key issues of conflict. This explanation was contested actively in the discussion that followed. Gurpal Singh (independent filmmaker, Mumbai) spoke of the efforts of a coalition of media workers and activists towards creating a body of video documentation in the aftermath of the violence, that they were willing to share with all those who were committed to speaking out against what had happenned, Arvind Narain (Alternative Legal Forum) spoke of the ways in which the term “genocide” could or could not be deployed in describing what had occurred in Gujarat, in the light of the existing paradigm of international law. He spoke of the need for engaged and creative legal and human rights activism in coming up with adequate responses to exceptional situations like Gujarat.
Muzammil Jaleel (Indian Express, Srinagar) spoke of a daily routine of fear, of dealing with getting inured to violence, until the death of journalist colleagues in bomb attacks would shake one out of the inertia of witnessing violence. Muzammil emphasized the necessity to abide by a professional ethic and a commitment to telling what one sees, even if the things that you see do not add up to a coherent picture that is comforting to either of the parties in a conflict like Kashmir. This, he said, means everyone is out to get you, in one sense, both the insurgents as well as the forces of state power, because the truth is inconvenient to everyone. Manoranjan Selliah, (independent journalist and human rights activist, Colombo) talked about the way in which the plight of Tamil Muslims, caught in the cross fire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan State had been completely ignored by the media, which chooses to ignore the victims of those it has already designated as ‘victims’. A Bimol Akoijam (visiting fellow, CSDS, Delhi) spoke of the way in which the North East of India, functions in a sense as the marginal, repressed ‘other’ , yielded by the obsessive “Rastra chetna (national consciousness)” of the mainstram media in India. This he said, was symptomatic of a residual colonialist consciousness that still animated the mainstream of Indian civil society and the state – the media could hardly be an expected to be an exception to it. Abir Bazaz (independent filmmaker, Delhi/Srinagar) who was featured as a discussant, spoke of the media’s many silences, especially with regard to the beginning of the nineties, in Kashmir, when a massive climate of fear and repression led to an increased sense of alienation within the Kashmir valley. He also pointed out the tendency to be selective about the “victims” whose cause one chooses to champion, pointing out for instance how the Kashmiri Pandit minority became selective victims, depending on who was doing the reporting, within and outside Kashmir.
In another very interesting panel, called “The Encounter : Truth as a Casualty” Syed Iftekhar Gilani, (Kashmir Times, Delhi) a journalist recently released from prison in Delhi, spoke eloquently of the kafkaesque ordeal that journalists and others face when faced with the “Official Secrets Act”. Anjali Mody, on the same panel, spoke of how journalists have become habituated to reproduce official (police) versions in the case of so called “encounter” deaths, because of the vice like grip of the notion of “national security” and the “national interest” on the media as a whole. She pointed out that though there were a few honorable exceptions of cases where reporters did scratch the surface of the hand out stories about “terrorists’ slain in encounters, there was still little by way of an understanding of what could be done so that all the nuances of a particular “encounter’ were adequately explored. Arun Mehta ( telecommunications engineer and human rights activist) spoke at the same panel on the need for a strict scrutiny and adequate ‘forensic’ standards in cases where the media highlights what is considered to be ‘electronic evidence’. He quoted a series of examples, ranging from the Tehelka Arms Kickback Scandal to the trial proceedings in the “Attack on the Indian Parliament” case, where the state, media organizations, and reporters have all been slipshod in the way in which they have dealt with what has been called ‘Electronic Evidence’. Vijay Nagaraj (Amnesty International, Delhi) who spoke as a discussant on this panel spoke of the necessity of carefully examining simple things like police FIRs (first information reports) to unravel patterns of violence and repression at an everyday level. He also cautioned us against the new found global respectability for severely repressive laws that were violative of basic human rights as a corollary of the so called “War against Terror”.
The focus of the workshop was markedly global, and we heard from Marilina Winik (Indymedia Argentina, Buenos Aires) about the way in which independent media initiatives were confronting the collapse of everyday life in Argentina today. Marni Cordell (The Paper and Small Voices.org, Melbourne) spoke of experiences of working with independent and alternative media practitioners in Indosnesia and Australia We heard testimonies of women in the South African Media from Crystal Orderson, (Young Africa Television, Johannesburg) and also of how radio, and the internet became essential tools in the struggle for a free space, in the ex Yugoslavia, from Katerina Zivanovic (Cyber Rex and Radio B 92, Belgrade) , and Adrienne van Heteren (Press Now/Glasnost Foundation, Moscow/Amsterdam). The Crises of Everyday Life were also examined in a south asian context in by Dipika Nath (Prism, Delhi) spoke of the media’s representation of sexual minorities while Chitra Ahanthem (Imphal Free Press, Manipur) looked at how the HIV/Aids situation, complicated by a backdrop of ethnic violence and state repression creates a warped media picture of Manipur.
The afternoon of the third day began with a panel titled Confrontations in Cyberspace. Harsh Kapur, (South Asia Citizens Web) took everyone on a tour of the global far right in cyberspace, with an extended detours on the large territory occupied by the Hindu Far Right, in India, and in the global south asian diaspora. He also highlighted efforts at online resistance to the far right, and spoke of the urgency to launch concerted online campaigns against the far right’s sophisticated and extensive web presence. Aditya Nigam (Autonomous Media Network and CSDS, Delhi)spoke of the different political culture that could now become possible because of the decentralized, potentially non hierarchical structure of the web. He mentioned the crucial role that mailing lists had played, in the wake of the Indo – Pak nuclear tests in 1998, during the Kargil war and in the aftermath of the Gujarat violence. These, he said were necessary and crucial to broaden and deepen, especially when the mainstream newspaper can report mass protests as mere ‘traffic jams’ as had happenned recently in Delhi, even as they engineered false ‘media events’ to suit particular political interests. Asha Varadarajan, (Queens University, Kingston, Ontario)
In the final panel on the reportage of ecological crises, Darryl D’Monte (president of the International Fedaration of Environmental Journalists, Mumbai)spoke of the crisis within environmental journalism, as a result of the backlash against discussion of ecological issues within mainstream media. He spoke of how column inches of in depth and analyrical reportage on environmental matters had actually declined, even though issues like “Global Warming” did have high visibility. Sanjay Kak (independent film maker, Delhi) spoke about the necessity of putting politics back into environmental reportage, and of dealing adequately with the time scales that are important in the politics of environmental issues, which the mainstream media’s obsession with “events” is generally unable to accommodate or grasp. Pradip Saha (Down to Earth Magazine, Delhi) gave a verywitty but sharply critical analysis of the nittiy gritty of the reportage of an issue like “water” in the mainstream media. Complete with graphs of frequency distributions of seasonal patters of reportage in newspapers of water related themes, Saha drove home the point that the media generally followed the patterns of thought laid out by the state and by corporations when it came to the reportage of basic issues. He made a strong appeal for a systematic analysis of the political economy of media ownership and control patterns and the way in which these patterns impinged on the reportage of environmental issues. Ravi Agarwal (Environmental Activist, Toxics Link, Delhi) spoke of how the only environmental issues that get any real coverage in the media are those that can be presented as “disasters”. This implies that the everyday issues, which are structural, which have to do with basic economic and political questions often get sidelined. He also spoke of the need for effective media strategies for envirnomental activists, not necessarily relying on the spectacular, as wealthy organizations such as Greenpeace are able to do, but relying instead on methodical and systematic investigation, analysis and innovative ways of presenting findings to a broader public.
Apart from the discussions and plenaries, each days programme ended with a screening. The first evening featured “Before the Rain” by Milcho Manchevski, which was introduced and located within the context of the history of conflicts, and media representations of that conflict in the ex Yugolavia, by Costas Constantinou (University of Keele)
The second evening featured a screening of “Paradise on the River of Hell” a personal reflection in video on the situation in Kashmir, by Abir Bazaz and Meenu Gaur, followed by a selection of short films by different groups from Argentina, which was introduced and presented by Marilina Winik.
The final evening’s film was “Words on Water” a film on the peoples resistance movement to the building of big dams on the river Narmada in Central India, by Sanjay Kak. Each of the screenings was followed by a lively and animated discussion with the filmmakers and presenters.
The workshop also featured an informal round table on future strategies for alternative media inititatives, which saw the participation of inedpendent media activists such as Sanjay Bhangar (Indymedia Mumbai) , Marilina Winik (Indymedia Argentina), Marni Cordell (Small Voices, Melbourne), Katerina Zivanovic (Cyber Rex, Belgrade) and others.
The atmosphere at the workshop bordered occasionally on the electric,with intense discussions following incisive presentations and plenaries. The workshop was for many of the participants, (as well as for all those who attended) an opportunity to talk about and listen to many issues of critical importance that had for a very long time been smothered by a suffocating, uncritical culture of silence in South Asia. If anything it did demonstrate that there is hope yet, within our societies, for the emergence of a consistent, critical and vigilant climate of examination of the media – as one more node in the matrix of power. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the workshop also laid for many who came to the attend, the seeds of thinking about “doing” media as a way of challenging the same matrix of power. We hope that the conversations that began during this workshop will play some part in the realization of a critical culture of media practice, that instead of lurching from one crisis to another, is able to do some justice to the times that we live in today.
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
March 16th, 2003
The morning session on the third day of the Crisis /Media workshop at Sarai was testimony to a packed auditorium. Writer activist Arundhati Roy was to present her paper on Peace is War: the collateral damage of breaking news. Shuddhabhrata Sengupta introduced Roy as one of the finest voices in India who has consistently spoken on issues of concern, be it possession of nuclear weapons in South Asia or the adivasi movements in Kerela or the epoch making Narmada Bachao Andolan in the valley. “Reasonable, strident and passionate” were a combination of words that he used to describe the essence of the voice of Arundhati. Also the one phrase that had made an imprint on his mind from her award winning book The God of Small Things ˆ Locusts and I was in ways, more than one, to be the essence of her paper ˆ the need to take a definitive position during times of crisis and shun the garb of neutrality under which many of us try and cover our faces and thus aggravate the crisis.
Arundhati’s paper threw up many interesting issues for introspection by the media practitioners and those involved in crisis reportage. She began with the concept of “Paid For” News expressing her delight that now since the mainstream print and electronic media had actually openly started selling space in the gossip sessions, the viewers may soon be in a treat for situations like “And this sentence is sponsored by…” ! What a take off on the mainstream Indian bourgeois discourse!
Roy pointed out that after the September 9 attack on the towers, the myth of the free press and the great US media had come crashing down but drew attention to the Indian media back home that we had broken the myth of free press in India not once but many times, during the Decmebr 13 attack on Parliamnet and Syed Gilani’s arrest. In relation to the reportage on Gujarat she said that the reportage on Gujarat did not begin with the riots last March but a decade earlier with the breaking of the Babri Masjid implying “that in our hearts, feelings do not begin when headlines begin but much before them.”
Roy clarified that she was not on a media bashing spree but that it was important that the media too be held accountable. She referred to the rise of the New Media that comments and critiques the institutions and vestiges of the Old Media in its every move. Pointing to the role that media plays in the strengthening of every democracy, Roy pointed out that if the US government still chooses to ignore the massive worldwide protests being held against the impending war in Iraq, then one has to seriously question the predicament of what a democracy is.
In an in depth analysis on reportage of crises by the media, Roy drew attention to the fact that media has begun treating a crisis like business appointment. It makes headlines with the first great sensational occurrence or visual spectacle and once it has been fed on the minds of the consumers in decisive and repetitive chronology, media moves off to its next appointment with another crisis. Crisis reportage has also become slick, advanced and more technological, almost like a science, said Roy. Media has almost perfected the art of isolating a crisis and making it float like a hot air balloon fueled by the excessive media glare and stripping it of its essential context and the historical situation it may be situated in. Crisis as a spectacle is not new to us, spoke Arundhati and pointed to the most theatrical Salt March by Gandhi to Dandi but pointed out that stripped of its essential resistance movement, crisis reportage today plays it up merely as a spectacle.
Crises have also increasingly come to be reported as more symbolic than real. Aware of the media’s need for gobbling up any sensational and theatrical event, politicians stage manage colossal political campaigns like the Rath Yatra in the name of a politico-spiritual or religious crisis and whip up emotional and political frenzy among the citizens. Roy also coined an interesting term, “ownership of the crisis”. She went on to say, “If you do not have a crisis to call your own then you are not in news and if you are not in news then you are down and out.” The more depressing fallout that such a strategy of crisis reportage has had on genuine resistance movements is that they look to new ways of attracting attention to their cause like technique of Jal Samarpan that the NBA activists have talked of latterly to resort to in an attempt to bring some hope to the sapping movement.
We are all aware of the crushing and trampling upon of crucial resistance movements whenever they have graduated from mere symbolism to civil disobedience by the mighty state. Thus Dalits and Adivasis are killed for encroaching upon forest plantations in Kerela that belonged to the JK plantations. Hundreds of children are jailed in Jharkhand and lakhs disappearing in Kashmir under various excuses of threats to national security.
Roy pressed for the most urgent need of “Peace correspondents” rather than “War Correspondents.” She stressed on the need of the media to lose the terror of the mundane and to expose political fallacies. She spoke of the importance of transparency and accountability in a democratic set up. She said that even institutions like the mass media and the judiciary need to be accountable because any institution beyond scrutiny in a so-called democratic set up is anti thetical to the very spirit of democracy. Another worrying trend in crises reportage, Roy said, lay in the tendency to approach each crisis from the back: the decision to enter Afghanistan through the debris of the World Towers. Such a lopsided entry colours the nature of reportage and one never gets to know the causes of the crisis.
