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For
the Indian media, only the celebrities are important. If you are
not famous enough, your say, your cause and even your life has
little news-value for the mainstream media. In India, when a
celebrity sneezes, whole media
weeps
in sympathy whereas when ordinary people die, in protest,
atrocities, calamities, or even in state sponsored
massacres,
it’s hardly a news.
Although there have been many such cases in the past of the
mainstream media’s obsession with an issue involving a celebrity,
while being completely tame about serious issues involving
ordinary citizens, I will focus on some recent or rather ongoing
cases.
India has long been suffering from the menace of corruption, but
media’s role in highlighting the issue was limited. Only after the
famous activists like
Anna Hazare
sat on an indefinite hunger strike, the media jumped into the
scene. Seeing the overwhelming
success
of the anti-corruption movement, Yoga-Guru Baba Ramdev launched
the second phase of the protest on June 4. From amongst millions
of his followers, the ultra-famous Yogi,
Baba
managed to pool over sixty thousand supporters in the
Ramlila Ground
in Delhi to his cause, which has been upheld by some, while
severely criticized by others as noise-creating and impractical.
Irrespective of the pertinence of his demands, which were
redundant at best and
politically
motivated at their worst, the electronic and print media gave him
their fullest
publicity,
until people were literally fed up with the issue. The media did
not spare even a moment of the whole protest-Yoga
drama
from publicizing. But why not the same is true for other
protesters in the country?
A
day before Ramdev’s protest, on June 3, in Forbesganj, Bihar - an
eastern Indian state, a group of villagers went to protest against
illegal blocking of a road connecting the village to the outside
by Auro Sunaram International - a privately owned company, their
protest, far from creating the desired impact, had an adverse
effect on the villagers. When the state (Bihar) police was
expected to help them fight against the company, the police
played party
to the land-grabbing company authorities.
The
Bihar police not only acted against the public interest, they cold
bloodedly fired bullets on the un-armed villagers and
killed five
people including one woman and a six-month-old infant and an
unborn baby and injured many others.
In their
killing spree,
the police chased the villagers inside their homes and fired at
them. But the mainstream media was strangely silent on the whole
issue. None of the leading regional or daily newspapers reported
the incidence. Only a few online blogs like
www.TwoCircles.net,
www.Ummid.com,
www.indianmuslimobserver.com
and
Youtube
videos conveyed the news to the world. It was only after the sixth
day of the incidence, when it became a
political
issue, the media took interest.
It
is being widely suspected that the state government allowed the
police to act against people’s interest and favor the company’s
land-grabbing and road blocking operation, although the exact
nature of the government’s complicity is yet to be revealed. But
who is there to raise this issue to the wider world? The
mainstream media hardly gave any time or space to such an
outrageous incidence of the police’s betrayal against its own
people. Where is the media ethics? Doesn’t such a heinous act
deserve a wide publicity, sincere condemnation and a serious media
investigation?
This is not the only case of media’s apathy towards common people.
Unless you are famous enough before the media, your cause -
however noble it maybe, will go unnoticed before the media’s blind
eyes. Our not-so-famous iron lady from Manipur,
Irom Sharmila
has been fighting against the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(AFSPA),
a draconian law which bestows unlimited powers to the armed
forces, for last 10 years. What is the media’s take on this? A
decade of Irom’s hunger is not enough to awake the mainstream
media, which has largely been quiet on the issue. Why is this
apathy? Is it because she is not as famous as Anna Hazare or
because the effect of the AFSPA, which has taken away hundreds of
innocent lives, is not dangerous enough?
Another such victim of media’s indifference is Swami Nigamanand,
who died on June 6 after a prolonged protest of over four months
for saving the river Ganga – the holy river for the Hindus. His
death was a national news but his cause, while he was alive, drew
little media coverage. Otherwise, he would not have to die such a
tragic death.
Be
it the poor victims of Forbesganj, Irom Sharmila of Manipur, or
Swami Nigamanada – the bleak face of Media apathy is same. The
only reason, it seems, is these people are not famous enough for
the media to take interest. Hence, their death or their suffering
is not news-worthy. These faceless people are the real heroes of
genuine concerns. India salutes them even though the media may not
care.
The
writer is a a PhD student at Texas Tech University, USA and blogs
at http://glimpsesofatraveler.srtalukdar.com/
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