Indian Media

Crime, Punishment and Indian Media

This is New Delhi, India. Little Anant Gupta is back in the loving arms of his doting parents. On his baby’s day out, he had his first brush with the brave new India of 8+% GDP growth rate that’s in store for his generation. The grateful father thanked the police, the politicians and the administration! Understandable. The media which held back in the initial stages till Anant’s safe return, has begun pealing the layers off the kidnap drama and the role of the politicians and the police in it.

The ‘urban educated middle class’ is finally convinced that there’s something wrong with the system after seeing extensive media coverage of cases like that of Priyadarshini Mattoo, Jessica Lal and now Anant. However, the victims are not always the elite. For every Priyadarshini Mattoo, there is a faceless victim who has come under the wheels of a Nanda-BMW, or the marble table top of a film star’s front lawn. We do not even know the names of these people and where their orphaned families are hiding, as if they are the criminals who need to hide from public glare. If the victim of the powerful belongs to the middle class, there is a greater likelihood that media will take interest.

The common man’s protests, (as in the case of the Bhandara dalits) invite violent repression from the State, leading to loss of more lives. While dalit groups are still actively challenging the oppression, the human rights activists have been maligned into silence whenever they attempt to question the brutal repression and killings that are a daily feature against the so called political ‘extremists’, often poor and faceless youngsters. On media, it is not politically correct to raise human rights issues in such instances, it appears.

The last one year has seen a dozen killings a week in Andhra Pradesh in the name of anti-Naxal operations. The State does not think it is accountable to these lives, whoever these people are. The State is offering out-of-turn promotions and incentives to the ‘encounter’ artists among the police. The media, for whatever reasons, seems to have fallen into the trap of accepting police reports as fact. The ‘encounter’ method liberates the State completely from answerability – there is no need for arrests, cases, investigation, falsification of information or any other trouble.

Barring one or two Telugu channels and newspapers, the media, bowing to its middle class constituency is not attempting to build a strong case for accountability in these violations. The “Lakshman Rekha’ appears to be drawn at a politically correct, comfortable liberal agenda that does not extend to a belief in equality before law. There has been an aggressive negative attitude on display on electronic media against those who speak up for Human Rights.

Media often describe with relish Bihar or UP as the centres of kidnapping industry, or this or that city as the crime capital. If we look around in today’s India, much of the crime is being committed with the active participation of the new urban and rural elite who can control both administrative and legal fall-out in each instance. It cannot be denied that some of this fuels sympathy for the extremist cause. Though for media crime may be entertainment, films like ‘Rang De Basanti’ have struck a chord with the common man.

The politician/police nexus which is supposed to protect the Constitution and the rule of law shows the greatest contempt for both. If a person who is shot dead in an ‘encounter’ by the police and labelled an extremist, the ‘educated vocal middle class’ somehow accept that the victim does not deserve the due process of law as he has no rights in this democracy of ours. We do not even question whether the victim was indeed an ‘extremist’. A woman is raped and killed. By questioning her morals or politics, you and I can be made to believe that she does not deserve justice. Barring a few exceptions, media is happy reporting the police version in these cases.

It is this pervasive acceptance that law need not be equal for all in this country that the police use to justify blatantly illegal killings and repression. Often the fine arts of planting evidence, creating false cases, intimidation of witnesses are perfected with the so called ‘Maoist cases’. The Government of India also sees the political challenge from the Maoist groups as more of a threat than terrorism and crime (As per a recent statement of the PM).

The new economic policies have resulted in large-scale dispossession and displacement of the poor from their lands and livelihoods, both in urban and rural areas. The resultant widespread impoverishment leaves the victims with three choices – commit suicide, join the mafia or take on the Beast of Oppression by joining hands with left-wing extremist groups. Of all these responses of the people, the only response the State violently counters is the left-wing extremism. Committing suicides is fine. Joining the mafia is better.

The State is not protecting the interests of the poor and marginalised in the country either by its actions or its policies. It is presiding over a porous regulatory environment and is ill-equipped to stand up to national or international pressures of globalisation. In this political-economic mayhem, the privileged citizens of India of 8+% GDP growth rate are the real estate mafia, the smuggler and the white-collar colluders in the system. Any suggestion to reign in these forces (even from people like Aruna Roy or Medha Patkar) will not be discussed. All mainstream political parties across the board are heavily dependent on the muscle of this underworld and benefit in various ways from it.

This is reminiscent of Latin American dictatorships propped up by US that systematically protected and funded mercenary armies and drug dealers as a counter to left-wing political forces. The Indian State today favours physical elimination of left-wing groups without any attempt to negotiate with them on issues that they are raising. Land reforms, for instance. SEZs seem to have put paid to the issue!

However, in India it is still possible for the media to speak up for alternative political agenda and resist the temptation to be an instrument in the hands of the State to build a middle class consensus against political alternatives. At least, let them be heard and let the people decide.

Media are often on the bandwagon while promoting anti-people policies of the government and paradoxically bring outraged coverage to consequences of those same policies! Farmers’ suicides and riots by dalits make for good television events. Instead, media need to provide more critical coverage to policy initiatives when they are being conceived and put in place. Post facto analysis does little to prevent great human tragedies.

Media seldom pursue issues like why India today is a land flooded with illegal small arms, and why in the name of security politicians are allowed to maintain private armies. There is also a need to ask – can law enforcement agencies and investigative agencies that work under the control of a criminalised polity act in public interest? How can judiciary ensure justice when the case comes rigged in to the court? Shouldn’t media push for systemic changes extrapolating from individual cases?

Already the tail is wagging the dog. Legislation that curbs the arbitrary powers or puts the investigative agencies under the autonomous control of the courts is likely to be resisted strongly both by political parties and the law enforcement agencies. Media need to re-educate the ‘educated middle class’ that baying for a “terrorist’s” blood or a “political extremist’s” head is not fair when the Chief Justice of the country publicly declared that the even the Supreme Court is not infallible but only Supreme. In a civilized democracy establishment of guilt beyond doubt is essential before handing out punishment.