The two main pillars of Arundhati’s presentaion were the strong appeal it made for the mass media to look inward and introspect in the nature and techniques of crises reportage, on how to articulately report crises so that it does not become fodder for theatrical or political back-bashing and secondly, the efficacy of the media’s strategy to make the transition from spectacle to resistance.
It also threw up many corollaries in media writing, for example, the usage of language, an issue that was brought out in the interactive session with the audience. Pointing to the use of language, Roy acknowledged that the media has been extremely lazy with language and needs to tighten it up to get its message across articulately and correctly.
Attended by a packed audience that went satisfied with an emotive yet reasonable and appealing presentation, Arundhati Roy was a delight to listen to and learn from. One of the most sane voices in the increasingly complicated whirlwind of political and theatrical rhetoric, she still speaks with relish and writes with the head and heart firmly in place.
Anamika Bhatnagar
March 5th, 2003
In response to a question at the end of her presentation, about recovering the possibilites inherent in reportage, Arundhati Roy spoke of the ‘laziness of the use of language’. How this laziness needed to be fought; how every sentence had to be honed and polished, how even a 200 word report had to be made a weapon – because ‘they’ aka ‘the motherfuckers’, (aka The World Bank the IMF and …….) steal and co-opt language to suit their own twisted ends.
Crisis/Media, for me, has been working through certain trajectories over the past three days, coming up with ideas, and trying to express them, and this morning’s Plenary was t the perfection of an idea that had been struggling for expression through a series of sessions.
Language as a weapon. Honed. Polished. Language as an ally of thought, rather than its polite obfuscation.
Shuddabrata Sengupta, who was chairing the session, reminded us of a term from The God of Small Things. Locusts Stand I. Who are you to say these things? is something that is always hurled at you to silence you. Exactly a year ago, it was used to send Arundhati to jail for one absurd day – who are you to ask/say these things?
Locusts Stand I. Where do you stand when the locusts come flying? (Istand with the sons of Cain.)
Metaphors, imagery, the play (and hard work) with words and phrases that turns them on their head. These are her weapons. Weapons which cut through the doublespeak of ‘development reports’ and the ranting report of the right wing; words which provoke all of us to think, and to find our own truths. Arundhati’s presentation today, though self-admittedly more ‘theoretical’ than her past work, was no less powerful.
Beginning from the Times of India selling space to wannabes on Page 3, through 9/11, to the shrinking space of Civil Disobdience and the self-fulfilling prophecy of ‘Terrorism’, to Peace is War, the importance of talking about everyday struggles; it was brilliant Theory, constantly informed by the realities that the Media ignores in its constant search for Crisis.
The behemoth conglomerates of Old Media, though plagued by the buzzzing flies of ‘New Media’ (which can come up with minor irritants like the millions of anti-war marchers in 750 cities) keep lurching from Crisis to Crisis to satisfy its insatiable appetite for Spectacle; for Theatre. ‘Crises’ are disconnected from their context, from their historicity, and then dumped… Social Movements, Resistance Movements, are being sucked into crisis production, becuase if you don’t have a crisis of your own, you’re not in the news; if you’re not in the news you don’t exist. While ‘real’ crises, and those who suffer genuine socio-economic problems which are grounded in the real – are increasingly dealt with by brutal repression; ’symbolic’ , virtual crises , like the ones created/fed by the Right Wing are given media coverage, denied to the real, and allowed to shift agendas in the country with a ridiculous ease. As Arundhati Roy said in the context of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, ” People resisiting dams are suppoosed to conjure up new tricks, or give the struggle…”
When victims refuse to be victims, they become terrorists. The space for genuine Civil Disobedience is is atrophying; conflated with the fear of ‘Terrorism’, is closing every avenue for non-violence protest – and leaving no choice to people to become ‘Terrorists’.
The solution to this? For the resistance movements to stop feeding the the media’s endless appetite for theatre, and get back to the real issues. To recognise that for most people in the world, ‘Peace is War.’ That the daily struggles of existence are the more important struggles than the spectacles/spectres of War and Terrorism that the media/government create. To lose our fear of the mundane and to dwell on these struggles, to become ‘Peace’ Correspondents. In response to one of the questions, Arundhati spoke of ‘normality’ as being magical and celebrated in literature, and the need to blur the lines between literature and reprotage. This tied, for me, up with one of the themes of the first day, when shuddha had suggested poetry and a poetic form as a possible way of writing about violence; as an alternative to the ‘objective’, balanced report as news.
