A coalition of journalists bereft of ideological barriers, language and elitism is the need of the hour to end attacks on journalists across the country
Three journalists, Gauri lankesh, Shantanu Bhowmik and KJ Singh (along with his mother) were murdered in less than 20 days in different cities across the country. lankesh was shot outside her house when she was unlocking her main door after coming back from office. Unidentified assailants opened at least seven rounds of fire on lankesh, three of the seven bullets pierced her head, neck, and chest causing her death. Bhowmik was killed by a mob who abducted him while he was reporting an incident. And KJ Singh was stabbed 15 times in his house. Even though these killings may not be linked, they raise serious questions on the security and safety of journalists in the country.
A lot of politics followed the murder of lankesh — it became a national issue, there were candle light marches attended by celebrities and statements from political top brass. One month on, the killers of lankesh are still to be nabbed. lankesh was the editor of a Kannada weekly, lankesh Patrike, started by her father P lankesh. She was not only a staunch critic of Right-wing politics but was also critical of Naxal groups.
Bhowmik was employed with a local news channel in Tripura, Din-raat. He had a political viewpoint but it cannot be said that he was murdered because of his political views. He was attacked with sharp weapon from behind and was abducted while covering an agitation and road blockade by the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT). later, he was found with serious wounds and was rushed to a Government hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival. Bhowmik's murder also got a political angle when Gautam Das, spokesman of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), Tripura unit, alleged that Bhowmik may have been attacked by the IPFT because of his connection with the CPI(M).
Even as the media is regarded as the fourth pillar of democracy and freedom of Press is one of the prerequisite for an accountable Government, journalism has always been a career of courage as it includes lots of risk. According to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which was founded in 1981 by a group of US correspondents to defend the rights of journalists working in repressive and dangerous environments, all-over world, since 1992, 1,746 journalists have been killed with motive being confirmed in 1,253 cases. Journalism in India has never been an easy task and with 42 journalists having been killed with confirmed motive during the same period, India ranks ninth in terms of murder and is at the 136th position among 180 countries in matters of freedom enjoyed by the Press. Other than that, 27 journalists have been killed with unconfirmed motive.
Region wise, comparatively disturbed areas like Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East have been more dangerous for the journalists. As pointed out by the Journalists' Forum of Assam secretary, Nava Thakuria, while condemning the murder of lankesh, as many as 32 journalists have been killed since 1987 in Assam alone and what is more dangerous is that none of these cases have been solved yet. On the national scale, from the perspective of beats being covered by the victims, 21 of the journalists were killed were covering politics, 17 were covering corruptions, 10 were covering crimes, nine were covering human rights and culture each and just two were covering war. Further, 28 were murdered and most of them were either covering politics or corruption. None of the Indian journalists got killed in a crossfire or combat. The deadliest year for the journalists was 1997, when seven of them got killed. Another notable feature is that most of the victims were small-town journalists working with small regional media groups. As author and columnist Anand Ranganathan tweeted, that among the 22 Indian journalists murdered since 2013, lankesh was the only one who also wrote in English or appeared in the English media.
The most unfortunate part of all this is the phenomenon of selective outrage, an elitist attitude among mainstream journalists in the English media and a refusal to rise above ideological considerations exhibited by journalism's big names. This is the reason why there have been increasing incidents of journalists being killed. Rajdev Ranjan was shot dead in Siwan, Bihar, and the Central Bureau of Investigation named Rashtriya Janata Dal strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin as an accused. Jagendra Singh was burnt alive and Dainik Bhaskar reporter Dharmendra Singh was shot dead in Bihar for taking on the stone-chip mafia. Selectivity deflects attention from the murder of journalists, scribes become akin to party cadres and gruesome killings end up becoming political issues. Social media warriors of opposing ideological camps start character assassination and all of this ultimately results in immunity for the assaulters.
On October 2, journalists across the country held protests and expressed concerns regarding the attacks on the media. A free and fair media is necessary for a functioning democracy. Violence, intimidation and abusive language does not have any place in this discourse and whoever resorts to such acts must be punished. But, to make that happen the journalist fraternity will have to form a united front by rising above barriers of ideology, language and elitism.
(The writer is a post-graduate student, Centre for Informal Sector and labour Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU)