a jOurnal Of practitiOners Of jOurnalisM

RNI No: tELENG/2017/72414

he assassination of Gauri Lankesh onceagain proved how far the hate mongersand forces of intolerance could go tosilence the critics of their brand of pol-itics or culture. We do not need tosearch for any evidence to know thatGauri Lankesh, who through her writ-

ings in her news magazine Gauri Lankesh Patrikaopposed the forces of communalism, cast and bigotry.Even some of the comments made by the elements sym-pathetic to the communal fringe in public and throughsocial media went to prove who were behind her murder.She was more than a journalist. She campaigned againstextremism of all kinds. She wrote against superstitions,communalism and intolerance. It may be recalled that theright wing fringe elements were found to be involved inthe murders of m m Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar andGovind Pansare who wrote against the communalism andintolerance. that is why the murder of Gauri was not onlyagainst dissent and freedom of the press but also againstvery concept freedom of expression. by her murder thoseforces intended to send a strong signal to journalists andintellectuals to refrain from opposing the forces of com-munalism and intolerance or else face the consequences.

It is unfortunate that a section of the media while con-demning the murder of journalists and editors is treatingthe murders as law and order problem and blaming thestate government concerned without going into the rootsof the malaise. Such a stance only helps the forces ofintolerance to intimidate independent journalists and edi-tors to observe self-censorship leading to denial of spaceto the voices of dissent and contrary view to the world ofthose in power. If this situation is allowed to continue, the

guarantee of freedom of expression and freedom ofpress enshrined in the constitution would remain onlyjust words in print with substance. It is time for theworking journalists and editors of the print, elec-tronic and print media to come together to fightback for their right to question those in power.

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EADER'S

VIEWRY

our editorial on cowardice of

the so called public intellectu-

als is timely and appropriate.

Sitting in their cozy and safe sinecures,

these intellectuals preach to fight for

our democratic rights and tell us to

stand up and oppose injustice and

intolerance. but when it comes to

them, they just raise their hands and

retire to their comfortable drawing

rooms. this is just what happened in

the case EPW editor Paranjoy Guha-

thakurta. Instead of fighting against

the legal threats hurled by Adani's ,

they accused the editor of some minor

violation of their rules and forced him

to resign.

they also brought down the pres-

tige and integrity of the EPW build

over the last half century or so. We all

know if a magazine of the standard of

EPW loses its credibility as magazine

of in depth analyses and independent

opinion once, it can never regain it.

It is not easy to build up the credi-

bility and prestige the EPW build up as

a magazine of public interest journal-

ism. After earning it after much toil,

the management crawled before the

powerful interests and ruined it. As we

know the Sameeksha trust a public

interest organisation financed by its

well-wishers. After this the trust lost

its right to represent public interest. It

is time that the Sameeksha trust is

revamped to make the EPW shine

again. Do they have the courage?

— K Prakash Rao

Visakhapatnam

Intellectual Cowardice

Inside

G a u r iassassinated

Journalists

Why do you dowhat you do,

RaghuramRajan?

You cannot kill

the freedom

Censorship GhostHaunts the

Internet

A movie of

toughQuestions

2430

12

14

Can media beHarbinger of

Change?

Protest4 - 11Complete Coverage

september 20174

ProtestG a u r iassassinated Journalists

housands of journalists

came out on streets

across the country on 6

September to protest

against the assassination

of the warrior for free-

dom of expression and Editor of Lankesh

Patrika Gauri Lankesh in bangalore on 5

September night by unknown assailants.

Hundreds of social activists, intellectuals

and common people who cherish the

freedom of speech and freedom of the

press joined them to raise their voice

against the forces that wanted to silence

the voice of the voiceless millennium.

they raised slogans against the hate

mongers from the communal fringe

against whom she waged a relentless

fight all her life.

Earlier on 5th night the Indian

Journalists Union (IJU) strongly con-

demned the dastardly murder of Gauri

Lankesh, Editor of Gauri Lankesh

Patrika terming it as an attack on inde-

pendent journalism in the country. In a

statement S N Sinha President, Amar

Devulapalli, Secretary-General and

International Federation of Journalistsd

(IFJ) Vice-President Sabina Inderjit said

"We hold the forces of hate are responsi-

ble for the cowardly act. the journalists

community should unitedly fight such

forces and defeate them by exposing

them". they directed state union of IJU

to hold protest demonstrations, rallies

and dharnas all over the country.

the journalists under the banner of

Indian Journalists Union and their State

Unions staged dharnas and noisy

demonstrations at several state capitals

including Hyderabad, Vijayawada,

bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Imphal,

Itanagar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Uttar

Pradesh and bangalore. they raised slo-

gans against hate crimes and attacks on

freedom of expression. they demanded

that Karnataka government should

mount a massive manhunt to catch the

killers of Gauri Lankesh. they also

demanded that the Parliament should

enact Safety of Journalists Act as recom-

mended by the Press Council of India

(PCI).

In Hyderabad, the telangana State

Union of Working Journalists (tUWJ)

and Hyderabad of Union of Journalists

(HUJ) held a massive protest demonstra-

tion at babuJagjivan Ram Statue at

basheerbagh to protest against the brutal

september 2017 5At Hyderabad

At Imphalt

murder of Gauri Lankesh on Wednesday. they

demanded for immediate arrest of culprits and those

who abetted such crimes. It demanded that serious

measures should be taken to prevent such attacks on

Journalists in the future.

In Hyderabad hundreds of journalists from print

and electronic media participated in the demonstra-

tion. the demonstration was led by Indian Journalists

Union (IJU) Secretary-General Amar Devulapalli,

senior IJU leader and Editor of mana telangana daily

K Sreenivas Reddy and K Ramachandra murthy,

Editorial Director of Sakshi media group.

In Delhi, the National Press Club in collaboration

with other journalists organisations including the

Indian Journalists union (IJU) held a massive demon-

stration in the Club premises where several prominent

editors from print and electronic media, senior jour-

nalists and some political leaders participated. IJU

President S N Sinha and Vice-President Sabina

Inderjit and other leaders participated. In Chandigarh

IJU Secretary balwinder Jammu paticpated in the

protest rally organised by the Chandigarh Press Club.

Several national and international organisations

comdemned the murder of Gauri Lankesh and called

on the Government to take immediate steps to nab the

culprits. they also called upon the government curb

the hate mongers who were targetting the journalists

who did not conform to their view point.

At several places including bangalore several

journalists displayed placards saying "I am Gauri

Lankesh, Kill me". While several Union ministers

september 20176

At Bangalore

At Chandigarh

september 2017 7

condemned the murder of Gauri

Lankesh, a section of the Sangh

Parivar made insensitive

remarks against her. A senior

leader and bJP mLA in

Karnataka was reported as say-

ing that has she not written

against the Sangh Parivar, she

would have been alive today.

Several individuals psoted nasty

comments against her in twitter,

face book and other social net-

works rejoicing at her death.

At New Delhi Press Club

At Chennai

At Itanagar

At Mathura

september 20178

Gauriwas killed?

erhaps we will never know

who killed Gauri Lankesh,

but maybe we can make a

reasonable guess as to why

she was killed. Or, rather, we

can be fairly certain as to

why she had to be killed. Come to think of it,

there is no mystery to it. Nor anything com-

plicated about it, either. She had to be killed

because she had become an eyesore and in

our New India, we are no longer inclined to

tolerate eyesores.

Of course, there is the local context. but

remember, all politics is local. Outside the

limited media fraternity, Gauri Lankesh was

not all that well known. On the national stage,

she sounded like a very distant and a very

small voice in the company of big mega-

phones. but her voice was indeed heard - and,

indeed resented - within the Kanadiga ecosys-

tem of fundamentalism and its political

demands. And, this political ecosystem has

been experimenting with a new grammar of

intimidation and coercion: shut up or be pre-

pared to be simply silenced. An inconvenient

voice is jarring - and, unacceptable - to the

new overseers of the New India.

It may still be argued that the charioteers

of the Hindutva juggernaut need not have

bothered themselves with a relatively obscure

voice. After all, the Hindutva project is a

divinely blessed enterprise and the presumed

spiritual and religious nobility of its journey

itself is so self-evident that no one has to feel

distracted by a few pseudo-secular dissenters.

Let them waste their breath and energy, we

move on.

Yet, Gauri Lankesh was very much

resented. Voices like her could not be left

alone to keep on articulating their dissent.

By

Harish Khare

The writer is the ChiefEditor of The Tribune .

The article is reproducedfrom the The Tribune.

P

After all, theHindutva project

is a divinelyblessed enterpriseand the presumed

spiritual andreligious nobility

of its journeyitself is so self-evident that noone has to feeldistracted by a

few pseudo-secular

dissenters. Letthem waste their

breath and energy, we

move on.

Why

september 2017 9After all, it is the untamed individual

voice that is found to be particularly irri-

tating. Even on social media, we gener-

ally reserve our most venomous rebukes

and scorns for individual voices. How

dare these individual voices question the

official line? And, the resentment

acquires a sharp edge, especially when

the autocrat's authority has found it so

easy to tame the much bigger corporate

media.

Without much effort, the corporate

media - print and electronic - has been

made to see the wisdom of not annoying

the new sultans of the New India. Our

new saviours know the nature and extent

of resources and deep pockets that

enable the corporate media to buy for

themselves an unprecedented nationwide

presence; and, it is this very vastness that

also renders it organisationally and pro-

fessionally vulnerable to the danda's gen-

tle poke. In the New India, there is no

inhibition about tapping the State instru-

ments and their enormous coercive reach

against anyone who does not fall in line

- it may be a political leader (rival or

ally), a businessman or a journalist.

the corporate media has eagerly

subscribed to the logic of "one nation,

one tax, one leader, and one voice". this

logic comes wrapped up in the deshb-

hakti colours; and, given our perennial

conflicts and standoffs with Pakistan and

China, we are never short of occasions

and provocations to feel good about

waving the flag vigorously and, even,

menacingly. So much so, after the mas-

sively dislocating demonetisation, influ-

ential sections of the corporate media

had reduced themselves to be the gov-

ernment's unpaid voice.

