TAXED FOR TELLING

Umaria district in Madhya Pradesh. Chandrika Rai, his wife and two teenaged children were murdered in cold blood on February 18, 2012. His fault: He had written stories exposing the mining mafia there. Most of us are aware of how investigations editor for Mid DAY, Jyotirmoy Dey, was gunned down on the streets of Mumbai in June last year. And now, this is hot off the stove: On March 6, 2012, as results started trickling in, the Samajwadi Party (SP), in the pink of health, promised it would not have links with goons. But no sooner was the word out that its workers attacked journalists in Jhansi. This incident was triggered off when violence erupted with news getting out that Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Krishna Pal Singh Rajpoot was ahead of SP candidate Chandrapal Singh Yadav by 4,000 votes. When journalists began reporting the situation, some 1,500 SP supporters threw stones and assaulted them, forcing them to lock themselves in a school room. Not as cold blooded, but bad enough, and could have been worse.

Shooting the messenger is old hat, and journalists willy-nilly fall in that bracket. Incidents of scribes coming under attack are found world over. Sometimes it’s coercion, at other times it’s veiled threats, and many times it’s out and out physical assault, often leading to death. But what is disturbing today is its increasing frequency and complete brazenness.

In a recent interactive session with Indian journalists at the Press Club of India, representatives of the International Press Institute (founded in 1950, IPI has a galaxy of well-known editors and journalists as members across the world) touched upon this very subject. According to their records, IPI has tracked 102 journalists killed in 2011, 101 in 2010, and 110 in 2009; world over, with Latin America accounting for the maximum number of deaths.

There is also a campaign to get the laws on criminal defamation repealed. It’s becoming a trend – causing harassment to scribes by dragging them to court on charges of defamation, which perforce means personal appearance. 

In India, what’s more worrying is the government’s total apathy to the situation on the ground. There is no political resolve to provide protection to journalists who are hounded by those they try to expose.

There are subtler forms of harassment too. Like putting pressure on the owner of the publication the journalist works for. Either the stories don’t get published, or the publishing house comes under surveillance, or the report is doctored.

As you turn the pages of  this issue of Media Watch, you’ll get an idea of just how difficult it is for journalists across India to get their job done. First up, news gathering is difficult. And then, having to face the consequences when the news hits the stands makes it worse. Yet, getting to the bottom of a story can be so addictive for those who want to tell it, that they’ll often risk their lives for it.