‘Bengal Is Burning’ — The Need To Condemn FIR Against Sudhir Chaudhary & Co Even If The Channel Is Zee News

Freedom of Press to me is paramount. There are no two ways about it. There is no if and but. Government should have no say in what press reports and what it doesn’t. It is job of editor to do so. Government if it finds, the reportage is false, mala fide or one-sided then it can always present its side. Governments always have enough power in their arsenal to do so. Most of the governments have state media which continuously airs views and opinions in favor of the state. Despite all the arsenal to communicate at its will, governments, left, right and center have used all the power at their hand to hammer at news organizations and reporters who report what is obviously not in favor of the government. Here’s what happened in West Bengal recently which requires our attention at this disturbing trend which is all so growing in recent times.

Bengal Is Burning.

“Clashes broke out after a Milad-ul-Nabi procession was stopped, allegedly by some people from the Hindu community, on December 13. The police reportedly reached on time and handled the situation by making several arrests,” Indian Express reported.

Dhulagarh where this incident took place is in Howrah, just outside the perimeter of state capital Kolkata. The procession in question happens every year. Places around Dhulagarh have reported clashes in the past but never did any such incident occur in Dhulagarh itself. It is said for 12 years Dhulagarh has seen no such clashes and untoward incidents while surrounding areas have witnessed them regularly. But this time, things went bad and for some reason, Dhulagarh became the epicenter. What went wrong? What made Dhulagarh ‘burn’? Newslaundry pointed out,

This year, however, there was a difference: the route that was given to the procession was through a number of Hindu neighbourhoods. Two reporters who cover the Howrah area said that usually, the Nabi Diwas celebrations remain within Muslim neighbourhoods. As the procession went through Hindu localities, some “comments were passed”, according to one journalist. Arguments quickly turned serious and violent, with gangs of young men collecting and threatening violence. Two tailoring shops, owned by Muslims, were attacked by a group that was allegedly Hindus. Sewing machines and whatever was inside were set ablaze, eye witnesses told journalists. Before things could escalate any further, a large contingent of the police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) appeared in the area and the night passed in uneasy calm.

Why was a Milad-ul-Nabi celebration let to pass through a Hindu area when it traditionally was passing through Muslim areas?

Who made this change and for what reason? Was it deliberate?

In Dhulagarh, Hindus and Muslims live in separate neighborhoods which are clearly earmarked. This sort of places become easy target in clashes as this where ‘wiping’ out a community living at one destined place without any other amongst them is easier. We have seen such instances in the past where certain ‘areas’ are targeted by mob. Something like this occurred in Dhulagarh as well.

With RAF and police on alert, the night did pass in calm but ‘rumors’ were all around the place that Muslims from neighboring places were coming for ‘revenge’. Whispers of “Muslims are coming”, “They’re coming with bombs” were everywhere. But for some reason, this whispers it seems did not reach the ears of Rapid Action Force. Or may be they didn’t bothered much as next morning, they left the area. Thereby leaving people to defend themselves from what was ‘coming’. The fears, rumors, everything bad they had heard started coming true by noon. Newslaundry report further claimed,

For approximately four hours, Dhulagarh burned. Shops were set on fire in the local bazaar and looted. The mob attacked homes, looting them and lobbing bombs — crude contraptions that are far more dangerous cousins of the pataka — at them. Eye witnesses say Hindu households were targeted. “You have to understand, everyone knows everyone in places that are this small,” said one reporter. “Hindus and Muslims live in separate neighbourhoods, but together. So when this happened, some of them recognised those who were attacking them and when they didn’t recognise them, they knew these were outsiders.” One temple was attacked and its idol — of Kali, the goddess best known for her all-destroying rage — was broken. There are reports of Hindu families having fled to neighbouring villages.

All this occurred in broad daylight, few minutes away from local police station. 

Who ordered RAF to move from the ‘disturbed’ area just next morning?

Did they not hear ‘rumors’ of mob coming?

How did a area just minutes away from police kept burning for around two hours?

There are many such questions which we need to find answers to. But how can one find answers when one is not allowed to ask questions or visit the ‘site’ where this happened?

Mamata Banerjee government has ‘ensured’ that no messenger gets the glimpse of mayhem a part of her state is in. There are barricades that stops the media persons from entering in. Mamata will tell you how she and her government is doing this to ensure the disturbance doesn’t spread, but make no mistake, this is censorship. There are no two ways here.

But again, this isn’t any new trend but the one which is rising fast where people in power believe they will stop the messenger and pass the ‘information’ by ‘their’ channels. To funnel down the narrative that suits their interest and agenda has become the official norm across regimes now. Forget about North-East and Kashmir where this sort of blanket bans and censorships are regulars in the larger ‘national interests’, even the Anandi Ben government in Gujarat has adopted this model of ‘filtering’ information by banning internet services across the region that raised voice against her government. There are similar stories from other parts as well. But what happened in Dhulagarh was little more complex than this.