In fact, it can be suggested that there

is a New media to suit the temperament

and expectations of the New India.

Never before has the Indian media rede-

fined its role - from someone charged

with the obligation to keep a sharp eye

on the powers-that-be to a vicious break-

er of the Opposition's ranks and morale.

Instead of questioning the government's

very doubtful claims - from demonetisa-

tion to Doklam - the corporate media has

taken it upon itself to shut up the critic

and the dissenter.

the ruling establishment believes,

like General Sam manekshaw, that once

it has captured the headquarters (Dacca,

Chittagong), the villages will easily give

up. but there is resistance in villages.

And a Gauri Lankesh mocks at this very

controlling strategy. Something has to be

done to bring these pockets of resistance

to their knees. the regional subedars feel

emboldened, empowered by the sultan's

licence, to do something about this or

that Gauri Lankesh. In her death, Gauri

Lankesh becomes a metaphor.

A million atrocities - and a million

mutinies - take place every day across

the length and breadth of this vast land.

these may be small and insignificant

insurgencies and, indeed, rarely make it

to the front pages of even the regional

press; yet these acts of defiance and

anger do take place because the iniqui-

tous local power structure insists on and

often manages to extract submission and

compliance.

And then, there are millions and mil-

lions of citizens who believe in the Old

India and its old Nehruvian values and

ideas; they may not be able to articulate

their thoughts in a shouting debate in tel-

evision studios, but they do live out the

practices of pluralism and secularism in

village after village and mohalla after

mohalla.

the Gauri Lankesh model gives

voice and legitimacy to that tradition of

dissent and disagreement and that is why

it has to be confronted and dismantled, if

necessary, by force. When the famous,

the glamorous and the familiar faces on

the so-called national television can be

tamed or converted, who is this two-bit

of a woman, refusing to fall in line! If

she refuses to appreciate the great

national renewal and monumental

progress that New India has brought

about, she must be silenced.

this is a familiar temptation. the

itch to silence and control is part of the

medieval rites of power and authority.

All that Henry II had to do was to whis-

per aloud "will no one rid me of this tur-

bulent priest?" and some loyalists took it

upon themselves to silent permanently

the meddlesome priest, the Archbishop

of Canterbury. that, as we know, was in

1170. Since then, the art of getting rid of

this or that turbulent priest has been

finessed many times over.

In the modern times, the autocrat has

invoked the support and endorsement of

the masses as a licence to liquidate the

"enemy" of the people - or, anyone who

is deemed to stand in the way of

"progress". And now, in this digital age,

the new intrusive technology has given

the overseers of the New India a sense of

robust empowerment about their ability

to calibre events and control individuals

in even distant places. Little voices, like

that of a Gauri Lankesh, will not be

allowed to defy. that is why she had to

be killed.

september 201710

the Epitome of Amazing Gracef Gauri Lankesh read all the tributes

and accolades for her, particularly

those that refer to soul and afterlife

and heaven, she's have had a good

laugh. Well maybe not a laugh, but at

least a chuckle. We had decided in our teens that

heaven and hell and afterlife were a lot of b.s.

there was enough heaven and hell on earth, and

we should just leave god alone - he has enough

on his hands - instead of begging him for things

like many people do.

but part of our compact was we would not be

hurtful to others - including family -- in our

youthful irreverence even if we disagreed with

their beliefs and practices. We didn't always suc-

ceed - ah, the impetuosity of youth! -- but it was

a good principle that served us well later. Which

is how even when we divorced 27 years ago, after

five years of courtship and five years of marriage,

we remained friends, great friends. Part of the

compact. Don't be hurtful. Even to each other.

We met at a school that was the birthplace of

the Rationalist movement of India - National

College. Our principal, Dr H. Narasimaiah, and

the Sri Lankan rationalist, Dr Abraham Kovoor,

were pioneers of the movement, and right from

our teens we took to the thrill of questioning and

debunking a variety of godmen/women, charla-

tans, frauds, superstitions etc that abound in

India.

more on this another time, but I'm putting

this out here early to provide context to the

killing. Rationalists and agnostics are in the cross

hairs of uber-religious bigots.

One of the first books we read together --

before getting into the weeds (I mean metaphori-

cally) of religion, politics, and life itself -- was

Will Durant's Story of Philosophy. Neither of us

was proficient in our mother tongue Kannada (at

that time), so we regretfully forsook our own

bounteous literature for everything from

Wodehouse to Graham Greene, devouring any-

thing that Premier book Shop's mr Shanbhag

could produce for us - at a matchless 20 per cent

By

ChidanandaRajghatta

The writer is a senior journalistpresently based atWashington.

I

Gauri with mother, sister and niece.

september 2017 11discount (others got 15 per cent). She

returned to Kannada years later, but

more that soon.

meanwhile, we "skinned our hearts

and skinned our knees, learned of love

the AbCs." terry Jack's sappy, saccha-

rine "Seasons in the Sun" has just been

released a couple of years before, and we

hummed it between Dylan and beatles.

I'd return to Indian music years later; she

was tone deaf. We read and laughed at

Eric Segal's Love Story, saw the movies

Abba, Saturday Night Fever, and Gandhi

on our first dates, and went to the boon-

docks on moonless nights to see billions

and billions of stars and galaxies after

reading and watching Carl Sagan.

Feisty wouldn't even begin to

describe her. She hated the fact that I

smoked in college. Years later, when I

had given it up for a long time, she had

begun to smoke. One time, she visited

me in U.S (crazy innit? ex-wife visiting

me? but she was more friend than ex !) I

insisted that she not smoke in the apart-

ment because it was carpeted and the

stink wouldn't go away. It was winter.

"What do you want me to do?"

"If you have to smoke at all, go to the

rooftop and smoke."

"But it's cold and snowing!"

"Shrug"

"You tightass!...I started to smoke

because of you!"

"Awww…sorry old girl. I'm asking

you to stop."

"Yeah right. You've become too

American!"

"American has nothing to do with it.

Being healthy."

"Bollocks. I'll outlive you!"

Liar.

many friends were and continued to

be bemused by our friendship.

Separations and divorces are often

messy, bitter and spiteful in India, or

anywhere for that matter. We had our

moments, but we transcended that quick-

ly, bound by higher ideals. On our day in

court, as we stood next to each other and

our hands reached out and fingers inter-

laced. "If you want to go your own ways,

better disengage," the lawyer hissed.

After it was done and dusted, we went

out for lunch at the taj down mG Road.

the restaurant was called Southern

Comfort. We laughed and said goodbye

as I moved first to Delhi, then mumbai,

then Washington DC. She visited me in

each place.

my parents loved her despite her

rebellious nature, and remarkably for tra-

ditional, orthodox Indian parents, kept in

touch with her - and she with them --

even after we went our own ways. One

time, when I told her about a budding

dalliance, she drew herself to her full

height (all of five feet and HALF INCH

- she never failed to emphasize the half

inch) and said: "Ha! You can never take

away the honor of being the first daugh-

ter-in-law of the family. When my moth-

er passed away this past February, Gauri

Lankesh was there, literally "live cast-

ing" me the final rites before I got home.

my ties with her family were as

unusual. through our separation and

going our own ways, I continued to meet

her dad P.Lankesh, a writer, playwright,

film-maker - even after I began living in

the U.S., when I visited India. Over a

drink or two, we'd debate and argue

about politics, religion, literature,

movies, farming distress, health, the

world. they'd tease me about abandon-

ing the good fight, while I'd argue that it

was temporary, and a little time and dis-

tance is good for perspective. Where he

passed away in 2000, she truly became

her father's daughter, taking over the

newspaper he founded and continuing

the good fight.

there was no doubt she was left of

center, even extreme left of center and

there was much we disagreed about. She

chewed me up for being an early propo-

nent of technology, saying one time in

the 90s, "Stop yammering about cell

phones. Our poor can't eat cell phones." I

never let her forget it. but her heart was

in the right place. Some eight years back,

after I had built a new home in

bangalore, she determined that I needed

a housekeeper to manage the place. "I

am sending someone over," she declared

over the phone. "She's a widow with two

young daughters. make sure you take

care of them and put them through

school."

Ramakka, her gift to us, is still with

us; her daughters Asha and Usha both

graduated from school, earned degrees,

and now work - Asha in Syndicate bank

and Usha in an NGO. there are hundreds

of Ashas and Ushas because of Gauri

Lankesh. Right now, between writing

this, I am scrambling to get on a plane

again, my mind a cauldron of fragment-

ed memories. One phrase keeps repeat-

ing and resonating in my mind: Amazing

Grace. Forget all other labels: leftist, rad-

ical, anti-Hindutva, secular etc. For me,

there is just this: my friend, my first

love, she was the epitome of Amazing

Grace."

The grieving family

september 201712

CensorshipGhost Haunts the

Internethe NDA government has been observing

Anti Emergency Day on June 25/26

every year across the country enthusias-

tically since it came to power in 2014.

the then Union I&b minister m

Venkaiah Naidu said in a letter to all

ministers that this was an occasion for

the bJP to demonstrate how the party

values democracy. However the present

milieu of intolerance, shrinking space for

dissent and the tendency of homogeniza-

tion of great Indian diversity portray a

reverse picture.

Indeed the days of Emergency have

gone but censorship not only prevails

and thrives in its new avatar. Censorship

has shifted its focus from conventional

newspaper and tV channels to internet.