(Hermann Goering – Tell the people they’re being attacked, then denounce the peacemakers.)
At the end of her presentation, Arundhati Roy re-deployed cheesy ‘Titanic’ in a beautiful metaphor. That we continue sailing on the Titanic, as it slides into the sea. Even as the third class passengers drown, the banquetting continues, even with decks tilted, becuase they know that the lifeboats ar reserved for club-class.
And the motherfuckers may be right.
The final edge to the weapon of language. The eloquence of abuse for those who deserve it.
To paraphrase Shuddha, once again, We need to break the norms of polite, bourgeoise discourse. If you’re reasonable today, you have to be strident, pasiionate, uncomfortable.
Fuck you, motherfuckers!!
Anand Vivek Taneja
March 5th, 2003
In the Hindi session, ‘Na Likhne ke Kaaran’, the concerns about the media from the morning plenary, and the first session, as well as the preceding days, spilled over.
The dissatisfaction which had followed Siddharth Vardarajan’s absolvement (sort of) of the role of Editorial decision making in the finished product of the ‘newspaper’, even in times of crisis; was addressed by Abhay Dubey’s short, punchy presentation.
Abhay humurously traced the trajectory of how JANSATTA, a paper he worked for, transformed from a communal paper to a markedly secular paper, almost in one day – the 6th of December, 1992.
Through this trajectory, he attempted to understand the role of the Editor in the functioning of the newspaper, and where the decision making power lay, to which all the other writing/expressions in the paper were reactions. Abhay thenpresented the triangular model of content-decision making and problematized it. instead of the triangle of Capital, Governemnt and Obstacles(e.g – Hindutva), he proposed a 4th corner to the Triangle, the made invisible corner of the Editor; whose say in the newspaper’s policy is hidden under excuses of the disaggregated model of American newspaper policy.
But the speech de resistance of the pre-lunch session was Rajendra yadav, speaking of ‘Na Likhne ke Kaaran’, ‘Reasons not to Write…’ .
Rajendra Yadav’s understated sarcasm and anecdotal style made for great listening. He was talking of why it is easy to be a status quoist, becuase everything you write abouty is a holy cow, so if you challenge something you are asking for trouble… more of the ‘laziness of langauge’. It is better not to write if you can’t challenge Religion, Family, Society or even Economiccs and Politics. (Which hasn’t stooped Yadav from writing about any of these, and provocatively, in his long and chequered carreer)
Ravikant, in his introduction, to Rajendra yadav, mentioned how despite Hans, which yadav edits, being a literaray magazine, it delas alo with the politics of the literature. This becomes more important to me as it highlights the theme of blurring the lines between literature and reportage…
Rajendra ji spoke of huis unflinching commitment to rationalism and free thinking in the face of all kinds of obscurantism and the controversies he has created through his writing, especially the writings which have problematised the way all morality and patriarchy is located on the woman’s body. On why na d how he went around defending MF Hussain in his writing, when the right wing was gunning for him – his was an a free-flowing and inspirational talk, in which he made it clear that the reasons not to write are the very reasons to write.
At the end he spoke of why we leave abuses, Gaalis, out of our sanitsied discourse. Gaalis, particulalrly in Hindi and Punjabi, are one the most expressive forms of langauge we have, especially for those who use them as daily discourse. Rajendra-ji made a plea for the retention of abuse in literature.
Anand Vivek Taneja
March 5th, 2003
In a presentation entitled, “The Ethical Quandaries of Bearing Witness” Ranjit Hoskote identified how truth is essentialized, cliched, and diminished by the media during crises. He discussed the causes of this phenomenon, which include: (1) ‘repeatage’ – the impoverishment of discourse by repetition. By repetition, cliches package situations of crisis. (2) the frequent sacrifice of contexts and frameworks in favor of ‘the shallow present’ (3) the way in which dominant and state-sanctioned narratives leave others inaudible and diminished. (4) the reformatting of notions of nation-state to suit popular beliefs.
In the second half of the presentation Hoskote discussed the Indian media’s intense loss of the self. The international media was being used as a parameter for most of its work. The media had turned from a discourse of communicative action into a discourse of hegemony. He also posed a question – in the presence of a crisis situation, whether one is a media practitioner first or a citizen? The conflict of the self and the other is within. He expressed a utopian future where in moments of conflicts and crisis the media as an ally of the resistance. In conclusion he raised the point as to how “victimology” can become a dogma in its own right. Everyone is a victim , no one is innocent.
