India ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: L'Inde

Nalini Taneja, People's Democracy, October 29, 2006

THE CHANDRAPUR INCIDENTS

WE are witnessing today a pragmatic collaboration of forces that defend ‘moral’ policing in the name of protecting ‘Indian’ culture, justify trampling on democratic rights of citizens on grounds of suppressing ‘naxalism’ in thought and deed, and prevent circulation of books and performances because they ‘hurt sentiments’.

There is a need to unravel this pragmatic collaboration, and see it for what it is: how it serves ruling class interests in general and the politics of the two major ruling class parties in particular.

‘Moral’ policing, attacks on ‘undesirable’ books, performances, and persons as well, is part of this collaboration and is aimed directly at those who represent popular interest, particularly the working class and the peasantry. The automatic branding of all kinds of people engaged in democratic activism as naxalites, and by definition criminals, is also part of the counter activism of the Indian state and its shift in the ‘right’ direction to accommodate the pro-imperialistic policies and alignments, anti-people measures, and the politics of neo-liberalism. The attacks on minority rights and secular expression are part and parcel of this shift to the Right.

WHAT HAPPENED AT CHANDRAPUR

The recent incidents in Chandrapur involving arbitrary confiscation of books from the Daanish Books stall at the Chandrapur Book Fair and the subsequent illegal detention, harassment and interrogation of Ms Sunita Kumari by the Chandrapur police must be looked at in this context.

Ms Sunita Kumari is owner of Daanish Books, a reputable publishing house of progressive literature and a member of the Independent Publishers Group (IPG). The bookstall was at Deekshabhoomi, as part of the book fair being held to commemorate the golden jubilee of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism.

On October 15, a contingent of 70 armed policemen surrounded the Daanish stall for over three hours; made a list of some 200 books which they found ‘objectionable’ and ‘anti-national’; but after intervention of superintendent of police, Mr Ravindra Kadam, seized 41 titles. Later, after registering an offence under the dreaded Illegal Activities Prevention Act against her, Sunita Kumari was questioned for over 14 hours by the Chandrapur police. Along with her, Vijay Vairagade, a local social activist, and his 17-year-old son were also questioned. Sunita was allowed to go after her 3-day ordeal on the condition that she will have to present herself as and when police wanted her. This was only after protests at the local as well as national and international level, and a final intervention by Brinda Karat, who phoned the home secretary of Maharashtra and demanded immediate stop to her harassment.

‘DANGEROUS’ BOOKS (!)

It may be noted that none of the books seized by the police --- among them those written by Clara Zetkin, Bhagat Singh, Che Guevara, Baburam Bhattarai, Li Onesto, Anand Swarup Varma, Vaskar Nandy, Jai Prakash Narayan—is banned or declared offensive by any state agency. They are books which are publicly available everywhere, and which civil society in any country with secular ideals should justly be proud of.

As an e-mail circulated by Daanish Books elaborates: "The books seized by the police for containing dangerous , anti state material include books like Marathi translation of the Thoughts of Bhagat Singh, Ramdeen Ka Sapna by B D Sharma, Jati Vyavastha: Bhartiya Kranti Ki Khasiyat by Vaskar Nandy, Monarchy Vs Democracy by Baburam Bhattarai, Nepali Samargaatha: Maowadi Janyuddha ka Aankhon Dekha Vivaran (the Hindi edition of eminent American Journalist Li Onesto’s celebrated book Dispatches from the People’s War in Nepal, translated by Anand Swarup Varma), Daliton par Badhati Jyadatiya aur Unka Krantikari Jawab, Chhapamar Yudhha by Che Guevara and books on Marxism-Leninism and people’s struggles." In short, these are books critical of monarchy and the caste system, those promoting revolutionary thought and action, and even those of Bhagat Singh. Needless to say, many of these books would be available at many other stalls as well.

The police raid clearly smacks of arbitrariness, barbarism and is a denial of the right to free speech and the propagation of ideas. In no democratic country can the police usurp the right to decide what will be read or published by people, and the fact that the police of Chandrapur has got away with it without any censure from the political leadership in the state of Maharashtra or from the officialdom is a cause for major worry. The incident obviously raises pertinent questions about our rights vis a vis the State, as an individual citizen of a ‘free country’, as publishers and finally as readers.

It also causes huge worry on account of the manner in which a secular activist could be whisked away, illegally confined and interrogated simply by being branded a ‘naxalite’, as if after that the State did not require to give any explanation or be accountable to the individual concerned or be obliged to give information under the RTI Act; that all this could be done without registering a case or FIR, in POTA like fashion.

PLAY BANNED

Similarly, the performance of a Hindi play, ‘Cotton 56, Polyester 84’, dealing with the history of Mumbai mills was forcibly stopped in Nagpur and the theatre group harassed. The play was stopped by the police on technical grounds citing “improper licensing” as the reason. Ramu Ramanathan, the playwright, told at a press conference that the troupe was followed by two armoured police vehicles and plainclothes policemen who also tore down posters announcing the play in the city. The Nagpur police commissioner did not meet the theatre group. The theatre group has also clarified that the play has been cleared by the censors and has already been performed over 30 times in Maharashtra and even in Bangalore. Clearly the contents of the play have not been found palatable by the Indian state, although its agencies have not been able to find anything in it to be able to formally ban it. The actors included famous names from the stage, Nagesh Bhonsale and Charusheela Sable.