India has earned dubious honour of

increasingly blocking internet. India has

shut down internet more than 42 times in

different parts of the country during last

eight months of this year according to a

report published by Human Rights

Watch.

that represents a dramatic raise from

last year, when 31 such shutdowns were

recorded. the Indian government

has argued in the past that

restricting access to internet

is sometimes necessary to

prevent social media

rumors from fueling

violence. the conflict-ridden

Kashmir, for example, has

experienced more than 35 shut-

downs in last five years. In

march 2012, Reporters Without

borders added India to its list of

"countries under surveillance", stating

that: "Since the mumbai bombings of

2008, the Indian authorities have stepped

up Internet surveillance and pressure on

technical service providers, while pub-

licly rejecting accusations of censorship.

the national security policy of the

world's biggest democracy is undermin-

ing freedom of expression and the pro-

tection of Internet users' personal data."

Although the regime has changed at

the centre and in many states the aggres-

sive internet regulating policy remains

unchanged. the prevention of internet

access to the public was limited during

UPA rule, now it looks the limit has

gone. Notwithstanding the Supreme

Court of India's nullification of section

66A of Information and technology Act

that made posting "offensive" comments

on social media a crime punishable by

jail, observations of various freedom

groups indicate that the tendency of the

authorities to curb access to internet is

increasing. Questions of surveillance

and censorship continue to fuel fierce

argument in India.

there are around 200 million inter-

net users in the developing south Asian

nations, the third highest total in the

world, although telecom-

munications

By

Geetartha Pathak

The author is senior journalist based at

Guwahati. He is also theVice-President of IndianJournalists Union (IJU)

tIndeed the days

of Emergencyhave gone butcensorship not

only prevails andthrives in its new

avatar. It hasshifted its focus

from conventionalnewspaper andTV channels to

internet.

media matters

september 2017 13infrastructure remains inadequate. Now

finally the central government in a bid to

make online censor permanent the Union

ministry of Communications, on 7

August 2017, issued and also notified in

the official Gazette rules for shutting of

telecom services - and by extension, the

shutting down of Internet services in

India. the notification for the rules is

issued under the telegraph Act. there

was no public consultation regarding

these rules. the views of civil society

and industry ought to have been taken

before framing such rules. the freedom

of speech activists question how citizens

will assess whether the decision to issue

an Internet Shutdowns was necessary

and proportionate, even it has been

issued by the Central or State Home

Secretary? the government is silent on

such apprehension of the people.

big leap in development of informa-

tion and technology has changed the

contours of media. Internet has revolu-

tionized media and created new media

platforms. Government of India has not

updated the media regulatory mechanism

in synchronization with these big

changes. Press Council of India (PCI) is

governed by an archaic Press Council of

India Act 1978 which is renewed version

of Press Council of India Act 1965 and it

regulates only the print media of the

country. Electronic media is out of the

jurisdiction of PCI, but PCI claims its

jurisdiction over internet contents as they

are basically in written form.

Notwithstanding PCI's repeated rec-

ommendations to the government to

bring the electronic media under its

purview the central government for rea-

son best known to it has not taken any

initiative to do that. It is argued that the

government has violated the fundamen-

tal right - right to equality guaranteed

under Article 14-18 of the Constitution

by regulating one form of media and let-

ting another form go unregulated. Now

since PCI, as upholder of freedom of

press, regulates internet contents, it

should urgently react to the government

notification of internet shut down rules

which is tantamount to outright media

censorship. We however are not aware of

any such reaction of the PCI.

Internet base media platforms have

emerged as a powerful mass media

extensively used by general people.

Print, electronic and other conventional

media hitherto was controlled by a hand-

ful of media-barons and politicians. It is

true that terrorists, dacoits, drug traffick-

ers, killers and all other criminals also

take advantage of the internet based

media platforms like all other technolog-

ical inventions. Conventional media is

also used by criminals, politicians and

others for fulfillment of their interests. In

India paid news is one of the vivid exam-

ples of such misuse of media.

In Rwanda's genocide some conven-

tional media abetted the pogrom led by

majoritarian forces. the role of social

and other media platforms in some of the

recent people's uprisings like the one

Arab spring, Anna Hazare movement

against corruption and the recent ‘not in

my name’ in India has sent shock waves

to the autocratic regimes across the

world. Now the rightist forces and reac-

tionary regimes are hell bent to tame the

internet based media platforms by

engaging internet media savvy propa-

ganda army.

Stephen K bannon, the former

Whitehouse Chief Strategist and the

Executive Chairman of rightist breitbart

News has doubled his arsenals against

Islam, immigration and trade and propa-

gating racist policy. Swati Chaturvedi in

her book I am A troll: Inside the Secret

World of bJP's digital Army has exposed

such an aggressive approach on internet

based media platforms of the ruling

political forces in India.

Now as part of a concerted effort to

restrict access of the citizens to internet

and such media platforms the ruling

class has formulated internet regulations.

India does not have program like Golden

Shield Project that manages the public

information and network security super-

vision in China and subproject called

Great Firewall of China (GFC) which is

an internet censorship and surveillance

project of China. China can block any

internet site directly by using GFW.

However selective internet censor-

ship is practiced by the union and state

governments in India.

DNS filtering and imposing condi-

tions in licensing on the service

providers are active strategy and govern-

ment policy to block or regulate access

to internet contents. In absence of resist-

ance against such tacit regulatory

schemes the government has now

planned to impose direct restrictions on

internet access. the media fraternity and

the citizen users of internet based media

of India should mobilize all the plat-

forms to unite against any kind of inter-

net censorship.

september 201714

Can media beHarbinger of

Change?

he media has been playing a relatively more

constructive role in the last two decades than

before highlighting issues that have a bearing

on our social and economic conditions.

Special mention may be made of the portray-

al of gender issues and the pitiable conditions

of women and children in the country. Cases

of rape and trafficking are increasingly find-

ing mention in the media. the role played by

the media has been taken note of even by the

judiciary, social scientists and activists.

As is well known and acknowledged by

society, the media is considered as fourth pil-

lar of democracy. It makes us aware of vari-

ous activities from fields like politics, sports,

economic social etc. It is also like a mirror

which shows the bare truth and sometimes it

may be harsh. However the changed stance of

the media has not limited its report to politi-

cal affairs but on highlighting issues that

could shape public minds and bring about the

much needed change in society.

As media is the best medium of commu-

nication, its various forms such as electronic

media, print media and web media are suc-

cessful in keeping people updated on various

ongoing issues around the country. Whether it

is the national or the regional media, all sorts

of development are transmitted to the general

mass on various issues, specially those relat-

ed to society.

there has been criticism that too much

political squabbling has been occupying

space in the media though this cannot be

denied. moreover entertainment related

issues, specially films and fashion, find

favour with newspapers and tV. though

there can be no objection to the media pro-

viding entertainment to the people, there has

to be a limit. the coverage on entertainment

is much less than the real issues facing the

nation. Questions have arisen whether this is

something seriously wrong with the media.

Justice markandey Katju, the chairman

of the Press Council of India, recently

observed that while a national newspaper

reported a quarter million farmers committed

suicide in the last fifteen years., a Lakme

Fashion week was covered by 512 accredited

journalists. In that fashion week women were

displaying cotton garments, while the men

and women who grew that cotton were killing

themselves an hour's flight from Nagpur in

the Vidarbha region. Nobody told that story

except one or two journalists locally.

According to some, the Indian media

gave entertainment around 7 to 8 times the

coverage that health, education, labour, agri-

culture and environment together get. Does a

hungry or unemployed person want entertain-

ment or food and a job?

Environmental concerns are key issues in

t

There has been criticism, justifiable so, that media is devoting too much space topolitical squabbling. Moreover entertainment related issues, specially films andfashion, find favour with newspapers and TV. Though there can be no objection tothe media providing entertainment to the people, there has to be a limit.

By

Dr. OisheeMukherjee

debatinG point

september 2017 15recent times but its reflection in the media is extremely limited

though the national media has been giving some coverage to

this aspect. but the root causes of climate change and global

warming and its effect on our country are indeed quite insignif-

icant when one compares this with that of films and entertain-

ment.

Another vital aspect is health and nutrition where aware-

ness generation is vital at this juncture. Lack of basic knowl-

edge in this sector in rural areas has been a serious impediment

in tackling health related issues, specially those that are com-

municable, fungal infections etc. If the media devoted more

space to poor infrastructure, non performance of duties by doc-

tors in rural health centres, non-availability of medicines and

other related issues, things would have

changed to at least to some extent. However,

big newspapers in metros and big cities

have made some headway in health and

nutrition related issues by giving more

coverage in recent years.

more and more por-

trayal and analysis of

burning issues could

have made some impres-

sion on the young gener-

ation who are generally

more inclined towards

entertainment and films.

Here it needs to be men-

tioned that apart from

reports on films some

vulgar photos of foreign

models and singers have

a negative effect on youth.

the media could have

played a significant role

by highlighting social

and economic issues

and concerns of the

aam admi.

Another significant

point that needs to be

pointed out is the fact that

the trend of news coverage in

India is biased towards the rich and

upper middle income sections of socie-

ty. there are journalists, writing for

national newspapers, who are continuously

against any form of subsidy to the farming

community or the poor. It is not known who motivate them to

come out with their 'learned' views as even in the West, farm

subsidies are quite high and they are not willing to reduce these

subsidies. One would be inclined to ask these analysts to out-

line a strategy of how poverty can be curbed or how the living

standards of the bPL and the economically weaker sections

improved? It needs to be mentioned here that India cannot be

compared with any other country in the world where popula-

tion density is very high, unemployment and underemployment

equally high and poverty and squalor exists for around 30-35

per cent of the population.

this sort of pro-rich, pro-urban writing is quite natural as

these sections have not seen the condition of rural India and

focus only on city life. Even sometimes reports are hushed up

as the guilty happens to be related either with those that control

power and authority like a high profile politician or industrial-

ist.

