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Challenges to Media Watchers

For decades, Indeed for as long as India has been a nation, the powerful electronic media has served as the mouthpiece of govt. It is the chief custodian of ?truth?-- or at least, the official version of events. Under the pressures of the Information technology, the electronic media now is presenting hard challenges to an average Indian.

Following the first week of June 1984, every Sikh living abroad wondered about the catastrophe that gripped the entire India. But the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi?s government was working hard to produce and later distribute a video for the western countries (especially for Indian immigrants living abroad) whose logo read ?this video tape shows the actual truth about why and what happened in the GOLDEN TEMPLE Amritsar during that fatal first week of June.?

Sikhs living abroad were shocked to know about the production of such a tape and its distribution within a few days of the attack on the GOLDEN TEMPLE. One could have marveled at the efficiency of the then Indian Government and its embassies for a quick production and distribution when contrasted with the usual inefficiency of the Indian establishment. However, some critical viewers realized that it was not the dramatic improvement in the govt. efficiency, but rather a clever attempt at extension of a propaganda war that Mrs. Gandhi had initiated in the eighties.

The video production and the speed with which it was distributed to the international circle continue to stick in Sikh psyche today. It portrayed Sikhs as terrorists to justify the attack on the temple. Later, during the same year, the genocide and its news coverage by the Government controlled media confirmed the worst fears of Sikhs. In retrospect, one wonders what India would have looked today had its Government, instead of launching a very expensive propaganda war, simply investigated both of the Nov. 84 incidences and punished the guilty.

It became obvious to the Sikh scholars that Indian leadership was on a dangerous course of propagating falsehood. To stay in power, the Indian leaders blatantly committed horrific acts of murder towards its bravest people. They ignored Sikhs? contributions during the Indian independence struggle, and later for the defense of India against Pakistan and China.

For foreign reporters trying to grab these sensational tragedies of 1984, the Indian govt. was the most visible gatekeeper, making it impossible to approve journalist visas for foreign correspondents. Thus, during 1984, Indian leaders were free to broadcast made-up up stories through the govt. controlled Radio and TV. Consequently, all foreign news organizations were left with no choice but to take the twisted news of local govt. controlled media and rebroadcast over their own networks abroad. It was much later that the foreign newspapers knew only the partial truth about ?India?s Unknown Holocaust.?1

How did the Indian media build up the national hysteria against the Sikhs? Historians? say that Mrs. Indira Gandhi supported her campaign for the 1984 genocide through state controlled media. They say that when she saw Sikhs upholding the rule of law during her dictatorial rule following the Emergency, she got it into her head that Sikhs constituted a threat to her dynastic rule. So, she decided to engineer support for genocide of Sikhs by propagating false stories through state controlled media.

In the pre- genocide phase, the govt., reportedly, sought to spread misinformation. It spread rumors on the radio and television that Sikhs had ganged up together and attacked Hindus in the trains; and that they had poisoned water reservoir-supplying water to Delhi. Then they reported about Sikhs in Punjab cutting up Hindus traveling by Jhelem Express and other travelers reaching Delhi and U.P. A team of private journalists in 1984 reported that there was absolutely no truth to any of those allegations. But the climate, historians say, became so hostile through this propaganda on the state- controlled media that the vast majority of even Sikhs felt that the killer mobs and even the act of genocide were on the right track2

One of Mrs. Gandhi?s first acts in pursuit of the upcoming attack on the golden temple was to seek active support of both the Print and the electronic media. Reportedly, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, H.K.L Bhagat had called editors of Delhi newspapers individually one month before Mrs. Gandhi?s attack on the golden temple, seeking their full support. The All India Radio and TV overplayed Sikh demonstrations and their threat to the unity of India, without trying to investigate as to who were behind it. The media, by contrast, did not report terrorism being perpetrated by police or the army.

Thus, the false govt. propaganda portraying Sikhs as a threat to the unity of India continued through 80?s and 90?s, displaying horrific images of Sikhs as terrorists on the electronic media. The govt.?s propaganda machine reinforced such attacks on Sikhs through its embassies in USA, Canada and UK.

Since India?s electronic media is state controlled, the western world had no access to the actual truth even after 15 years of those grave tragedies. The December 31, 1998 report published by a U.S committee to protect journalists stated that India is a dangerous place to report the news.

Journalists covering silent tragedies and secessionist conflicts in India?s northeastern state continue to be vulnerable to attack from both armed rebels and state security forces. Recently, four employees of India?s official television network were arrested and detained on charges that their report on a recent massacre in Assam created more tensions between the community. Journalists are routinely abducted and possibly killed because of their authentic reporting.