The media was not allowed in. And in the absence of media, citizens became the messengers and recorded video of people, without masks, entering their area and setting things ablaze. Few who had access to phone numbers of media persons tried to contact them, ‘plead’ them. But nothing moved. No media person arrived. Forget national media, even local media was not covering Dhulagarh. But then something changed once Zee News dropped in. Zee News somehow managed to ‘pass’ the barricades and cover the area. With no one accessed the area so far, they had the ‘gold mine’ of ‘exclusive’ information with them. And make no mistake here, Zee News and its faulty narratives like ‘Afzal premi gang’, ‘deshdrohi’, the majority victimhood and rest on which Zee News ravishes, here was the perfect script for Channel’s Editor Sudhir Chaudhary’s primetime show, DNA. And he did his best to get his narrative flying with his now usual potshots at journalists and media at large for not covering the ‘riots’ because the crowd that unleashed the mayhem included Muslims and not Hindus.

Zee News when it broke down the story was the only channel that covered it; rest followed thereafter including local media. But Zee News for their coverage got a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 153A registered against them for promoting enmity. This is non-bailable offense. “The FIR was filed on December 19 on the complaint of one Chiranjeet Das, who has stated that the violence in which both Hindu and Muslim houses were destroyed had been given a communal colour by the channel. He has also stated that the programme’s coverage spread panic among villagers in Dhulagarh and its surrounding areas,” read NL report. There are many loopholes in the FIR which lacks detail, and specificity. But in any case, what Zee News did was cover the incident and put out information which no one did till then. They need to be applauded. Media censorship in anyway is not okay. There can be pitfalls, mala fide motives and intentions in a news report but you should not exercise state powers to crush that narrative. If you feel it’s wrong, then spill out the narrative which is right; let public decide which they want to chew on.

This should also open debate about the failure of section 153 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) whose main aim was to curtail hate speech and its relevance in modern democracy. It has repeatedly been used to curtail the speech which is not hateful but one that regimes and leaders don’t want its citizens to hear. Like this report in scroll pointed out, 

By penalising speech itself, section 153A strikes at the very heart of democracy. It has been used to smother speech in several previous instances too. In 2016, academic Ashis Nandy was forced to tender an unconditional apology after he was charged under section 153A for hurting the sentiments of Gujaratis. In 2015, the Uttar Pradesh police charged a student with 153A for making derogatory references against Uttar Pradesh Urban Development minister Azam Khan. In 2014, a resident of Goa was booked under 153A for simply writing against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media. That year, Yogesh Master, a Kannada author, was booked under 153A for hurting the sentiments of “Brahmins and Lingayats”. In 2007, section 153A was used to charge academic James Laine for writing a book on Shivaji. Clearly, there is little logic to the use of section 153 beyond powerful forces wanting to curb free speech. But even as this law is used frequently to harass honest thought and enquiry, its use in cases of riots and communal violence has seen very few convictions. The most famous case that illustrates the ineffectiveness of section 153 is when it failed to convict Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray. This, in spite, of the fact that Thackeray’s writings were seen by the official Srikrishna Commission as a trigger for the communal violence that wracked Mumbai in 1992 and 1993, leaving around 900 people dead. In Thackeray’s case, the authorities simply looked the other way and far from prosecuting him, the Maharashtra government in the end awarded him a state funeral.

All said, this doesn’t mean, Zee News is the messiah of press freedom and torchbearer of press rights. Zee News is dubious for its reporting, from saying West Bengal is becoming ‘Pakistan for Hindus’ to getting you hear ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ in JNU video where there was none, Zee News is a mess to call it hub of journalistic practices.

Hartosh Singh Bal put this very aptly during an event to condemn the ban on NDTV India by central government. After criticizing Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, addressing a hall comprised more than half of NDTV employees, he said, “I see many NDTV people now, when there was ban in Chhattisgarh I saw none of you, when there was…” And then he said, how despite all those things this ban should be condemned by all. Similarly, Zee News’s reportage has been problematic, too much of hyperbole, less of substance, provoking and misguided at times, but no, they shouldn’t be silenced for covering a clash which government of the state wants not covered. Government should not be allowed to interfere in the newsroom. It’s the editor’s job what gets covered and what not. And in all this, media needs to stand up for one another. It should certainly criticize its colleagues when they go wrong but also raise their voice when government tries to hammer their peers or rivals down. Media has never found the need to stand united. There are still those in media who to get their back patted by those in power go shameless in toeing their line. Following was Zee boss’s tweet after one day ban was announced on NDTV India.

NDTV पर 1 दिवसीय प्रतिबन्ध नाइंसाफी है, यह सजा बहुत कम है! देश की सुरक्षा से खिलवाड़ के लिए उन पर आजीवन प्रतिबन्ध लगाना चाहिए था (1/5)

— Dr. Subhash Chandra (@subhashchandra) November 6, 2016

Zee owner was advocating for life time ban on NDTV. This is media standing up (or to pull another’s throat) for itself. Subhash Chandra also is a member of Parliament backed by BJP, ruling party of India. Like NDTV did not stood up for Kashmiri or Chhattisgarh journalists, Zee did not as well. But as the government intrusion into media rises, there is greater need for media fraternity to speak out against any such practice that amounts to play down their independence and freedom to cover stories.

This in no way mean media doesn’t go wrong at times. It does. And when it goes wrong, it should be punished for its wrongs but government can’t be that authority. Government at large should have no business to decide the right and wrong of media. If governments starts doing that then the independence of media will be at stake and more and more journalists will fall down like stack of cards to please the government and be in their good books as some in the fraternity have already started. 

Thanks to detailed reports in Newslaundry, Quint, Indian Express.