In a country where planning is urban centred and geared

more towards the welfare of the upper echelons of society, it is

not surprising that the media would also serve their interests.

but there is a need to change and this can

be done even keeping the business inter-

ests of the media in mind. more space

has to be given towards focusing on

social infrastructure, specially health,

nutrition and education and

development con-

cerns of the impov-

erished. Gender

issues existing at

the grass-root level

should continue to

be highlighted.

Added to this, gov-

ernance issues and

corruption existing

in government

establishments at

the panchayats

and municipal

bodies needs more

focus.

the media has

also to play an active

role in bringing to

the public for a reli-

gious practices that

do not have legal

sanction or are supersti-

tious or discriminate against

other religions need to be high-

lighted. Anything that cause division

in society on caste class or religious

basis has to be analyzed by the media to

bring about awareness in society.

there has to be a new role for the media as the harbinger

of change which can help develop society on judicious lines.

the media, which is an undoubtedly powerful medium, can

achieve the objective of social regeneration. Regional newspa-

pers have a more significant role in this regard as they reach out

to the masses who need to be informed and educated on prop-

er lines. .

ou might not expect him to but recent-

ly a video has surfaced in which

India's most (in)famous news anchor

and TV journalist Arnab Goswami is

seen talking about a harrowing expe-

rience that he and his colleagues

underwent during the Gujarat riots of

2002. Goswami is seen narrating how

his office car was surrounded by group of trishul-wield-

ing haters on a killing spree, who stopped them to ask

what was their religion. Fortunately, Goswami says in

the video, there was no one from the minority commu-

nity, so they were allowed to go.

Only problem, though this incident happened during

Gujarat riots, it was not Arnab Goswami himself who

suffered it. In fact, Goswami was nowhere in the scene,

as senior journalist and India Today consulting editor

Rajdeep Sardesai pointed out, in a series of tweets. It

was Sardesai and his colleagues who went through the

terrifying episode.

As Sardesai points out, in 2002, as a journalist

with NDTV, Goswami wasn't covering the

Ahmedabad riots, but Sardesai was. In fact,

Sardesai describes the episode in his book

2014: The Election that Changed India,

and the harrowing imprint it left on his mind.

Two of Sardesai's colleagues, Sanjeev

Singh and Nalin Mehta, corroborated the for-

mer's claims, saying they were there when

the incident happened, but Goswami was

nowhere in the scene. Apparently, as Sardesai

says, Goswami was speaking "to an audience

in Assam when Congress was in power", two

years back and evidently, at that time, Goswami

wasn't so bothered by India's "secularism" as he seems

to be now, his self-insertion and fanciful re-narration of

the episode notwithstanding.

Naturally, Sardesai is rattled, because Goswami

seems to have been habitually lying in public even

before setting up his own TV channel, with explicit

"nationalist" agenda, facts be damned. Sardesai

explained on Twitter some of the facts of the incident

that took place with him, but what was pilfered by

Goswami as his own at a speech to an audience in

Assam when Congress' Tarun Gogoi was the chief min-

ister.

So, yes, the incident happened. It happened 50

metres from the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra

Modi's, residence in Ahmedabad. Only it happened to

Rajdeep Sardesai and his colleagues, and not to Arnab

Goswami. Now that he has been so thoroughly exposed

to be indulging in "fekugiri", as Sardesai says, we won-

der what nationalist explanation does Goswami have for

one, lying in public, and two, for actually acknowledg-

ing that trishul-wielders were spreading hate.

Arnab, in the video, could be seen saying that men

with trishuls in their hands broke all the windows of the

car he and his colleagues were travelling in. He repeat-

edly says the incident happened "just 50 metres" from

the chief minister's residence.

To make things a bit more clear, Arnab Goswami is

saying in the video that just 50 metres from then Gujarat

CM Narendra Modi's residence, enraged Hindutva mil-

itants were on a rampage, blocking cars, and asking

people for their religion and letting Hindus go.

By saying, "When people talk about secularism, I've

seen hate from up close and I know

that group of people could have killed

him [driver belonging to a minority

community]," Arnab is testifying that

Hindutva terrorists were freely roam-

ing around killing Muslims. This is

contradictory to Narendra Modi's

claims that situation was under control

and that the state machinery did all that

they could to contain the violence.

rAJDeep sArDesAI's ACCOUNt

What Arnab Goswami said in the video is not a fiction-

al incident. It happened, just that it was not he who was

there at the scene, but Rajdeep Sardesai and his team at

NDTV who covered the Gujarat riots extensively. In his

book 2014: The Election that Changed India, Sardesai

described the same incident Arnab Goswami is talking

about.

"We came out of the interview almost convinced

that the chief minister was intent on ending the cycle of

violence. Less than an hour later, the doubts returned.

Barely a few kilometres from his Gandhinagar resi-

dence on the main highway to Ahmedabad, we came

upon a roadblock with VHP-Bajrang Dal supporters

milling about, wielding lathis, swords and axes. It was

well past midnight.

Our driver tried to avoid the blockade when an axe

smashed through the windscreen. The car halted and we

were forced to emerge. 'Are you Hindus or Muslims?'

screamed out a hysterical youth sporting a saffron ban-

dana. For the record, we were all Hindus, except our

driver Siraj who was a Muslim. The group, with swords

threateningly poised in attack mode, demanded we pull

down out trousers. They wanted to check in any of us

were circumcised. In the pursuit of male hygiene, at my

birth my rationalist parents had ensured I was.

When in danger, flash your journalist credentials. I

aggressively yelled that I and my team were journalists,

we were media and, guess what, we had just inter-

viewed the chief minister. Such behaviour a short dis-

tance away from his house was unacceptable and a dis-

respect to the CM's office.

I showed my official press card and got my cam-

eraperson Narendra to play a clip from the interview

with Modi. 'Look,' I shouted, 'look at this interview.

Can't you see we are journalists?' After fifteen tense

minutes and after watching the tape, they seemed to

calm down a bit and we were finally allowedto go.

september 2017 1716

Yexposed

fake claim Arnab Goswami's

september 201718

Why do you dowhat you do,

mr Raghuram

Rajan?s former RbI governor, Raghuram

Rajan-through a few paragraphs in

his book 'I Do What I Do'-wants to

put the record straight that RbI was

not party to demonetisation and, to

that extent, he wants to rescue the

reputation of the institution.

At first glance, the title of pro-

fessor of finance at the Universe of

Chicago and former Reserve bank

of India (RbI) governor Raghuram

Rajan's latest book, I Do What I Do,

sounds combative.

Following the best practice of

governance, Rajan didn't discuss

anything related to central banking

in India for a year after he left RbI.

the launch of his book in three

Indian cities last week also coincid-

ed with the completion of the first

year of his successor at RbI Urjit

Patel, the publication of the central

bank's balance sheet which revealed

that close to 99% of the currency

demonetised has come back to the

system, and a sharp drop in India's

economic growth in the first quarter

of current fiscal year ending 30

June.

From the author's point of view,

the timing could not have been more

appropriate. the treatise on "dosa

economics" is selling like hot cakes

(I witnessed this at mumbai and

bengaluru airport book stalls). At

the same time, people in certain

quarters are seeing Rajan turning

into a street fighter, taking on the

Narendra modi government as he

still cannot get over the unhappiness

of not being given a second term.

Such a fight will not necessarily

improve RbI's relationship with the

government or help the cause of

central bank's autonomy, they say.

First, on the title of the book. In

one of his post-monetary policy

press conferences, the reporters

asked Rajan whether he was a dove

like Janet Yellen (current chair of the

board of governors of the Federal

Reserve) or a hawk like Paul

Volcker (Federal Reserve head

between August 1979 and 1987).

With a James bond-ish swagger,

Rajan replied, "my name is

Raghuram Rajan and I do what I

do." that became the headline in

business newspapers the next day.

the title could be more of a market-

ing ploy for the book than a signal to

the government.

Rajan, appointed by the

manmohan Singh-led United

Progressive Alliance government for

a period of three years in September

2013, took charge as India's chief

money man when the rupee was in

free fall, inflation was in double dig-

its, the current account deficit was at

bO

OK

RE

VIE

W

By

TamalBandyopadhyay

The writer is the Consulting editor at Mint

A

september 2017 19a record high and India's foreign

exchange reserves were depleting.

None can question the deftness with

which he handled the situation and his

aggression in pushing the reforms agen-

da once the macroeconomic scenario got

stable. Among many policy moves, he

opened up the banking sector, intensified

competition, forced banks to start recog-

nizing bad assets and put the fear of god

among corporate defaulters.

While releasing the book, he spoke

on non-banking issues ranging from

problems with exports to the importance

of tolerance in Indian culture (something

which he had done as RbI governor in

the past) and newspapers and television

channels lapped that up. but there is no

privileged information in the book that

violates the oath of secrecy which he

took when assuming office.

Unlike the books of Y.V. Reddy

(Advice and Dissent: my Life in Public

Service) and Rajan's immediate prede-

cessor D. Subbarao (Who moved my

Interest Rate), Rajan's book is not auto-

biographical. It is primarily a compila-

tion of the speeches that he had given as

the RbI governor and his message to the

central bank employees when he decided

not to seek a second term, adding context

to them which adds value to the content.

this is not a tell-all book. Rajan is not

loud; he is circumspect and there is a

coherent pattern through all his speech-

es-taking forward the reform agenda in

Indian banking and financial sector.

the book also has a section on the

global financial crisis and lessons from

the Great Recession as well as a few

"occasional" pieces on democracy in

Iraq and collateral effects of quick-fix

solutions to complex problems, among

others. there is only one speech address-

ing the students (his last speech at St

Stephen's College in Delhi on RbI's

autonomy and responsibility) but

through the book one gets the feeling

that Rajan the academician is in conver-

sation with a bunch of curious students,

exciting them about the economy and

central banking in a simple way and urg-

ing them to take up economics seriously.