Vigilantism by the right wing groups is common in BJP ruled states and those where they have a strong presence: Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Orissa. In all these states tacit or open support is being provided to them by the state agencies.

LACK OF DEMARCATION FROM SHIV SENA

In Maharashtra the Shiv Sena has a clear history of suppressing democratic and secular expressions, including the burning of books, forcing a ban on books of history, especially those critical of Shivaji, and ransacking of research libraries on grounds that their staff has collaborated with scholars who project “anti-India” or anti-Maharashtra views. As in Gujarat, the Congress and the NCP in Maharashtra have not been able to demarcate themselves from the BJP and the Shiv Sena, and many of the police actions abetting or actively supporting right wing Hindutva groups have taken place during times when there has been a Congress-NCP government in power in the state. When they have not been in power its leaders have not dared to question or oppose Shiv Sena actions or the Hindutva reading of Indian or for that matter Maharashtrian culture. They have been complicit in creating and maintaining a hegemony for the forces of Hindutva, in creating adverse conditions for Muslims, in the unequal trajectories of the judicial inquiries into Bombay blasts and the Bombay riots against Muslims, in ensuring that while the Bombay blasts accused are dealt with firmly, those found guilty in the Bombay riots against Muslims go scot free.

While the Maharashtra police ignore all leads pointing to violence on the part of Hindutva forces, it is more than usually active in suppressing secular-democratic expression by trade unionists, writers, theatre persons, writers and artists, including our most well known artist, M F Hussain. There is never an apology or sense of accountability on the part of the bourgeois political parties or the officialdom presided over by them, leave alone protection against harassment.

CURTAILMENT OF RIGHT TO FIGHT

Characterising these disruptive actions as ‘moral policing’ somehow gives the impression that all this is simply a matter of culture, linked with long-term educational efforts and to be settled through the battle in the realm of ideas alone. It also gives the impression that our society is becoming revivalist and conservative, and that given this thrust towards conservatism, for whatever reasons, such incidents involving ‘some sections’ of people are bound to take place.

Such a valuation ignores the links of such ‘backwardness’ with a modernity that is intrinsic to right wing politics and economic projects, and shies from naming and blaming the networks and organisations that perpetrate violence and endanger democracy, minority rights and the livelihood of those they choose.

All this not only spells danger to the free exchange of ideas and the freedom to read, write, publish and perform, but is a serious curtailment of the right to work for a better society. It involves infringement of the right to propagate ideas and to organise, and it curtails political activity and participation in the workings of democracy. There is a need, therefore, to also be alert to the dismissal of such denial of political rights as simply the work of fringe elements. There is a need to be aware that these ‘fringe’ elements are quite mainstream today, and have the might of the state behind them. The UPA government at the centre has, on its part, been unable to guarantee democracy or even impartiality; there are too many ruling class threads that bind it to the politics of the BJP and its Parivar. The centre has not collapsed in India; it has simply shifted Right.

Yoginder Sikand

Bias against Muslims is deeply-rooted in large sections of the Hindu-owned media in India, even in influential sections of the English press that prides itself in its claim of being ‘secular’ and ‘progressive’. Two ongoing controversies—the Vande Mataram affair and the Malegaon bomb blasts—suffice to confirm this argument.

Some weeks ago, Indian newspapers were awash with reports about Muslims protesting against the suggestion that all children studying in schools be forced to sing the Vande Mataram song, which, numerous Hindu-owned newspapers, television channels and politicians declared, was India’s ‘national song’. Refusal to sing this song, they claimed, was a thoroughly ‘un-patriotic’ act, suggesting, thereby, that Muslims, by definition, were ‘anti-national’. Consequently, Muslims were forced, as they often are, to prove their patriotic credentials, and the overall result of this sordid controversy was to only further reinforce deeply-rooted anti-Muslim feelings among many non-Muslim Indians.

Media projection and coverage of the Vande Mataram controversy was cleverly contrived to put Muslims in the dock and to defend a certain vision of Indian nationalism that is framed in ‘upper’ caste Brahminical Hindu terms, in which Muslims, Dalits and other non-’upper’ caste Hindu communities have little or no space for their identities, aspirations and interests. Few ‘mainstream’ Indian papers cared to mention crucial facts of the history of the controversial song. The Vande Mataram is part of a novel, the Anandmath, which reeks of anti-Muslim hatred and is the rallying cry of Brahminical Hinduism that is premised on an unrelenting hatred of Muslims. The was the novel written by Bankim Chandra Chatterji, a late nineteenth century Bengali Brahmin, a major cult figure in Hindu ‘nationalist’ circles.

The crux of the novel is an ardent appeal to Hindus to rally against and slaughter Muslims and drive them out of India. The Vande Mataram, sung as a war-cry to rouse Hindu mobs against Muslims, exhorts Hindus to do all this for the sake of the Mother—India deified as the Brahminical goddess Kali or Durga. Curiously enough for a song that is projected by its advocates as the emblem of Indian nationalism, the novel ends with the hero welcoming the British take-over of India. ‘Now the British have arrived’, the hero exclaims with ill-concealed glee, ‘and our wealth and lives will be safe’. ‘The subjects [Hindus] would be happy in the English kingdom’, he goes on, ‘[…] [so] refrain from waging war with the Englishmen […] Your mission has been successful—you have performed [sic.] well-being of the Mother—the English reign has been established’. Now that the Muslims have been killed and driven out and their place has been taken by the British, the hero concludes, the Hindus should accept the British as their ‘ally’.

Hardly the stuff that one would expect from a song that is bandied about as the herald of Indian nationalism and anti-imperialism. Even more curious in this regard is the fact, which the ‘mainstream’ media probably has deliberately sought to conceal, that Bankim Chandra Chatterji was hardly the ardent ‘nationalist’ that he is made out to be. In 1858 he was appointed to the post of Deputy Magistrate by the British, the first Indian to enjoy that dubious distinction in the immediate aftermath of the failed Indian Revolt of 1857. When he retired from that post he was conferred with the titles of Rai Bahadur and Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire by the British, an ‘honour’ reserved, of course, only for pro-British toadies.

From the very start, when Brahminical revivalists in the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha began insisting that the Vande Mataram must be made India’s national song, Muslims and other non-Hindu communities angrily protested. There was no reason, they argued, why non-Hindus should be forced to worship a Hindu deity, even if in the form of ‘Mother India’, suggesting that the equation of Indian nationalism with Brahminical Hinduism was aimed at excluding non-Hindus from the definition of the ‘national mainstream’. The Muslim argument, which has been repeated ad nauseum and highlighted in the Urdu press in the course of the recent controversy, is that the novel of which the song forms a part is clearly anti-Muslim and, furthermore, the Vande Mataram’s appeal to prostrate before to and worship the Mother, in the form of Durga incarnated in the guise of India, is forbidden in Islam, a fair enough point that any non-Hindu would make.

However, in the heat and din of the recent controversy, the ‘mainstream’ Indian media, some notable exceptions aside, shamelessly shed all pretensions of ‘secularism’ and made it out to be that by refusing to sing the song Muslims were demonstrating that they had no love for India and that they were ‘anti-national’. The point of how a mere song could be the test of Indian nationalism, the issue of the political context of the song, the clearly anti-Muslim thrust of the Anandmath and Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s own collaboration with the British, were all carefully glossed over. Nor did the ‘mainstream’ media raise the obvious point that forcible extraction of demonstrations of ‘patriotism’ by Muslims unwilling to sing the song were pointless and completely farcical. And the fact that the mounting insecurity and threats to their life, property and identity that many Indian Muslims face today at the hands of the votaries of the Vande Mataram, a situation that is hardly conducive to promote passionate demonstration of love for the country, was completely lost on the ‘mainstream’ media, which was awash with stories of Muslims singing or not singing the song.

It is not that both the Congress, votary of ‘soft’ Hindutva, the hardcore Hindutva lobby and the ‘mainstream’ media were unaware of the fact that appealing to or forcing all Indian school-going children, including Muslims, to sing the song would be stiffly opposed by most Muslims, for there has been a long history of Muslim opposition to this. In fact, it appears that it was hardly the intention of the ardent advocates of the song to promote patriotism by advising that all school-children sing it. Rather, it seems obvious that the brouhaha about the song was simply yet another stick for Hindutva fascists to beat Muslims with, to force them to accept their diktats and to terrorise them with threats of being expelled from India simply because of their refusal to sing a song that even most Hindus do not know and which fewer Hindus know the meaning of, being in highly Sanskritised Bengali. But this, of course, was a point that few ‘mainstream’ newspapers refused to point out, thus clearly revealing their underlying anti-Muslim bias and the fact that their perception of Indian nationalism is firmly within the framework of Brahminical Hinduism.

Another glaring instance of clear anti-Muslim prejudice in large sections of the ‘mainstream’ Indian media is the coverage of the recent blasts outside a mosque in Malegaon that claimed almost forty Muslim lives. While the Mumbai train blasts this July hogged the headlines for days, the Malegaon tragedy has received relatively little attention, probably because the victims in this case are Muslims. The identity of the perpetrators of the Mumbai train blasts is yet to be ascertained, but police, intelligence agencies and the media are insistent on what they claim, was an ‘Islamist terrorist’ hand. Consequently, hundreds of Muslims were arrested in the aftermath of the blasts. The contrast with the Malegaon blasts could not have been more striking. While it is entirely plausible that they could have been the handiwork of Hindutva activists and while the likelihood of Muslims being behind them extremely remote, if not impossible, the media is awash with stories that argue the unlikely thesis of a hidden ‘radical Islamist’ or Pakistani ISI hand behind the blasts and the theory that they could have been the fallout of intra-Muslim sectarian rivalries. It is as if Hindus could never commit such an act of terror, the hundreds of anti-Muslim pogroms in India which thousands of people have lost their lives in recent decades notwithstanding.