Karma Wangdi and Suzanne Schulz
March 5th, 2003
Reports from the mornings plenary session on the media related questions that have been raised by the genocidal events that took place in the Indian state of Gujarat a year ago. Presentations where given by editors of mainstream newspapers, a media activist and a legal researcher/activist.
Gujarat and the Media: One Year After Siddharth Varadarjan, Deputy Chief Editor, National Bureau, Times of India, Delhi
Varadarajan began by presenting questions regarding media coverage during the crisis in Gujarat:
(1) Why was media coverage sketchy when the violence was at its peak?
(2) Why did Advani criticize the media for showing images of dead bodies when these were, in fact, not shown?
(3) While English language media covered the fact that 95% of victims were Muslim why did Hindi-language media decide not to identify victims?
He then went on to discuss problems in Gujarat media coverage today, one year after the Gujarat crisis:
(1) Lack of follow-up on such issues as punishment and relocation. The dearth of news stories on Gujarat has subdued a public opinion that could potentially demand justice.
(2) Claims and demands of VHP, BJP, RSS and Shiv Sena create pseudo-events that media eagerly covers. An example is the supposed laser test which would prove that there was a temple under the Babri Masjid
(3) Coverage differences between Hindi-language and English-language media is based primarily on comparative lack of human and financial resources.
(4) Chaotic and Archaic (Anarchic?) way newspapers function. Example: Story content is edited to accommodate layout of newspaper. An example from The Times of India editorial staff decided that the word infiltrator to describe Bangladeshi migrants to India was pejorative and they would cease to use it.
Later a visual from another news source was inserted on the front page that used the word ‘infiltrators’ to describe Bangladeshis.
Use, Misuse and Abuse of the Media:The Gujarat Example Darshan Desai, Special Correspondent, Outlook, Ahmedabad
Desai discussed demonization of English-language media and resentment towards English-language journalists during and since the Gujarat crisis. Desai suggested that this process occurred because of the orchestrations of one politician.
The Gujarat Violence Shared Footage Project Gurpal Singh, Independent Filmmaker, Mumbai
In March 2002, three Bombay media professionals went to Gujarat to document what mainstream media would not engage in and which would benefit from an extended period of effort. By February 2003, the number of media professionals had grown to fifty. The project has 250 hours of footage taken during this period.in their footage bank. The footage is divided into three major portions:
(1) Documenting the desecration of places of worship.
(2) Stories based on the various aspects of the carnage.
(3) General footage – camps closing down , rath yatras
The project also has a secondary bank which has footage collected from various independent sources. This footage is available to all interested parties and individuals who want to use the material for spreading an awareness on the gravity of the situation and its aftermath.
Gurpal Singh
The Legal Response to Gujarat: Moving between the Universal and the Particular Arvind Narrain, Alternative Legal Forum, Bangalore
Narrain discussed the inadequacies of the First Information Report on Gujarat violence in examining the truth that is produced by law. He compared these official reports with human rights reports such as The Citizen’s Tribunal report and the NHRC report. Human rights reports contain evidence of (1) state complicity in violence (2) mess participation (3) targeted nature of the violence. Narrain suggested that what happened in Gujarat could be identified under genocide law if a genocide law is established in India or if the perpetrators are tried in an international court that adheres to the 1948 Universal Law of Genocide
Suzanne Schulz & Karma Wangd
March 4th, 2003
Reports from the 3 panels of the ‘crisis of everyday life’ session. these panels dealt with the representation of women in the South African media, the connection of local voices in the Asia Pacific region, the media tactics of the European noborder network, independent media coverage of the economic crisis in Argentina, media attention for AIDS/HIV in north-east India and Indian medias coverage of sexual minorities
Dispatches from South Africa : Where are the Women in South Africa’s Media? Crystal Orderson , Young Africa Television. Johannesburg.
Crystal Orderson wanted to look into the history of recent South Africa and posed a question to which she hoped would find an answer: in a population of 43 million, of which 53% are women , where are the women in the media in South Africa? The issues of representation have taken a backseat and other issues are more prevalent in South Africa.
Orderson put forth an argument that political violence in South Africa has been replaced by violence on women. She wanted to analyze the history behind it. She provided an example of how a 13 year-old girl was raped and murdered and the media had sensationalized it . The real issues of The socio-economic conditions prevalent , the presence of gangs ,etc, this context was completely missed out.. Therefore there was a need to change the discourse in South African media and in this respect various civil initiatives were started. An effort was being made to mobilize and advocate change in the reportage of issues in media. She concluded that there is this constant effort to ensure their representation in the context of South Africa .