(Incidentally, eight months after

leaving office, Reddy published India

and the Global Financial Crisis:

managing money and Finance-a compi-

lation of 23 speeches that he had deliv-

ered plus an introduction and an epi-

logue, explaining his compulsions and

now-famous "creative tensions" between

RbI and the finance ministry.)

the only "news" in Rajan's book is a

few paragraphs in the introduction where

he explains his stance on demonetisa-

tion. this is his reaction to various press

reports which initially suggested that he

was against the move (citing government

sources) and later said he was "on

board".

by making his stance on demonetisa-

tion public, he has possibly served a crit-

ical purpose of making clear that RbI did

not support the move, it was at best a

passive partner. Had the government

taken the ordinance route for demoneti-

sation-which it had done on past two

occasions in 1946 and 1978-then RbI

would not have got the flak.

A February news report in the

Indian Express says that briefing the

Public Accounts Committee on 10

February, then secretary, economic

affairs, Shaktikanta Das, said that a dis-

cussion between the government and

RbI started, at a very high level, in

February 2016 and "from march and

April 2016 onward, the RbI and govern-

ment, had very active, internal discus-

sions".

the Economic times in may cited

unnamed people as saying Das told

members of the Parliamentary Standing

Committee on Finance that Rajan "was

on board" when finance ministry offi-

cials and the RbI brass "firmed up a

decision in may 2016" to recall Rs500

and Rs1,000 notes.

Rajan's book demolishes this claim.

It "clarifies" that in February 2016 when

the government asked his views on

demonetisation, "in no uncertain terms"

Rajan expressed his reservations against

it, saying short-term economic costs

would outweigh long-term benefits and

there were "better alternatives to achieve

the main goals" (unearthing black

money, fighting terror finance and fake

notes). When he was asked to prepare a

note, he reiterated this, outlined the

preparations needed for it and also what

would happen if the preparation was

inadequate. "At no point during my term

was the RbI asked to make a decision on

demonetisation," Rajan writes.

We cannot get hold of the note

through the Right to Information Act or

RtI as it's an informal note. I presume

the only other person in RbI whom

Rajan had consulted at the time is former

deputy governor R. Gandhi, in charge of

september 201720currency management (Patel was taken into

confidence after he was made governor-desig-

nate in August). Rajan's take on the RbI role in

demonetisation can be a valuable input for the

parliamentary panel which is looking into it.

Why has Rajan written this book?

As I have already said, for most part of the

book it's Rajan the academician speaking. It

seems that as a former RbI governor, he wants

to put the record straight that the central bank

was not a party to demonetisation and to that

extent he wants to rescue the reputation of the

institution. He is also warning against repeti-

tion of such a move in future.

Will the government listen to him?

Historically, the government-irrespective of its

political affiliation-never listened to the RbI

governor on such a move. C.D. Deshmukh

(August 1943-June 1949) was against it in

1946 and I.G. Patel (December 1977-

September 1982) did not support it in 1978.

Patel recalled in his book, Glimpses of Indian

Economic Policy: An Insider's View, that

when finance minister H.m. Patel informed

him about the decision to cancel high-denom-

ination notes, he had pointed out that such an

exercise seldom produces striking results as

most people who accept black money do not

keep their ill-gotten earnings in the form of

currency for long.

Incidentally, following the 1946 exercise,

out of Rs143.97 crore of the high-value notes,

Rs134.9 crore returned to the system and a lit-

tle over Rs9 crore was demonetised. While

this information is culled from RbI publica-

tions, going by a report in the Hindu business

Line, about 86% of high-denomination curren-

cy returned to the banking system in the after-

math of the 1978 exercise. the result of the

latest demonetisation drive, purely from the

point of view how much money returned to the

system, is far worse. An estimated Rs15.28

trillion of Rs15.44 trillion or 98.96% has come

back.

the book could be an attempt to restore

RbI's reputation but can Rajan do what

Desmukh and Patel could not-convince the

governments in future against treading this

path? If that happens, he can title his next

book, 'I do what I can do'.

tamal bandyopadhyay, consulting editor

at mint, is adviser to bandhan bank. He is also

the author of A bank for the buck, Sahara: the

Untold Story and bandhan: the making of a

bank.

a Common point

rime news has been taking up

much of the space in newspa-

pers and news channels. the

proportion of crime news to

other stories has gone up quite

a lot these days. I remember there used to be a

separate crime section in newspapers, that too

a column or two.

Now news channels cover it as if we are

being shown a cinema. Agreed high profile

cases like Sunanda Pushakar and Sheena

bohra are covered little extensively for some

time. but is it not bordering on irritating the

public to show these as if they are tV serials

or crime thrillers, even when there is no new

development in the matter?

Leave alone high profile cases, each chan-

nel picks up a crime story and start covering it as a 'major story', and the

most irritating part is, they start early in the day. Here we are starting the

day and trying to update ourselves with what's happening in the world

around us, and what do we get to see? A crime story involving money, sex

and other perversions. Some stories I felt were bordering on titillation and

even voyeurism.

A friend of mine was head of features in a major news channel and he

was regularly asked to produce a program which in his CEO's words was

"showing viewers a cinema". Dramatization of events which "were" sup-

posed have occurred has reached bollywood level.

Look at the visuals and photographs that are being shown in the

media. Do we not have some self imposed restrictions on what kind of

pics and visuals to be shown? I remember there was certain unwritten

code about what kind of photographs are to be printed in earlier days.

but nowadays we get to see blood oozing and mutilated bodies. We

get to see rape scenes reenacted and most damaging is recreations of plan-

ning and execution of the crime. Please have a dedicated section for these

crime stories. this would enable readers and viewers in choosing whether

to watch it or skip.

media has to remember they are here to serve the people and the soci-

ety. Profit making can be excused as it would help survival of a vibrating

media, but it being sole objective cannot be and should not be tolerated.

Hope some semblance of sanity, respectability and most importantly cred-

ibility will come back to our Indian media.

GopireddyMadhusudanReddy

A Media Observer

C

Crime news or

Crime

movie?

september 2017 21

have admired and respected Paul bhaisahib,

even in intense and silent moments of my life.

It nearly scrapes my guts to acknowledge that

he is gone; him going away… half of me have

gone with him. All of us were very close to

him.

Now that I come to think of it, I realise

how gracefully Paul lived, and how he decid-

ed to go. During the last few months, he kept

extremely unwell-shrinking by the day, unable

to eat or drink anything. It was very hard to

see, whom I considered one of the most hand-

some men in the world, reducing to a bundle

of bones. I could see what old age and disease

can do to us, and there was nothing I could do

to help him.

On one of the evenings, bhabhi was sit-

ting by his side when Neeraj walked in. On

seeing him, bhaisahib began to caress him,

gently moving his hand over his head. bhabhi

asked him if he knew who had come to see

him. And he instantly, after a sigh of relief,

replied, "Yes of course, this is Raghu. His son

also keeps coming to see me." It was a

moment of solace for me-the last memory I

will carry with me about him.

Paul would slip into coma, come back to

consciousness, and ask for his wife. He would

hold her hand; ask her if she sleeping well,

eating well, and being looked after properly.

He would have a sip of tea or glucose, and slip

back into unconsciousness. Neeraj's wife,

Pooja, was told that sometimes attachment

and moh can make a person overlook the fact

that they're breathing their last. their concerns

heighten. She told her mother-in-law to ward

off these concerns of bhaisahib.

A while after 9 Pm on 16 August when he

woke up again, he asked for some water and

looked at bhabhi very intensely. She replied

to his gaze by confirming, "I am being looked

after; I am eating and sleeping very well, if

you want to go, please go... don't worry about

me". bhaisahib kept listening and nodding his

head. then, he caressed Neeraj, Dheeraj, and

their wives, lifted his hands and did Namaste

to bhabhi. Gradually, his hands fell and start-

ed going cold. We often talk about the most

beautiful women one has ever seen-like

madhubala, Gayatri Devi, and Sophia Loren.

In the same breath, we think of men who had

a special charm and strength to them, like

Charlton Heston and Dev Anand. I feel, as

most people who have met him will agree,

bhaisahib whom I adoredNow that I

come to thinkof it, I realisehow graceful-ly Paul lived,

and how hedecided to go.

During thelast few

months, hekept extremelyunwell-shrink-ing by the day.

a tribute

I

By

Raghu Rai

Raghu Rai with his guru S Paul

The writer is a veeran photo journalist based

in New Delhi

september 201722that S Paul was certainly one of the most

handsome, well dressed, and charming

men. He had a special presence: camera

strapped around his shoulder, dressed in

double-breasted coat; music and poetry

were his passions. He would even sing in

a deep, intense voice. He was my elder

brother whom I adored with all those

qualities.

I think it was in 1962: I was bored of

Civil Engineering and the job that I had

done for a couple of years. When I came

to stay with Paul then, I was blissful in

not knowing what to do next. that was in

Devnagar. Later, we shifted to Defence

Colony. We used to go to restaurants to

have our meals twice a day which was

not very satisfying until one day-since I

was not doing anything-I decided to

cook for both of us. I asked him what

vegetables he disliked eating and I pre-

pared relishing dishes using the same

vegetables, like pumpkin or brinjal. On

eating, he instantly exclaimed,

"mazaaaagaya!".