That probably explains why it is that, in contrast to the massive wave of arrests and harassment of Muslims in the wake of the Mumbai train blasts, the police have not deemed it necessary to arrest or question rabidly anti-Muslim Hindutva activists, who may possibly have been behind the blasts, on any significant scale in Malegaon and thereabouts. Nor is the ‘mainstream’ media demanding this. Instead, the Malegaon blasts appear to be fast disappearing from the screens and pages of the ‘mainstream’ media, being replaced now with stories about the court cases relating to the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in which some Muslims are said to have been involved. Even here the reporting is obviously biased and skewed, for few newspapers have cared to view these blasts, as they should be, in the backdrop of the widespread anti-Muslim violence in large parts of India just a year before in the wake of the destruction of the Babri Masjid, in which thousands of Muslims were slaughtered in cold blood by Hindu mobs. Needless to say, the non-Muslim Indian media, by and large, is supremely unconcerned about justice to the families of the several hundred Muslims slain by Hindu gangsters in league with the elements in the police and the administration in Mumbai itself just weeks prior to the serial blasts and which must have provoked the perpetrators of the blasts to do what they did. Nor is the media talking about justice for the almost three thousand hapless Muslim victims of the state-sponsored massacre in Gujarat in 2002 and their relatives, and the victims of innumerable other such bouts of bloody anti-Muslim violence that do not seem to deserve any more than passing mention, if at all, on television screens and in obscure corners of some odd newspaper.

So much, then, for the ‘secular’, ‘patriotic’ pretensions of the Indian ‘mainstream’ media.

The author works with the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and moderates an online discussion group called South Asian Leftists Dialoguing With Religion
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saldwr/

by Siddharth Varadarajan


03 June 2006


If television and newspaper coverage of the anti-reservation agitation was indulgent and one-sided, the lack of diversity in the newsroom is surely a major culprit.

MY FIRST brush with caste prejudice in higher education came in 1999, when a group of Dalit students from the University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) came to see me at my office in another English newspaper where I worked at the time as an editorial writer.

The students were residents of the hostel and had silently borne the brunt of casteist abuse and discrimination for some time. Whether by happenstance or design, the Scheduled Caste students were confined to two floors and not assigned rooms elsewhere in the building. In the dining hall, they were forced by the forward caste majority to sit together at one end. If a Dalit student sat somewhere else, he would be abused. "Bloody shaddu," one of them was told when he sat amidst others by mistake, "you cannot eat with us."

The Dalits put up with this harassment and humiliation because, as one of their parents told them, "you have to become a doctor at any cost." But the abuse eventually turned to violence and when one of the students was badly beaten and another had his room ransacked, they decided to go on a dharna. This is also when they ended up in my office.

After hearing them out, I requested the head of the Metro section to send someone to UCMS to cover the story. I was promised a reporter would be sent soon. Several days went by but nothing appeared. It turned out no reporter was assigned. I tried again, this time going one notch higher in the editorial chain-of-command. Again there was no response. Eventually, I decided to do the story myself. I spent half-a-day at the college, interviewed the college authorities, the students on dharna as well as the general category students. One of them admitted reluctantly to using the slur `shaddu' for the Scheduled Caste students but only as a `pet name'.

I filed the story but it did not appear the next day or the day after. Nobody ever said the story was not interesting or not up to scratch but for some reason space could never be found. The story finally appeared, in a cut and mutilated form, a full month after the Dalit students began their dharna. Needless to say, the travails of the Dalit students at UCMS were not considered newsworthy enough by other newspapers or by any of the news channels.

I narrate this story because of how it contrasts with the extraordinary indulgence the national media showed the nearly month-long anti-reservation agitation of doctors and medical students at AIIMS and other colleges. Despite the 24x7 presence of TV cameras, the daily protests in favour of reservation by AIIMS doctors and staff under the banner of `Medicos Forum for Equal Opportunities' were virtually blacked out. One channel showed the counter-protest last Sunday only when a `citizen journalist' presented it with footage he had shot. Often, it was impossible to separate the breathless TV reporters from the anti-reservation doctors they were reporting about. The insensitive and casteist forms of protest some of them adopted — the `symbolic' sweeping of streets, the shining of shoes, the singing of songs warning OBCs and others to `remember their place' (`apni aukat mein rahio') — were put on air without comment by the channels. Nobody asked what kind of doctors these `meritorious' students were likely to become if they had such contempt towards more than half the population of India. And in a media discourse which routinely reports the protests of the underprivileged only as "traffic jams" and other disruptions to the "normal" life of the city, the suffering of poor patients as a result of the AIIMS strike figured largely as a footnote to the "heroic" struggle the medical students and junior doctors were waging.

Amidst the hysteria induced by the media coverage, no one cared to point out how indulgent the AIIMS authorities themselves were being towards the anti-reservation strike. Earlier this year, when a section of doctors concerned about higher user fees being imposed on poor patients sought to protest, they were warned of dire consequences. Under the terms of a High Court order, no protest or demonstration is permitted within the AIIMS campus. Yet nobody demurred when the anti-reservation students occupied the lawns, put up shamianas and coolers and received the "solidarity" of traders, event managers, and IT employees (whose employers usually ban their own staff from ever striking work.)

While there were honourable exceptions — Outlook, The Hindu , and Frontline among them, as well as individual reporters in some newspapers and channels — would the media's coverage have been more balanced had there been a greater degree of caste diversity in the newsroom and editorial boards of our newspapers and channels? Put another way, in egging the forward caste students on to oppose any extension of reservation, were forward caste editors and reporters reflecting their own personal impatience with the idea of affirmative action? Was the media coverage, then, a display of trade unionism by the privileged?

There are no official or industry statistics but every journalist is aware of the extent to which forward castes dominate the media. When B.N. Uniyal surveyed the scene in 1996, he found not a single Dalit accredited journalist in Delhi. Today, the position is unlikely to be much better. At a recent meeting of Journalists for Democracy, it was reported that an informal survey had found that the number of accredited North Indian OBC journalists in Delhi was under 10. I myself have counted the number of Muslims with accreditation to the Press Information Bureau and they barely cross the three per cent mark. In Chhattisgarh, a recent attempt to send Tribal journalists on a training programme had to be dropped because there was none.

One is not saying the absence of Dalit or OBC journalists is the product of conscious discrimination though that factor cannot be ruled out. But the reality of their absence is something the media must have the courage to acknowledge.

In an ideal world where professionalism is paramount, the caste or religious affiliation of a journalist should not matter. But journalism that has little or no space for the majority of citizens is bound to end up missing out on the complexity of the society it seeks to cover. Story ideas will not be taken up, or if taken up then covered only from a particular perspective. To be sure, many of the negative trends so evident in Indian journalism — the shrinkage of space, the lack of coverage of rural India or of the problems of poor Indians, the episodic, frenetic nature of news, the cult of the Sensex, the preoccupation with trivia and sensationalism — will not be cured by newspapers and TV channels hiring more Dalit, OBC, and Muslim journalists. But greater workplace diversity will certainly infuse a greater degree of vitality in the newsroom as wider varieties of lived experience intrude upon and clash with the largely urban, rich, forward caste Hindu certitudes of the overwhelming majority of journalists.

Far from seeing affirmative action as a threat, India's media houses should look upon the entry of Dalit, Tribal, OBC, and Muslim journalists as an opportunity to broadbase their journalism and make it more professional and authentic. Last year, Ankur and Sarai-CSDS provided teenagers in the now-demolished slum cluster of Nangla Machi with computers. The daily diaries and fly-sheets they produced even as their homes were being brought down by bulldozers is journalism of as high a quality as anyone can find in India today (Interested readers should visit http://www.sarai.net/nm.htm). Certainly their writings tell us more about the reality of "slum clearance" than any of our TV channels, and in prose that is better than what one normally gets to read in our newspapers.

As the OBC and SC-ST youths who want to become doctors and engineers are saying, merit is not simply a score that can be bought by parents who have the money to invest in the most expensive education for their children. It is also about the talent that all children have within them regardless of their caste or socio-economic background. A society — or an industry like the media — which does not find a way to tap that talent will only end up impoverishing itself. Specifically, media houses must seriously think about starting internships and training programmes for Dalit, Tribal, Muslim, and OBC students interested in becoming journalists.

Reservation, affirmative action, targeted expenditure, and investment are all means of society helping people unlock their inherent talent. As pro-reservation scholars such as Yogendra Yadav, Satish Deshpande, Purshottam Aggarwal, and others have argued, the United Progressive Alliance Government's current approach is not necessarily the best one. But by conducting a shrill campaign and encouraging forward caste students to launch an ill-conceived agitation, the media themselves foreclosed the possibility of a rational debate on what the best way of building an inclusive education system really is. When the dust settles, the media should introspect and ask what they can do to make society as a whole more inclusive. Encouraging conversation and not hectoring is one way. But another is surely to diversify the newsroom by consciously bringing in those sections of society who have hitherto been excluded. There are a million stories out there waiting to be told. If only we allow the storytellers to do the telling.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

by Vishakha Dey,

02 October 2003

INTRODUCTION

Crisis can be defined as a disruption, real or perceived, of social order. It is a condition of instability, as in social, economic, political or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.

The labeling of a situation as a ‘crisis’ or not, and the structuring and presentation of it in the public sphere has become an important function of the mass media. The role of media varies according to the nature of the crisis and the society concerned 1.

Presentational techniques such as packaging of news, the context, space and importance allocated, omissions and highlighting of elements, related facts and other media convention influences a conflict. News coverage can influence the way people relate to a situation.

This paper tries to understand how the social actors having control over the means of communication can influence the minds of the audience. It looks into how the provoking of a crisis can lead to a form of empowerment or social control, through the utilisation of the media. It studies the communication policies followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to generate public support for its empowerment.

CONTEXT

The Indian crisis as it exists today is a multi-dimensional one with various aspects such as social inequality, communal conflict, exploitation of the downtrodden etc. In the political sphere the Congress party has been the dominant player since the post-independent era. It has occupied a pivotal position of India's single-party dominant system. During the 70s, under Indira Gandhi's regime, the Congress realised that it no longer commanded a social consensus, and began to resort to coercive force to maintain its dominance.

This had generated a situation of instability and flux in the multi-party democratic system of India. A political force like the Congress when faced with challenge from other up-coming political parties faced a 'crisis of hegemony'. Also the failure on the part of Congress in terms of effectiveness, as per the expectations of the people fostered a 'crisis of legitimacy'. It is this crisis that provided the context for the Hindutva movement 2.

Hindutva, which is the quintessence of the 'Hindu culture', acquired a religio-politic undertone following the BJP's adoption of it as an emotive political slogan. BJP activists insist that it is a non-religious assertion of India's cultural cohesion.