India?s vast powers lay primarily in its authority to censor the print media. Newspapers have been shut down for not following the official line. Thus, India?s electronic media and print media degenerated over the course of its existence, into a tool of repression as stated below.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting continues to be feared, hated and is one of the most visible symbols of autocracy and control in India. While the print media are officially free from the govt. control, journalists, foreign and local, are terrified when summoned to the Information Ministry to talk about an offending article or broadcast. To survive, journalists often cover news and stories that contain sloppy research, factual errors and weakly justified inferences. Serious cases of police brutality and police harassment continue even today.


Attacks on the Press in India in 1998
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Date- Journalist- Incident

07/18/98- Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, Natton Samoy- Attacked, Threatened
06/16/98- Tony Dominic, Malayala Manorama- Attacked
06/16/98- Josey George, Deepika- Attacked
06/16/98- Chandra Bose, Mathrubhumi- Attacked
06/16/98- P. Manoj, Mathrubhumi- Attacked
03/01/98- Dinamalar- Attacked
02/26/98- The Kashmir times- Censored
01/15/98- Hitesh Medhi, Doordarshan- Legal action
01/15/98- Partap bordoloi, Doordarshan- Legal action
01/15/98- Ramani Malakar, Doordarshan- Legal action
01/15/98- Deben Tamuly, Doordarshan- Legal Action
01/11/98- Avirook Sen, India Today- Attacked
01/11/98- Suparna Sharma, Indian express- Attacked

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists, Country Report: India, December 31,1998 ==================================================


Despite frequent attacks on the Indian press, an average Indian continues to believe that India?s print media is free from the govt. control. On February 28, 1998, 50-armed persons attacked the office of the popular newspaper, ?The Tamil Daily.? The attackers hurled a gasoline bomb at the news building, and damaged the building. Why? Because the paper had criticized the ruling DMK party and reported that the local results of the parliamentary elections had been rigged.

Authorities continue to use laws punishing free speech and the press on the excuse that it might provoke ethnic or religious tensions. In October 1998, the Manipur state govt. announced curbs on the publication of insurgency-related news. So many journalists, fearful of such attacks, practice a degree of self-censorship throughout the country. Eight journalists have been murdered in Kashmir since 1989.

There is a cruel irony here. In the absence of free press, people do not have the means of delving into the civic or psychic damage that the govt. controlled media is bringing.

With the spread of information technology, the Internet has become a powerful tool of disseminating news all over the world. Since India can no longer control the flow of free information in western countries, it has become a little fearful that it might lose the propaganda war it has been launching since 1980. To solve this dilemma, the govt. now is wasting Indian taxpayers hard earned money on creating new TV programs in major cities of USA, Canada and UK. These programs are aimed at showing to the immigrant community abroad that the strife-torn State of Punjab, where fighters against repression were crushed militarily, is making a lot of progress and that the govt. has solved all the problems in that state. India has been able to send TV crews in UK, Canada and USA to interview those who tend to identify with the position of the govt.

The program erroneously conveys a signal that Punjab crisis is resolved and it remains confined to only Sikhs living outside of India. There is nothing wrong with govt.?s presenting a message of high political stability and economic development, but here is a dilemma: Do people have a right to know that they are being propagandized?

Fifteen years later, some challenges for all Indians:

* Did the state-controlled media in India achieve its stated objectives, or did it destroy India?s unity permanently?

* Is it good that the 84 genocide in India is not a tragedy in the consciousness of most Indians because ignorance is bliss?

* Did it allow India?s next generation to learn some lessons about the genocide?

* Will India repeat such acts in the future?

* Will most Indians take shelter in the argument that it all happened because it was difficult to control the spontaneous riots between Hindus and Sikhs following the assassination of Indira Gandhi? Or

* That it was difficult to govern a country that has the size of a continent?

What is desperately required is a swift action, not further cover-ups. The govt. must stop focusing on mere investigations on the crimes about which there is enough information. It must stop disseminating its cover-up tactics using its electronic media. And most importantly, it must abolish the powerful Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Govt. owned and/or controlled radio and TV and let the electronic media function independently.

M. S. Chawla
Producer
"PASSION FOR TRUTH" TV Program
"PUNJABI COMMUNITY HOUR" TV Program
"PUNJABI COMMUNITY HOUR" Radio Program On the Web
Web Pages:
www.radioontheweb.org
www.geocities.com/~mschawla
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1.New York Post, July 7, 1994
2 Sangat Singh, ?The Sikhs In History?, 1995, Night of Long knives, PP 355-371.
3 The Hindustan Times, January, January 11, 2000
4 U.S Department of State Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998

� 2000 [email protected]

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