I used to see Paul make photographs

everyday. His friends used to visit our

home. Everyone would sit together and

discuss photography. It is when I sub-

consciously got interested in the art. One

day, I picked up the camera in 1965 just

by the way to make my first photograph

of a baby donkey that eventually was

published in the times, London. In

1972, Henri Cartier-bresson visited my

exhibition in Paris. Impressed by the

show, he introduced me to the world of

international photographers and photog-

raphy. After 50 long years with photog-

raphy, today I am more committed and

passionate. I would like to photograph

the entire cosmos with one click of my

camera but it may not ever happen. All I

can say is that had Paul not been there, I

wouldn't be here…as a photographer. He

introduced me to an array of classical

music, poetry, and opened my eyes to the

innumerable details and happenings of

daily life.

S Paul's original name was Sharam

Pal because he was very shy in his man-

ners as a boy. When he grew up into a

handsome, confident man, he changed

his name to S Pal; he later added a U to

make it sound more stylish: S Paul. I was

Raghunath Rai. When my elder brother

shortened his name, I thought why not

me. I removed the Nath and became

Raghu Rai. Strangely now, a numerolo-

gist tells me that I will do better with my

full name.

Paul, being shy and congenial, found

his world in his gentle, caring, and

wholesome partner Sinder. And one by

one two little boys arrived: Neeraj and

Dheeraj. Nothing suited Paul more than

being with them. He became a home-

bound bird-his family, neighbourhood,

streets of Delhi, the zoo being some of

his favourite subjects. He enjoyed his job

at the Indian Express. Even though he

was expected to travel to different cities,

he often avoided doing that. He had

found his comfort zone within the hori-

zons. When Paul was affectionate and

loving, no one could match him. but if

someone fell out of his aesthetics and

principles, they would be sidelined in his

heart and mind.

He was an artist of extreme likes and

dislikes. my creative journey as an artist

was different, and I pursued it.

Somewhere Paul felt underwhelmed that

I denied him the reverence one must hold

for someone whose madness for photog-

raphy inspired mine in so many ways. It

wasn't true, and whenever I tried to con-

vince him, he wouldn't be touched by it.

Certainly, it was Paul who initiated me

towards photography in my early years,

but gradually as I leaned closer and clos-

er into the art, I found my Guru that was

within me. my journey had become more

simple and individualistic.

I remember the Guru Shishya

Awards organised by IbN7 where they

honoured E. Alkazi and his shishya Om

Puri, Piyush Pandey and his shishya

Prasoon Joshi, myself and my son Nitin

Rai. Each one of us were asked to speak

a few words. I said, "I love my son very

much. I never asked him to pick up a

camera and become a photographer. I

A Photo by S Paul

september 2017 23guess, it's one of those things the chil-

dren in the family pick up as a profes-

sion because of their parents. It gives

them a sense of security and ease to take

off. Once he is blessed and launched, it

is entirely upto Nitin as to what he

makes of himself in his creative explo-

rations, that makes him good or great

photographer and hence I take no

responsibility or credit this way or that

way". but Prasoon Joshi said something

very precise and sensitive about his

Guru, "my Guru gave me a whole new

open sky for my flights into explo-

ration!" And that explains the precise

purpose of a Guru and Shishya.

I feel that the real Guru is sitting

somewhere deep inside us, who speaks

to us in those rare moments when we put

our head on the pillow every night;

when we process the unfolding of the

day in itself. If we begin to listen to that

voice inside us, it tells us the truth and

guides us onto our paths. For me, there

are only two most precious insights to

human life: the instinctive truth, and the

intuitive response, the rest are stories

and information. the best Guru is not

the one who imparts what he thinks is

his best to his students, but the one who

feels and taps on the energy and spirit of

the ones who've offered themselves to

be launched. A Guru will be the one who

will push the student in his or her own

direction so that there are new sprouts

and freshness blooming everywhere.

When you are in awe of somebody,

you can only become a prototype or a

second hand reproduction of that person.

the energies may fly high but the emo-

tions must have a control of the self.

Living in awe of someone is awful for

the spirit of mankind. Paul and I were

blood brothers. Even though we started

photography in the same way, how we

discovered photography and chose to

embark on that journey led us in differ-

ent ways. We were like two lines inter-

secting at a point and splitting in differ-

ent directions to discover our own cre-

ative destiny. How futile would it be for

the world of creativity if Paul and I had

similar sense of aesthetic, discoveries,

and the madness that came with every-

thing that life threw at us?

Photo journalists protesting against the arrest of Kamran Yousuf

NIA picks up young Kashmiri

Photo Journalist

On September 5, the National

Investigation Agency (NIA)

arrested photojournalist

Kamran Yousuf from southern

Kashmir's Pulwama district. After a

week, except for vague charges of his

involvement in stone pelting, the

agency has not spelled out the charges

against or what evidence it has for

booking him.

NIA spokesperson Alok mittal

said that Yousuf was arrested on

charges of stone pelting. "We have

registered a case," he said and asked

the reporter to text questions for a

detailed explanation. but, till the time

of writing, mittal had not responded to

these questions.

the Jammu & Kashmir police,

which handed Yousuf over to the NIA,

which fights terrorism, also refused to

provide any information about the

exact charges against him. Pulwama

police chief mohammad Aslam

Chowdhary asked me to talk to his

subordinate, who in turn asked me to

get in touch with Pulwama police sta-

tion for the case details without

divulging anything substantial. Police

officials at the station avoided com-

ment on the issue.

Yousuf's maternal uncle Irshad

Ahmad Ganai said no prior notice or

arrest warrant was served and they are

unaware of his whereabouts. He also

denied that Yousuf had any case regis-

tered with the police or that he was

facing trial anywhere in the region.

the 20-year-old photojournalist

lived in Pulwama's tahab village and

was raised by his mother after she got

divorced when Yousuf was two.

"Someone told us that Kamran was

arrested by police on the evening of

September 5. Next morning, we visit-

ed the police station only to be told

that he has been arrested by NIA and

shifted to Delhi," said Ganai. "We do

not know what NIA is. We are in

shock. We know nothing about his

whereabouts. my nephew would go

to cover each event - be it PDP, bJP

event or encounter or protests".

Journalists in Kashmir too have no

idea why he is being held and what the

possible charges might be. Senior

journalist Parvez bukhari who works

with Agence France Presse in Srinagar

pointed out since the evidence against

him has not been made public, it

amounts to an attack on the freedom

of the press. “Unless they (NIA) make

the evidence against the arrested pho-

tojournalist public, it is another attack

to obstruct the freedom of press, espe-

cially photojournalists,” he said.

september 201724

ajkummar Rao's Nutan Kumar is small

and stubborn. Inside his head, there

seems to be so much electricity that it

has given his hair a permanent curl.

the electrical impulses multiply when

he is pushed to the wall, resulting in

exaggerated blinking and a conscious

scratching of his shoulder. He is also

his own legend (the title of the movie

is his personal reworking of the name

his parents chose for him). And before

the press proclaims him a hero for our

time, be aware that he is essentially a

by-the-book idealist -- not very inven-

tive or intuitive, and maybe even a lit-

tle dull. As the central character in

Amit masurkar's Newton, Nutan

Kumar presides over the voting

process in a Naxal-dense town in

Chhattisgarh like a Japanese railroad

engineer trying to bring order to a

world of Indian babus.

When he asks his team members

to clean up a ramshackle polling sta-

tion, they react as though he has shout-

ed fire in a crowded theatre.this

Newton may very well be a modern-

day great, but he clearly is no fun! to

understand and appreciate Nutan

Kumar (Newton) you must first assent

to the idea that he is the least colourful

character in a movie dedicated to him.

this take on idealism is at the core of

Newton.

Amit masurkar, the young writer-

director, seems to be suggesting some-

thing original, but also depressing:

that an idealist in today's world does

not risk death or persecution as much

as he risks being classified as a 'bore'.

Poor Joan of Arc was burned at the

stake for not giving up on her ideals.

In today's time, she would probably

have been punished with a diminish-

ing social circle, and lonely weekends.

It is worthwhile to note though that life

may have been even tougher for an

idealist like Newton had he been an

artist.

In a 2003 interview, author David

Foster Wallace had talked about

Citizenship and how being a Citizen

means 'understanding your country's

history and the things about it that are

good and not so good, and how the

system works, and taking the trouble

to learn about candidates for political

office'. Wallace had started off on his

mantra, but copped out suddenly:

'talking about this now, I feel

ashamed, because my saying all this

sounds like an older person lecturing,

which sets me up for ridiculing.'

the total absence of such a second

consciousness -- the kind that Wallace

invoked in the middle of his speech --

is a blessing for Newton. A clerk by

profession, Newton knows that he is in

line to be sent off for Election Duty in

a Naxal-heavy area but his only con-

cern is with neatly completing the task

at hand; it's only the nitty-gritty of his

A movie of

toughQuestions

mO

VIE

RE

VIE

W

R

By

Sreehari Nair

september 2017 25work that matters to him, and not what

surrounds it. He is lectured on the practi-

cal and the spiritual aspects of his duty

by a mentor (Sanjay mishra, in perhaps

his shortest movie role yet).

mishra's hands assume rectangular

poses, he converses in the Socratic

method, kids Newton about his name,

and puts forth the theory that his name-

sake, the scientist Isaac Newton, was

probably the world's first true Socialist

(Reason: With his discovery of gravity,

Isaac Newton had equalised every form

on earth). Rao's Newton is stiff but

dogged, and he ends up making the trip

to the tribal village. Here he encounters

an intelligent, ill-tempered commander,

Aatma Singh, and spars with him all the

way through. Singh, played by Pankaj

tripathi, walks the beat in the godforsak-

en village, and his ideal day would be

one where there are no civilian casualties

to report. When the full of beans Newton

thwarts Aatma Singh's plan of leading

such an ideal day, Singh immediately

orders for bulletproof jackets and ballis-

tic helmets: He knows that one look at

those things is enough to test a regular

man's cojones.

As they walk the jungle, with wire-

less messages and landmine detectors

filling their immediate environment, and

as they pause for rest, Aatma Singh stays

behind Newton eyeing him suspiciously:

He wants to decode him, but can't.