The BJP emerged as the single largest opposition party in the 1991 elections. It emerged as the largest party in Parliament following the 1996 elections and was in power for 13 days. After the February 1998 elections the BJP is back in power heading a 20-party coalition.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) emerged as an organisation articulating Hindu revivalism in 1925 under Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. It has sought to consolidate the Hindu community from within. The Bajrang Dal, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) are the most prominent among the 80 plus affiliates of the RSS in various fields working to change the 'attitudes' of the people.

BJP, the only political front of the RSS, has appointed itself the advocate of, what it regards as, the right of the Hindu majority. It denounces what it claims to have been the systematic "pampering" of religious minorities by the Indian National Congress and other parties, in return of votes.

During the early 1980s this spirit became focussed on a campaign for the 'moving' of the Babri Masjid, and the construction of a temple at this site at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. In 1990, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani went on a nationwide Rath Yatra, which culminated halfway, when he was arrested and placed under house arrest. This resulted in a confrontation between the BJP activists and the security forces resulting in many a loss of life. After the 1991 elections, the BJP renewed its campaign to build the Ram Mandir at the disputed site of Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid. A series of incidents finally culminated with the demolition of the mosque by the kar sewaks on December 6, 1992. This lead to communal riots in many cities all over India, which claimed the lives of a large number of people, particularly those belonging to the Muslim community.

OWNERSHIP PATTERNS

Media systems control our access to production, distribution, and consumption of information. Therefore to understand the media it is important to understand who owns these means of communication. In India, a few business houses own chains of daily newspapers in English and also in the vernacular languages and corner a substantial portion of the total circulation. In 1991, as many as 21,610 different newspapers were published by 2,445 individuals in the country 3. Another shift in the concentration of ownership and control in newspapers is the forming of joint stock companies and conglomeration of companies.

If we further look at it from community point of view, it is the Marwari business houses, which have assumed major control over the newspapers. The Times of India group of Sahu Jain is the largest publishing corporate house. The Goenka industrial house owns the Indian Express group, and its dailies are published from as many as nine main urban areas. The house of the Birlas, are the owners of the Anand Bazar group.

Out of the 300 English newspapers published in India, only one, Mid-Day of Bombay, belongs to a Muslim family, and furthermore it is more a tabloid than a mainstream newspaper 4. Of the hundreds of weekly and monthly papers very few of significance belong to Muslims.

Saiyid Hamid's fortnightly, Nation has been a heroic venture but it is still struggling to survive. Shahabuddin's monthly Muslim India has managed for more than two decades but sill faces many problems and is shunned by many 5.

The national dailies, particularly the ones in English have generally refrained from overplaying communal issues. However, the Hindi and regional language newspapers tend to adopt an anti-Muslim bias in reporting communal events, and the Urdu press adopts a 'defensive' communalist and sectarian stance.

PRODUCTION OF PROPAGANDA

The democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed for the quest of truth, however the fact is that the media reflect the world, the way it is crafted by a powerful few.

In this connection, the findings of a Journalism Alumni Survey conducted in Delhi in 1988 shows the various factors, which contribute to making up the news. The survey was conducted on media professionals employed in various institutions in Delhi. Of the 72 respondents, 88.9% journalists were not 'absolutely free to report as per their conscience'. Among the sources of pressure and interference they identified, proprietors (85.9%) and government (82.2%) were at the top, followed by editors (70.3%), political parties (60.9%), advertisers (48.4%) and trade unions (26.6%).(Epan and Thakur, 1989) 6

A recent example of this is the series of articles carried by the Times of India, regarding human rights violation, by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). It was almost a sustained campaign carried against the ED. It is interesting to note that the ED was probing an alleged FERA violation case against Ashok Jain.

Therefore we see that owners of media influence the content and form of messages, by their decisions. Also advertising being a major revenue source for the media, the media systems are linked to the market. The institution of media is very much involved with the state.

The media are the channels for the transmission of political information and debate. They are important players in the government's policies, regulation and decisions, and governments have always sought to control the press and the airways and have regulated the media. The state media are often directly financed by the government and consequently follow its dictates. Accordingly the news in Doordarshan primarily focuses on government related activities, some of which are daily trivial issues of ministers at functions, and the criticism of the ruling party is usually ruled out.

BJP AND THE MEDIA

The BJP holds the idea that India is inherently a 'Hindu' state, and has been trying to equate this identity with being an Indian at an overall national level. The RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena have been attempting to form a majority 'consensus' on various issues. This involves the structuring of Indian society based on Hindu values.

Doordarshan has also primarily been a representation of a Hindu India. Television serials, Mahabharata and Ramayana were two principal serials, which reinforced the Hindu-centricity of Doordarshan. These two programmes have propagated the Hindu religion as the national image. The circulation of the Hindu heroes into the domesticity of nearly 90 per cent of Indian homes has re-emphasised the 'Hinduness' of India and consequently, the 'unIndianness' of non-Hindus. Currently there are a variety of programmes projecting Hindu mythology like Om Nama Shivaya, Jai Hanuman, Shri Krishna, etc., running on the national network at prime-time slots.

Various social groups in the sub-continent have dealt with Ramayana, or the narrative of Rama, in a variety of ways in the past. According to Indo-Anglian writer K.R. Sreenivasa Iyengar, the number of versions of the Ramayana may range anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000. But today it is virtually seen only as a single religious concept, the concept that Doordarshan has explained to us. In the popular television serial Mahabharata, India has been re-defined as the Bharat of Mahabharata.

The extent to which this has been used to achieve political gains can be understood from the following report describing the campaign strategy of BJP candidate, Deepika Chikhalia, the actress who played the role of Sita in Ramayana.

'Jai Sri Ram, Bharat Mata Ki Jai' is how she begins her campaign speech, a clenched fist raised to illustrate her new ideology. Deepika gets away with language problem with: 'I will address you in the language you hear me speaking on television'. In Padra, a non-Hindi speaking region of Gujarat, a 15,000 strong crowd braved the scorching May heat for hours just for a real-life darshan of the tele-goddess 7. The actor who played the role of Lord Krishna in Mahabharata, Nitish Bharadwaj is now a sitting BJP MP.

For the present BJP-dominated government in power, establishing their hegemony over the media has been an important objective. The centre has shown their preferences of a state-controlled radio and television, rather than open its doors to the market forces. Decisions such as withdrawal of permission for private FM radio and attempts to halt Star TV is a reflection of this.

The RSS has been involved with the media over a number of decades. In the early years it engaged in the establishment of newspapers and periodicals through its bodies and other front organisations. This included the English newspaper the Organiser, which was establised in 1947, a Hindi weekly Panchjanya and a Marathi weekly Rashtrasakthi. By the mid-fifties, the RSS had established print-based media in 12 languages, which was of course used as a primary instrument to put forward the RSS message and ideology.

It is also interesting to note that RSS was a major player in the establishment of the first vernacular press agency, the Hindustan Samachar. The Samachar served 41 RSS-affiliated newspapers and periodicals and a number of non-RSS-related media institutions. This agency was an important element in the communication network of the RSS. 8

The party has also extensively used the 'little media' to reach out to the people. During Advani's rath yatra there was door-to-door campaigning to mobilise the people. Videocassettes, slide displays, distribution of audiocassettes, were used to popularise the cause of Ramjanmabhoomi.

In 1997, the all-India publicity in charge of the RSS, Srikant Joshi, discussed the predominance of the Left ideology in the print media and commenced on a plan of making journalists into RSS sympathisers. As Purushottam Aggarwal, Hindi Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), insists: "The RSS recognises the fact that if you don't hegemonise the centres of opinion-making and dissemination of information, you can't influence the thought process. Therefore they capture the media and academics." 9

The link between media and politics is now a well-established fact. Today everyone seems to be adopting the trend of marketing and Public Relations policy. Governments have begun to use carefully crafted communication and strategies to ensure that their messages reach out to the people the way they want it.

In the last general elections the BJP had a seven crore budget for the press - which is handled in-house. A 70-second film, 'Neta Bas Ek Atal Ho', which projects Vajpayee as a seasoned parliamentarian and a viable candidate for prime ministership was beamed in 1000 movie theatres all over India and local cable networks. Today the BJP also has its own website on the Internet, www.bjp.org that is visited by people all over including US based journalists 10. Incidentally, the BJP was the first political party in India to have its own web-site.

Until a few years back, there was a channel called the Jain television, which primarily telecast Hindu mythological serials. The Jain studio also produced a video called, Ayodhya, 6 December 1992, Kyon Huva? Kisna Kiya? Kyon Kiya? We shall try to analyse a few things to see how they justify their conduct through this video.

The video opens with a montage of lotus, Om, trishul and other Hindu symbols. It then begins with the words 'Satyameva Jayate', which means - the truth shall prevail. Among the first few visuals shown is the Indian Army taking part in a parade, immediately after which we see a platoon of the RSS volunteers marching forward, thereby directly equating their role to that of nation builders.

Throughout the film it is time and again explained that the RSS volunteers were actively involved in trying to check the roaring crowd, who were involved in violating the law and order. But repeated requests by the leaders failed to have an effect on the Ram bhakts.

The act of bringing down the mosque was later explained to be "an expression of pent-up anger, an outburst of accumulated anger against the injustice". It proclaimed 'apmaan ka aag is prakaar ubhar padtha hain' (this is how the burning fire of humiliation faced over the years explodes). The chief minister Kalyan Singh, belonging to the BJP, is portrayed as being a man of great moral character. When informed that efforts at persuading the kar sevaks to desist from demolishing the structure had failed, and that saving the structure had become impossible without resorting to firing, he forthwith resigned. Kalyan Singh's role is appreciated repeatedly stressing that firing would have resulted in the re-enactment of the Jallianwala Bagh. The chief minister is portrayed as a national hero who gave up his seat of power by taking the entire blame of the incident on himself.

The act of the kar sevaks is justified by stating that the government, which stood in their way of building the temple, had humiliated them. They felt that the temple construction was being thwarted and that an attempt was being made to erode their credibility in the eyes of the society.

The film also says that the last phase of the demolition and the installation of the Ram Lalla idols, and erection of a temporary temple happened after the Centre had taken over the administration from the state government. This is explained by saying that "Kendriya Sarkar bhi ram bhakto ko rokne me saksham na ho saki". The sound track comprises of patriotic songs, Ram bhakti vandanas and slogans of 'Jai Shri Ram'.

It is further said that various Hindu artifacts belonging to the "original Ram Mandir" were found from the debris, and this is justified by an interview with an archeological expert. Also there are various interviews of people who had come to Ayodhya from all over the country. The ones who lost their lives were addressed as parakrami vir and balidaniyon meaning valiant heroes and martyrs respectively. Ironically, this film begins and ends with the words, Sarvapanthasamabhava (equality towards all religions).