Crystal Orderson & Marni Cordell
Connecting Local Voices Marni Cordell, www.smallvoices.org, Melbourne
Marni Cordell works independently and began the website www.smallvoices.org, and also runs a small tabloid called, “The Paper.” She is a part of the small and independent media initiative in the Asia Pacific region. She spoke of her experiences in working in Indonesia. She also highlighted Australia and its relationship with the Asia Pacific region.
The press freedom in Indonesia was a myth according to her. Personal attacks on media or press community was frequent if the reports they made were in relation to religious or ethnic groups. she talked of the need to educate the journalists regarding press freedom. There are various media support organizations working in Indonesia , ex SEPA
She also talked about how the mainstream media in Australia was propagating a lot of contorted views , such as the fact that Indonesia being a country of a large number of Muslims and the Australians living close to them was a threat. She believed in the need for free and independent views in the media in Australia. Her main reasons were:
(1)The need for developing an understanding with local mediums.
(2) Whether or not the alternative media will fall to the mainstream media’s idea of crisis.
(3) working with a limited sources of access forces you to engage at a much deeper level.
Cordell concluded by putting forth the point that the world was at a critical state, especially after 9/11. The media landscape had changed. The alternative media angle had been wiped out by the onslaught of the mainstream media. But in the era of mis -information and mis-representation an alternative medium would provide an answer.
Playing with the Media/Hiding from the Media: Media Tactics of the European No Border Network Paul Keller, Waag, Amsterdan, No Border Network
The NoBorder Network promotes free movement across borders in Europe. It is comprised of local groups in and around Europe who meet twice per year. The work of No Borders related to the concept of crisis by dealing with asylum rights for refugees and the shifting nature of borders in Europe. One of the aims of the network is to prevent deportations from Europe. The network holds classes and demonstrations at borders that educate and generate media attention. The network uses inventive means to get exposure such as buying shares in Luftansa Airlines to enable network members to attend and speak at Luftansa shareholders meetings.
Paul Keller
Improvisations after the Collapse: Media Reportage of Economic Crisis in Argentina Marilina Winik, Argentina Indymedia Centre, Buenos Aires
Independent Media Center in Argentina formed in 2001. Its web site, argentina.indymedia.org, like all Indy Media web sites, allows total access for anyone to upload pictures, audio and text at any time.
Marilina Winik
Identifying crisis in Northeast India; A perspective on HIV/AIDS from Manipur Chitra Ahanthem, The Imphal Press, Imphal
Ahanthem is a weekly columnist in the Imphal Free Press, an English daily based in Imphal. She does features/articles/reports on HIV/AIDS related issues. She believes that media can be used as a forum to advocate about HIV/AIDS. She began her talk bringing forth the issue of isolation that the North East faces [ mental as well as physical]. The sense of isolation is largely due to its terrain, its meager access to modern transport facilities, communication, its disproportionate landscape and inhabitation, minimum existence being practised there. This was one area of conflict that the region faced. The second issue of conflict that the region faced was of the separatist movement, ethnic strife regarding territorial integrity, autonomous status, etc.
Ahanthem described the peculiar way in which media functions in the Northeast. There is a lack of financial aid, therefore the coverage is confined to local news. The security personnel and the insurgents make a scapegoat of the media. Work is carried out in shift basis, therefore there is no basis for specialisation. She went on to highlight the scenario of HIV/AIDS condition in the region. Manipur alone, one of the states of the region has 14,732 HIV positive cases. The insurgent groups had taken upon the HIV/AIDS cases as a morality issue, a social evil which must be curbed at gunpoint. A de-addiction centre being run without medicines instead chains being cast on the patients. This was the scenario according to her.
She then went on to talk about the role of the media for an affective advocacy of these issues which was missing in the present scenario. The role of the media was not on sensationalising the issue or making it a stigma but on correct information. There is a need for the media fraternity to reach out to the people and educating them in the correct perspective. She suggests that health experts and NGOs should work hand in hand with media to come to a common platform to fight this crisis.
Chitra Ahanthem
The Media in India & Sexual Minorities Dipika Nath, PRISM, Delhi
Nath is part of a group called People for the Rights of Sexual Miinorities. Though sexual identity is often essentialized, identity can be necessary tool for organizing. Most of the organizing of sexual minorities in India has been confined to middle and upper-middle class communities. Sexuality is private and personal, but is often policed in the public sphere.
The following are contexts in which Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgendered issues have been increasingly covered in the media: (1) the depressed and lonely sexual minority individual – an example is the recent outbreak of lesbian couples committing suicide. In a two and a half month period, there were four suicides of lesbian couples.
(2) disease and sexual minorities
(3) sex-reassignment stories – these are sometimes perceived as more acceptable than gay/lesbian, because a man identifies as a woman and desires men can be seen as a “heterosexual” woman.
(4) legal contexts – Recently there has been a petition to ‘read down’ section 377, saying that private adult consentual sex should be de-criminalized.
Dipika Nath
Suzanne Schulz
March 4th, 2003
The afternnon session of the sarai workshop had Andrienne van Heteran and Katarina Zivanovic talking of an independent media B92 during the Balkan crisis. B92 was set up roughly about 15 years back in Serbia when there was a dire need of an independent media. It emerged as an alternate voice to the only two state owned media networks. B92 initially started as a radio station and tried to reach masses. Their great difficulty was , “sending people a message they didn’t want to hear.
Interestingly, B92 had an anti-war stand and their motto was, “don’t believe anyone not even B92.” This was done to educate people to understand the media politics and to encourage them in building thier own stand. This appears to be quite a revitting statement but also sanctions the fact that media plays its own dirty games in misleading poeple.
Katarina Zivanovic said that what is more important than the crisis is that what the media does before the crisis and after the crisis. katarina’s staement was insightful because obviously,there are a whole lot of unsolved issues. But is media providing any answers? This is one question that media people from all over the world should think about.
B92 that started as a radio station is now on internet and has a TV station as well. It is viewed as an achievement because it happens to be the only independent media network in Serbia. This network addresses the issues of people, minority rights etc and survived near bans from the government. Katarina said that it was all due to the efforts of Adrienne who came to serbia and proved that one person could make a difference. She suggested that a similar force could come up in Iraq as well and depict the true picture to the whole world.
Well all of it sounds very well, but we don’t know how many issues has B92 been able raise and resolve as Billboards still remain to be a strong medium of information in Serbia. Lastly, we can also not forget as in Katarina’s own words”How media can be manipulated and how media can manipulate you.
Pahuna Sharma
March 3rd, 2003
The conflicts of the individual and its relation to the influential external problems . This was the main issue of discussion by the three presenters Muzamil Jaleel, Indian express, Srinagar, Manoranjan Selliah, Independent journalistand Human Rights Activist, Colombo and A.BimolAkoijam, Visiting fellow, CSDS Delhi. Muzamil who was the first speaker gave a rather personalised experience of being a Kashmiri journalist. He laid stress on the fact that it was a challenge being a reporter in Kashmir and particularly so, if you are a Kashmiri Muslim. A Kashmiri Muslim reporter faces the challenge of defending his life , which is caught in between inter group militants rivalaries and the government, and his profession which needs to be executed out honestly. He provided various examples of the atrocities being held in kashmir and the local people’s silence over the whole issue. Silence is the only refuge or else protecting one’s life becomes difficult. This only proves how dangerously aggravated a journalist’s life in kashmir is. Personal fears and traumas are too many in kashmir. Muzamil narrated many such stories. These stories however posed only questions.
The media needs to find solutions to this as well. We constantly need to ponder as to how the most potent means of communicatiuon with the masses, the media help the people who are suffering so much. Does the media need to limit itself to mere fact filing or does it need to go beyond it and become the voice of people? Abir bazaz discussant for the presentation attacked Muzamil for not talking about the oppression by security forces and the minorities of Kashmir. To this Muzamil retaliated saying that, ?life is bigger than any cause? and that there is a distinction between a ?journalist and an activist?.
The second presenter Manoranjan Selliah was more voal about his helplessness as a journalist. He emphasised on the Sinhalese and Tamilian conflict stating that initially the Tamil press was the voice of the oppressed but now it had become the oppressor. He talked about the miserable plight of Tamil Muslims in Srilanka and the total absence of their state there. He called the press as the ?The world’s unidentified gunmen?. This only displays his anxiety as an activist and journalist if the media does not do its required job. He looked visibly perturbed over the conditions of Muslims in Srilanka. He was also able to express his helplessness in regard to the Tamilian Muslims in his concluding lines,’There are some journalists in the world who are unable to speak or write.’
Clearly enough, Manoranjan Selliah worry was also a threat to his life. Now i’m left wondering is media al about limitations and protecting one’s life. A very dismal picture indeed.
The third speaker provided some relief talking in a lighter vein. He main concern was the invisibility of the North -East. This he most convincingly argued by showing a picture of the Manipur Chief Minister along with other CM’s but amusingly enough his name was missing. Well this unveiled another facet of the media ignorance and this was more grave.
The presentation by all the three presenters was powerful and insightful. However the discussant paid more attention to Kasmir than others. This was compensated by the audiences interaction with the other two.
Pahuna Sharma
March 3rd, 2003
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