Newton and Singh are joined by a group

of security force personnel (a mix of mil-

itary and local recruits with their own

internal frictions); two public service

officials, one of whom is Loknath (as

played by Raghubir Yadav, he is what

happens to a poet when his love goes

unfulfilled); and a local lady malko (a

brilliant Anjali Patil who seems to be

carrying the entire history of her land on

her face). the movie is about the interac-

tions that happen within this closed

ecosystem over one voting day. Soon,

the tribal folks in the village also join the

merry band at the polling booth, and the

interlocking tensions become a preview

of the confused state of our democracy.

Amit masurkar knows that the way

to set off the pillar-of-rectitude Nutan

Kumar is to surround him with charac-

ters opposed to his righteousness, but

gifted with the same level of human

intensity this intensity is the strongest

in Pankaj tripathi's Aatma Singh. For the

last two years or so, tripathi, with every

role, seems to be moving farther away

from the spoken word. He is clearly aim-

ing for a sculptural refinement that the

greatest of actors often aim for: where

you pride yourself in bringing a movie

frame alive just by appearing in it. When

a shapeless phrase at the centre of

Newton threatens to disintegrate the pic-

ture, it is tripathi who gives it the much-

needed solidity. Even through the run-

ning show of antagonism, like when he

shuts Newton down by uttering the word

'Rules' with a smile, you can sense a

paternal relationship developing between

tripathi's Aatma Singh and Rao's

Newton.

their spars seem like a replica of the

fights that Newton has with his father

who is pained by the sudden realisation

that his son has outgrown him. tripathi,

working with Rao, recreates that domes-

tic tension in the sun-drenched jungle.

there's always more going on inside

Aatma Singh, more feeling bubbling up

inside him than he says, so when he

finally opens his mouth, the irony in his

lines hit you hard.

In one scene, he cracks a joke about

how, even the hens in the Naxal-land are

imbued with revolutionary quality, and

that it takes two hours of questioning for

one egg to pop out. In another scene, he

bites into a piece of beetroot with a cry of

Lalsalaam.

tripathi doesn't turn Aatma Singh

into a hollow cynic that Newton can beat

down -- he gives him force and echoes.

the film also needed a middle-class

windbag with annoying patterns of

behaviour with whom Newton can butt

heads, and Raghubir Yadav's Loknath

steps in as a man with belief in occult

powers. Loknath talks like one of the

witches from macbeth; he's a myth-

maker who is writing a novel with a plot

that sounds like a bunuel movie infested

with zombies.

Loknath believes that consumerism

is the real solution to fighting the

Naxalite movement ('Give those revolu-

tionaries Colour television sets and

that'll calm them down,' he says at one

point). toward the end, when

Rajkummar Rao stages a rifle-dharna,

Loknath pauses for a second: He is clear-

ly moved, transformed a little, but

Raghubir Yadav being the master per-

former that he is, underplays that scene.

One of the things the picture gets at,

by presenting to us one of the grimiest

microcosms of democracy-in-motion is:

How do you explain Public Will to a set

of people who are only used to being

ordered at?

Democracy, as you may know, was

A still from the film

september 201726originally conceived for only a small

population.

How then do you successfully adapt

the fixed principles of democracy to a

land that changes colour and fervor

many times in every few kilometres? In

the film's best scene Newton tries to

explain to a high-ranking police officer

why the entire day of voting was an exer-

cise in futility, and the officer cuts him

off: 'Was there an instance of booth cap-

turing? Of fake voting? We then are

looking at a peaceful election, aren't we?'

Democracy defeats Newton at his

own game. He may do well to revise

what the wonderful malko had told him:

'the history of the jungle is older than

the history of democracy.' Amit

masurkar has a vision for the banal, and

that is also his technique.

He isn't going for a show of technical

virtuosity but working to preserve the

structure of his narrative. His camera

hardly moves and the effects of satire are

achieved majorly through editing. In one

sequence, Rao's Newton looks at a ballot

box, and the box seems to stare back at

him.

When malko narrates the name of

the political candidates, masurkar cuts to

scenes of their marketing strategies: It is

the rural marketing of bad tastes and

shallow promises running together. In a

stretch of broad but effective satire,

masurkar fills frames upon frames with

faces of frail-looking Adivasis, all show-

ing us their ink-marked 'I just voted' fin-

gers. this is the much-enacted social

media ritual of celebrating one's vote

given the tribal twist: there's the showi-

ness one associates with the act, set here

to rousing music, and it contrasts beauti-

fully with the cluelessness of the

Adivasis who have no idea what they

have just done. As the movie progresses,

Newton himself realises that he knows

more and more, but understands less and

less.

And the picture is written and made

in much the same spirit -- not by a man

of sustained knowledge or worldliness,

but by a man in a state of shock; it feels

as though Amit masurkar (his first movie

was the flaky but charming Sulemaani

Keeda) had gone for a trek and had come

back a sage.

masurkar's personal shock in discov-

ery accounts for both the magic of

Newton and its lack of end-to-end clari-

ty. Like for example, we hear a lot about

the terror of Naxals, but learn nothing

about their passion. And when Newton

fails to convince us as a fully-developed

protagonist, the picture falls back on the

middlebrow theory that the country

would do better if we all did our work

well. In its tone, texture and in the way

certain scenes are mounted, I found

Newton close to Dileesh Pothan's

thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, but

what masurkar lacks is Pothan's innate

talent for conveying the general through

the specific -- his effects are at times too

hard edged, and when he tries for subtle-

ty, he doesn't express himself fully.

Rajkummar Rao is brilliant (as he

often is) but in an effort to strip him off

an idealist's usual platitudes and sloga-

neering, masurkar makes Newton dis-

tant: We are never inside him. Does he

see his role as a mini act of nation-build-

ing or is it a 'just doing my job, ma'am'

kind of thing for him -- the movie sug-

gests both possibilities and they cancel

each other out.

When his eyes well up, is he crying

for the state of the nation or the death of

his ego -- it never quite becomes clear to

us. the elite liberal class will be out

tomorrow shouting: 'this the kind of

man the country needs!' but to expect a

country of Newtons is to reduce the

spectrum of personality-types to a new

narrow: From the Featureless to the

Fascists.

You can admire the man from a dis-

tance, but will you invite him to your

house party? the true message of

Newton, I think, isn't that one should try

to become like Newton, but that one

should understand that there is a greater

degree of complexity in everything one

sets out to improve. In a scene that has

Newton trying to explain the importance

of voting to the Adivasis, he says, 'the

person you elect will represent you in

Delhi'. At this point, an old guard, a crip-

pled soul with little Nosferatu hands and

shaggy clothing, suddenly rises up from

his pallet and announces, 'I am the leader

of these people, and I will go to Delhi.'

the picture wants you to craft

change, but it first wants you to give up

on your fantasies of quick and easy

change.

A still from the film

september 2017 27

akhanlal Chaturvedi National

University of Journalism &

Communication is soon going

to teach its students the art and

science of taking care of cows.

A decision to this effect has

been taken by brij Kishore Kuthiala, vice

chancellor of the university. the logic for tak-

ing such an innovative decision is that gow-

shalas were also maintained by Nalanda and

takshshila universities which existed in ancient

India and which were regarded as dynamic seat for

learning. His another argument is that Ujjain where

lord Krishna took his education also taught the art of

caring cows.

makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of

Journalism & Communication, established by mP

Government, has earmarked one-tenth of the area in

its 50-acre new campus at bhopal for establishing a

cowshed. the gaushala, says its vice chancellor brij

Kishore Kuthiala, will provide scarce pure and fresh

milk and curd to faculty and students. the universi-

ty will also benefit from cheap fuel by producing

biogas from cow dung and manure to grow vegeta-

bles on the campus.

Naturally, he received fulsome praise for the

wonderful idea. "It is a novel idea and it is for the

first time an education institute is following our tra-

ditions," said state bJP President Nandkumar Singh Chouhan.

many students of the university invaded social media to sup-

port their vice chancellor.

besides gaushala the brilliant vice-chancellor has many

other original ideas to his credit. For instance he tells his stu-

dents that 'Narada' was the first journalist who mastered the art

of news gathering. He has included 'Narada' in university syl-

labus so that future journalists can learn 'a, b, c' of investigative

journalism from his. to ensure that varsity students continue to

seek inspiration a statue of Narada has been installed in the

campus. Students are also taught that Narada was the "adi

patrakar". Similarly students are reminded that "Sanjaya" was

the first t.V. reporter who covered "maha bharat" and gave

live minute to minute report of maha bharat perhaps the great-

est war even fought on earth.

Kuthiala never misses any opportunity to invite "Sadhu

Sants". He requests them to give sermons about

the role of journalism in spreading the ideals of

our great Hindu culture. Some time back a

Shankaracharya was invited to the university.

Students and teachers not only listen to his

"pravachan" (lecture) but were also asked to

perform his "paduka poojan".

Vice-chancellor makes every attempt to

prove that his university is primarily a Hindu

university. All his steps have only one objective

that is to please RSS bosses. His efforts have

yielded fruits when he got another term mainly

because of the blessing of the RSS.

A few days back he took another step to

identify university as a "pure" RSS institute.

According to a report published in local news-

papers the list of holidays included in the varsi-

ty calendar make no mentions of holidays for festivals like Eid,

Christmas and Nanak Jayanti. According to the calendar, the

university will remain closed for seven days during Diwali and

Holy festivals.