The film is essentially a one-sided picture of the entire event. From the very start it is taken as an established fact that a mandir existed in the place, and all that occurred was a natural consequence of the Hindu sentiments being played with. The film essentially proves that 'the camera does lie' cause it sees only what it chooses to. The other side of the picture is kept totally out of frame in the documentary.

We now further look at the BJP's use of the print media by studying examples from the magazine Organiser, which is the mouthpiece of the RSS.

The December 5, 1993 issue carried an editorial with the headline 'The golden sunrise of December 6', which says, "The Ramjanmabhoomi movement rejuvenated the almost morbid Hindu society… a whole new generation of Hindus woke to a new realisation. No longer was it a matter of shame to be born a Hindu. A section of the awakened Hindu society, proud of being Hindu, converged on the banks of the Sarayu, which was harnessed, ridiculed, bullied and riddled by bullets. The furious rebound corrected a historical wrong on December 6."

The editorial further says that, there is a lesson for all political parties in the December 6 episode. "Ram is the embodiment of all that is good and noble in this land. Babur was an aggressor. Ramjanmabhoomi is sacred to all Hindus. While there can be no place for a majority-minority syndrome in Indian politics, the natural aspirations of the nation represented by the Hindus cannot be overlooked" 11. This statement itself is contradictory in character because on one hand it says that there is no place for differentiation between the majority and minority, whereas on the other hand it makes an assertion of safeguarding the aspirations of the Hindus.

The role of the RSS according to the Organiser is, "to put society back on the tracks whenever it strays from the path of dharma, by people who by their devotion and sacrifice could rise above political leadership" 12.

Rajjubhayya in an interview says that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement is a step in the right direction being a movement to forge a strong, united country which is held together by a common cultural heritage. He further states that Ayodhya has brought people of different sects, faiths and different regions together, and the movement would unite Hindus and Muslims together if everyone sees it in the larger perspective of national resurgence" 13.

In an article 'Why Kar sevaks were angry', Dr. S. V. Sesnagiri goes on to explain that the Ayodhya movement should not be viewed from the simplistic angle of building a temple. It was a revolt against 'pseudo-secularism and against deliberate suppression' of the Hindu identity of Independent India 14.

CONCLUSION

The above few extracts are used here to bring to light how the RSS utilises the Organiser to propagate its ideology and beliefs. The Organiser essentially talks of the greatness of the Hindu culture, its depletion in the present day context, the danger from the Muslims, and of course the proposed Ram mandir at Ayodhya. It presents archeological evidences to prove that a mandir did exist at the disputed site, comparison charts of Hindu-Muslim population figures, atrocities against Hindus, statistics of temples demolished, and of course articles propagating Hindutva - the ideal way of living.

In today's television age, politicians have perfected the art of getting across to the audience. A total of 122 hours was allotted to each political party during the last general elections 15, which churned out a breed of politicians, savvy and tuned to give in their best on the screen.

Among the various political parties, the BJP has mastered the art of using the media to the fullest extent 16. It was this party that evoked heartfelt hostility in vast sections of the press, and yet has managed to project itself as a reasonable group of individuals. The oratory skills of most of its leaders, such as Vajpayee's sense of timing of pauses and gaps during his speeches, help project a certain commitment and conviction on the part of the party.

From the different examples stated in this paper, we see that the ownership of the media does affect the representation. This proves that the media has a very close relation with crisis and that the social players by means of media propagate their views and influence the minds of the people.

FOOTNOTES ^

01. Raboy Marc and Dagenais Bernard; Media, Crisis and Democracy, "Media and the Politics of Crisis", Sage, 1995
02. Bose Sumantra; "Hindu Nationalism and the Crisis of the Indian State", Nationalism, Democracy and Development-State and Politics in India, Delhi, Oxford University Press,1997
03. Wadwani Manohar R; Introduction to Mass Communication and Mass Media, "Press Ownership, and Censorship and Magazines"; Seth Publishers, 1998 pg 148
04. Zakaria Rafiq; The Widening Divide, "The role of the media" Vinking New Delhi pg 269
05. Zakaria Rafiq; The Widening Divide, "The role of the media" Vinking New Delhi pg 269
06. "Freedom, responsibility and ethics in Indian Journalism" in Yadav K.P (Ed.) of Encylopaedia of Mass Communication Vol 3, Sarup and Sons, New Delhi, 1998, pg 95
07. India Today May 15 1991
08. Thomas Pradip N: "Media and politics of revivalism in India", Media Development, Vol XXXIX, 3/92, (pg 29)
09. "Inside the RSS" Outlook Volume IV, No 16,April 27, 1998 (pg 22)
10. India Today Vol XXIII, No 5, February 2, 1998 "Hardselling the Parties"
11. Organiser, Vol. XLV, no. December 5, 1993 (pg 2)
12. Organiser, Vol XLIV, No. 33, March 21, 1993
13. Organiser vol XLIV No 33 March 21 93
14. Organiser vol XLIV 33, March 21, 93
15. India Today Vol XXIII No 5, February 2, 1998, "Hardselling the Parties"
16. Seminar Issue No 454, June 1997, "The camera has two faces" Barkha W ^

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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