His capacity to win over important persons connected with

the university is well known. Sometime back Justice Katju, a

special invitee to the varsity executive in his capacity as Press

Council Chairmen, lashed out at the vice-chancellor for his

several acts of irregularities, in the very first meeting he attend-

ed. When he did not get satisfactory explanation he staged a

walkout. but after a gap of time he was won over by Kuthiala

and to everybody's shock he was the first to propose Kuthiala's

name for another term of vice-chancellorship. Similarly a

memorandum was submitted by a group of bhopal journalists

to the Visitor of the university. the Visitor promised stern

action against the VC but nothing happened subsequently.

m

Way of thinkinG

Journalism of

cows!

By

L.S. Hardenia

The writer is aveteran journalistbased at Bhopal.

september 201728

hese are challenging times

for journalism. two

things have disrupted

the way in which peo-

ple access informa-

tion, and therefore

the practice of jour-

nalism itself - social

media and the

mobile phone. these

two in combination

have disrupted the way

in which legacy news-

rooms operate, forcing

them to adapt to fast-chang-

ing technology.

the Digital News Report

2016 by the Reuters Institute for

the Study of Journalism found that

51% of their sample use social media

as a source of news. According to the

Global Web Index's first-quarter report

for 2017, 94% of digital consumers aged

16-64 say they have an account on at least

one social media platform and 98% have visit-

ed/used one within the last month; one in

every three minutes spent online is devoted to

social networking and messaging, with digital

consumers engaging for a daily average of

over two hours. At least 78% of the Internet

population aged 16-64 is now networking via

a mobile.

Publishers are relying less and less on

their websites and instead going where the

audiences are - the social media platforms, on

the mobile.

big brother is watching you

For democracy to be practised at its best,

there should be plurality of thought and a pub-

lic sphere that is vibrant with a multitude of

views.

Jürgen Habermas, the guru of mass com-

munication theory, has written about how

mass

media changed the concept of the

public sphere from the free-flowing discus-

sions in the coffee houses of 18th century

Europe to the mediated space of mass media.

mr. Habermas's public sphere was occupied

by journalists and opinion makers; the audi-

ence, in turn, was expected to sift through the

news and views to make informed decisions

about the world in which they lived. the pre-

sumption in this model was that media organ-

isations were driven by responsibility to the

public while the audience was politically

engaged, rational and discerning.

Cut to the 1990s, when the media ecology

changed drastically with the advent of the

World Wide Web. the generation and distribu-

tion of news and opinion was no longer a lin-

ear process but networked. this was a medium

Guarding the

gatekeepers

By

Mandira Moddie

The author is DeputyInternet Editor of

The Hundu

tFor democracyto be practised

at its best, thereshould be

plurality ofthought and apublic sphere

that is vibrantwith a multitude

of views.

debatinG point

september 2017 29that was democratic, accessible to all (at

least in theory) and a place where multi-

ple conversations could take place. It

was felt that the rise of the Internet had

given way to the decline of the newspa-

per but that theory was soon debunked,

and between 2000 and 2009, newspa-

pers began setting up the online versions

of their printed publications; this

became a time of consolidation for the

news media online as people would visit

the websites of trusted publications for

news.

twenty years on, the media land-

scape is very different. Large players

like Google and Facebook have actually

shrunk the space for public discourse

and the very nature of news publishing

has changed as a result. big data, per-

sonalisation and distributed content are

the watchwords today and news organi-

sations are all jumping on the bandwag-

on.

Increasingly, search engines such as

Google and social media platforms such

as Facebook deliver personalised con-

tent to users. Algorithms are now replac-

ing news editors and opinion makers and

they are getting more and more refined

in learning from user behaviour. And as

content has multiplied, Facebook and

Google are privileging content based on

engagement rather than its quality.

the more people click, share, like,

or comment on an article, the more like-

ly it is to be served to someone else; and

not because it is the best article on the

subject. these filters limit people's

access to information, leading to the

political polarisation and spread of fake

news.

returning to its roots

the mainstay of journalism, holding

power to account, is increasingly giving

way online to publishing trivial content

in the hope of attracting more users. In a

bid to increase revenue, publishers are

aiming for the largest number of page

views, and dumbing down content and

engaging in clickbait to reach more eye-

balls.

In such an environment, it is only a

matter of time before readers will seek

out trusted journalists and publishers

who they can depend on to provide the

news and information that is unbiased

and accurate, and opinion that reflects

multiple viewpoints and world views.

this is a unique moment for journal-

ism to fulfil its watchdog and gatekeep-

ing roles and be publicly accountable for

its content. However, to do this, journal-

ists and their publishers also need to

adapt to the new reading habits of their

audiences and adapt to storytelling in

different formats - not just text, but more

interactive, visual formats. It is also an

opportune moment for journalists to

take full advantage of the social media

tools that are available to them like

Snapchat, Facebook Live and twitter's

Periscope to connect with their readers

without losing the core values of jour-

nalism so that they can continue to tell

stories that resonate with the reader.

trump eggs on attacks on media

Donald trump was accused of

encouraging his supporters to

attack journalists, after he

tweeted a video of himself at a pro-

wrestling event throwing to the floor

a man with a CNN logo for a head.

the video, sent as CNN broad-

cast its talk show State of the Union,

came the morning after an appear-

ance from trump at an event in

Washington honouring veterans, in

which he used his speech to further

his attacks on the press and broad-

casters. "the fake media tried to stop

us from going to the White House.

but I'm president, and they're not," he

said.

CNN said in a statement that

trump was encouraging violence

against reporters and "involved in

juvenile behaviour far below the dig-

nity of his office".

A director of the Committee to

Protect Journalists (CPJ) told the

Guardian "charged rhetoric online",

issued by the White House, "under-

mines the media in the US and

emboldens autocratic leaders around

the world".

trump's tweet contained doctored

video from his appearance on

Wrestlemania XXIII in 2007, in

which he "body-slammed" - and sub-

sequently shaved bald - Vince

mcmahon, the WWE promoter and

husband of trump's Small business

Administration chief, Linda

mcmahon. trump is a member of the

WWE hall of fame. the video

appeared to have been repurposed

from Reddit, where it was posted by

a user named "HanAssholeSolo".

september 201730

ho killed celebrated Kannada editor-journalist

Gauri Lankesh and why and who were the con-

spirators behind her killing? It is too early to tell.

the questions, one hopes, will get answered in

course of time. but the way a set of ideological

groups attacked her in social media after her

gruesome murder does at least point towards

those who were happy and in a celebratory mood

after her killing and spewed venomous hatred

towards her. their unconcealed happiness at her

murder and the uncivil language of their remarks

justifying the violence showed clearly the ideo-

logical set of people to which the attacker(s)

might belong. It is the lack of civility of these

groups, some of whom are followed by no less a

person than our Prime minister and some

other leaders of the dominant ideolo-

gy, that made it necessary for the

Union Law minister to tweet:

"Expressing happiness on the

killing of anyone is shameful,

regrettable and totally against

Indian tradition." D.N.

Jeevaraj, bJP mLA from

Sringeri, reportedly said while

addressing party workers at

Koppa that "Gauri would have

been alive today if she had not used

the language she did about the RSS and

its workers." the cold-blooded murder in

bengaluru of this senior journalist who owned

and edited the Kannada tabloid Gauri Lankesh

Patrike shocked the journalist fraternity as well

as the civil society of the entire country and

evoked sharp reaction against such attacks.

Guri was shot dead by unidentified killers at

the entrance of her house on 5 September late

evening. the helmet-masked killers pumped bul-

lets into her as she had came out of her car and

opened the gate of her home where she was liv-

ing alone. the similarity in the modus operandi

and the weapons used in this murder and those of

Narendra Dabholkar, killed in Pune in 2013,

Govind Pansare in Kolhapur, maharashtra, in

2015 and m m Kalburgi in Dharwad, Karnataka,

in 2015, is also an indication of who the killers

could be. One thing common to all these martyrs

is that they were all critics of right-wing orthodox

outfits. One of the two persons arrested and

charge sheeted by the SIt in the Pansare case is

an alleged activist of right-wing radical group of

Goa-based Sanatan Sanstha. the bombay High

Court also found a "clear nexus" between the

"well planned" murders of Dabholkar and

Pansare. the court also observed that the mur-

ders were not stray incidents and the absconding

accused appeared to have organizational back up.

It is a known fact that she used to write very

strongly against the ruling class because of her

commitment to raise her voice for the voiceless.

She had strong likes and dislikes and one could

have called her an activist or a maoist, or a left-

ist or rationalist. She is reported to have worked

for the surrender of the maoists who wanted to

give up arms and resume their life in the main-

stream. She worked against the caste system and

scorned temples, idol worship, etc. She used to

write critically against both the ruling Congress

and bJP governments. When the Press Council of

India received complaints against her, the PCI

warned her to be a little careful in use of

her language. She was also convicted

in November last year in a

defamation case filed by a bJP

mP, and sentenced to six

months in jail and fine. the

High Court stayed the sen-

tence on her appeal, which is

still pending.

Gauri Lankesh is not the

first journalist killed nor the

last, but all such killings raise a

big question mark against our

democracy. In the latest world Press

freedom rankings released in April, 2017, India

was ranked 136th among 180 countries. We have

been termed as one of the three most dangerous

countries for journalists in the world. We are

mourning our colleague's killing today, but we

have to fight for the future of journalism in our

country. the killers obviously want to silence our

voice, they want us not to ask questions and qui-

etly follow their path. they want to assassinate

the concept of free Press bequeathed to us by the

nation's founding fathers, but all of us must stand

with courage to question the rulers and tell them

that they may kill us, but they cannot kill either

the courage or the freedom of the journalists.

Since we are all committed to India being a great

democracy with a free Press, we must ensure the

safety of our journalists to safe- guard our

democracy. If we kill journalists today, we shall

be destroying our democracy and our nation

tomorrow.

the last PaGe

By

S N SINHA

President, IndianJournalists Union

YOu CANNOT KILL

THe FReeDOM

W

september 2017 31

ja

na

sa

nyo

g/7

26

/17

september 201732

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